How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,48
can’t…” He shook his head.
“I’ve never had someone fight for me the way you do. The way you always have. I’ve never had…” He shook his head. “Meditation room? I mean, who does that? For me?”
“Half those guys just take a nap in there.”
“I don’t care what they do in there,” he said. “You made that place for me. And I go in there every day and marvel. I just fucking marvel that you are in my life.”
“Say it again,” I said.
“I marvel—”
“That you love me.”
He kissed my nose. My lips. “I love you,” he said. “I love you so much I literally don’t know what to do with myself. Like, Sophie, I’m a mess. I can’t be with you. I can’t be without you. I need you to take pity on me.”
“Never,” I said. “I’ve never pitied you.”
His beautiful eyes met mine and I saw right down deep into the heart of him. Where the holes his father tore out of him were scabbed over. Where the new holes from his injury were still bleeding.
“I love you so much I made our lunch room into a meditation room. I love you so much I wore a thong. And did you see those shoes?”
“I did.”
I cupped his face in my hands. “I love you,” I whispered. “I always have. I always will. Do you trust that?”
“Yeah,” he said and I could tell he wanted to argue. To warn me about the dangers of loving him. But I knew those dangers and I loved him despite of them. Because of them.
Funny how a few days ago, I was sure the future of us needed me to be dressed up like someone I wasn’t. And really, what Fucking Sam Porter and I needed was to be as naked as we could be.
And I planned on staying that way for as long as possible.
19
Sam
I came awake like I always did. In a heartbeat. Cataloging risks and realities. But I realized I was safe. Warm. Sophie a soft, snoring heap on the bed beside me. Sophie.
We should get a dog, I thought. That’s what this bed needs. A dog.
Or a baby.
I looked at the wild mess of Sophie’s hair peeking up from the edge of the covers. A girl with her hair. Her guts. My…well, I could teach her to throw a baseball or something. Make her eggs in the morning. Put in ponytails.
Carefully, I eased out of the bed, making sure not to wake her up. She rolled and sighed and started to snore again, and I felt like my whole body might just explode with happiness. The floors were cold and I hopped to the kitchen to fire up her coffee maker and see what she had that could be made into breakfast. The inside of her fridge was predictable. Eggs, ketchup, four jars of pickles. I grabbed the eggs and opened the freezer where she kept her bread.
A silver coil of Christmas ribbon fell down over the ice tray from the top of the fridge.
My gift was up there. Unopened.
“What are you doing?” Sophie asked, stepping into the kitchen wearing her pretty blue robe and that pair of knee-high red socks.
“I was going to make us some breakfast.”
“Coffee?”
I pointed at the pot.
“You didn’t open this?” I put the present on the counter.
Her eyes opened wide and she all but sparkled. “I…forgot.”
“Why didn’t you open it when I brought it?”
“Because I was mad at you. I’m not anymore, so gimme.” She sat down on the stool at her kitchen counter and pulled the present to her with both hands.
She pulled the ribbon and tore open the paper, and I vowed right at that moment to shower her with gifts. Nonstop. Just so I could watch the joy on her face. I was going to bring Christmas back to this woman, the way it should be. It was going to be Christmas albums and wreaths and real trees and eggnog. It would be the whole show, because Sophie deserved the whole show and I had an endless need to give it to her.
From the tissue paper she pulled out the silver combs I’d bought in the market a thousand miles and a lifetime ago.
“Sam,” she breathed, looking up at me with tear-filled eyes.
“I saw them and thought of you.”
“My hair?” she laughed.
“Actually,” I whispered. “I thought of this.”
I stepped behind her. I took in the sleep smell of her. The wild curls in my hands. The strong, beautiful set of her shoulders. Remembering