How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas - Molly O'Keefe Page 0,49

what the teenage girl in the market had told me, I gathered her hair in my hands. Now I just needed to…twist?...the hair and put the combs in what felt like backwards and then…

Slowly, I stepped back, like any sudden moves and her hair would slip out of the combs. It didn’t.

“There,” I said. “I think that’s how it works.”

She stood up from the stool and went into the bathroom. I followed, really surprised that the combs were staying in place. Sophie stood in front of the mirror, turning to see how they held.

“How…how do they look?”

“Perfect,” I said, not really talking about the combs. “I got them in a market.”

“Where?”

“I…can’t actually tell you.”

She looked at me with wide eyes and I shrugged. “But I bought them and I imagined how they could give me an excuse to stand close to you and touch your hair and breath you in, because when I bought them I could not imagine a situation where you’d let me do that—without a reason.”

“I’ve got lots of reasons,” she said and came to put her arms around my waist where I stood in the door of the bathroom. “They’re beautiful and I love them.”

“So?” I asked, kissing her nose.

“So what?”

“I know you got me something.”

“Oh, sweetheart—”

“Sweetheart? That’s what we’re going with? Sweetheart?”

“You want me to give you a different pet name?”

“I always imagined being called babe.”

“This conversation is not happening.”

“Then give me my present,” I said, shaking her by her lean waist.

“Okay, but it’s awful. It’s like…a joke compared to these beautiful things,” she said, squeezing past me and touching the combs.

In her bedroom she pulled out a red-wrapped gift and handed it to me. “I’m serious. It’s terrible.”

Inside was a new video game headset.

“I know you left your last one behind.” She shrugged. “I told you it was lame.”

I put down the controller and wrapped my arms around her, collapsing us onto the bed. “You know what I like best about it?”

“That it’s wireless?”

“That I’m not going to need it,” I told her. “I’m never playing another game with you from the other side of the world. I’m never going to have to message you. Or wait for you to wake up. Every game now, I’m on that beanbag, right next to yours. You can trash talk me to my face.”

“You talking about moving in?” she asked, and I paused.

“I wasn’t trying to jump ahead—”

“Let’s go get your stuff,” she said.

“In a minute,” I said, kissing my way down to those red socks I loved so much.

20

Sophie

“You do not need to be nervous,” I told him as we stood on the sidewalk in front of Wes’s townhouse. Wes and Penny’s townhouse.

“I’m not.”

There was a wreath on the door. That was new. I sniffed it. Real pine with a pretty red bow. Penny’s touch. My brother wouldn’t know a wreath from a wrecking ball.

“Can we go in?” Sam asked.

“Sure.” But I didn’t step forward and Sam, sweet Sam, just stood beside me in the cold.

“You don’t need to be nervous either,” he told me.

“Wes said he invited your mom and my mom. How can you not be nervous?”

“It’s a party. Lots of people go to parties.”

“We hate parties,” I grumbled. This party was just supposed to be small. Steak and booze and people I loved. “What if my mom says something mean to your mom?”

“She won’t.”

“Have you met my mom?”

He laughed, but it didn’t make me feel better.

Behind us an Uber pulled up, opened, and W.B. got out of the back seat and ran around the car to open the door for Joy to hop out. Joy said something that made him laugh, and then she leaned forward and kissed W.B. square on the mouth.

“Ah-ha!” I shouted. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?” Sam asked.

“Them. You!” I turned as Joy and W.B. came to stand with us. “I knew you had a thing for him.”

“I suppose did.” Joy smiled. “Maybe a little.”

“Is there something wrong with the door?” W.B. asked. “Or are we standing in line?”

“And Sam?” Joy asked me in a low voice. “ You never did tell me what happened at the holiday party.”

“The…ah…makeover worked,” I said.

“The makeover was bullshit,” she said. “It was all you being you.”

I leaned back, holding her by the shoulders. “Happy New Year,” I said to her, this fun new friend.

She laughed. “We’re off to a pretty great start.”

“Can we go in?” W.B. asked. “Or is there a problem with the door?”

“Come on,” Sam said, taking the bull by the