“Yeah,” Kennedy said. “You too?”
Ellie nodded. “Figured I might as well get up.”
“Same. I didn’t want to wake Jared up with my tossing and turning.”
“You’re a good fake girlfriend.”
“Thank you. So, what have you been up to?”
“Absolutely nothing. But, uh… Want to play in the snow?” Ellie asked.
“What?”
“It’s fresh snow that nobody has stepped in yet. Don’t you want to run in it?”
Kennedy couldn’t help but admit that it was tempting. Especially since it meant spending time with Ellie.
“I’m in my pyjamas,” Kennedy said.
“So? They’re flannel pants and you have wool socks on. You’ll be warm enough. Besides, if you get hypothermia, I’m here to help,” she said with a wink.
“I…” Kennedy was out of excuses and frankly didn’t dislike the idea of going outside enough that she wanted to fight it. “Okay. Let me get my coat.”
“Yes!”
As soon as she stepped outside and the cold bit into her skin, Kennedy felt an ounce of regret. She looked over at Ellie and considered suggesting they head back inside but the huge smile on Ellie’s face made her pause. Her heart quickened as she looked at the blonde girl.
“Come on,” Ellie said. She ran down the deck steps into the backyard. The whole enclosed area was lit up by the Christmas lights adorning the fences. The bright and colourful lights reflected off the snow and shined beautifully on Ellie. She twirled in the middle of the yard and a beautiful laugh escaped her lips. “Kennedy!”
Kennedy also ran down the steps at the call and joined Ellie. The snow crunched under boots with each step she took.
“I think it’s packing snow,” she said. “Should we build a snowman for the twins?”
“I like the way you think.”
They began rolling the snow to create the snowman. The snow was deep enough that they could manage it easily without disturbing most of the yard.
“I can’t remember the last time I made a snowman,” Kennedy said, as they put it together. “It must have been sometime when I was a kid.”
“I made a couple last year with Millie and Ollie,” Ellie said. She placed the snowman’s head on and took a step back to admire their handiwork. “I’m not sure we have coal or a carrot for the face. Do you think we could find twigs for the arms?”
“In your backyard? Seems pretty likely.”
“Okay, sassy. Good luck finding them in all this snow.”
Kennedy looked around the patch they had cleared when making the snowman. There wasn’t a stick in sight.
“Okay, so maybe it won’t be as easy as I thought,” she admitted. She tried to snap her fingers, though it didn’t work very well in her mittens. “We can tell the twins that we left all the decorating for them to do.”
Ellie laughed. “Of course, we aren’t being lazy. We just want them to have fun putting the snowman together.”
“Exactly!”
Once their laughter had died down, Ellie sighed and looked around.
“It’s so peaceful out here at night, don’t you think?” She asked. “I wish it was like this all the time.”
“Me too,” Kennedy said. “Sometimes it feels like… like all the problems in the world can’t touch you.”
“I like that.” Ellie smiled at her. “Want to make snow angels and stare at the stars?”
“What? I’m in my pyjamas, they’ll soak through!”
“So?”
“So, I do want to be able to sleep tonight. Whenever we go back in.”
“So, sleep without your pants on, Jared won’t care.”
“You’re crazy,” Kennedy laughed. Ellie closed the gap between them and brushed Kennedy’s hair out of her face so she could see her eyes better.
“Maybe I am,” she murmured. Then before Kennedy could make sense of what was happening, Ellie kissed her. Time stood still around them. Kennedy could feel nothing but Ellie in front of her, the lips pressed against her own. In some ways, it lasted forever. In others, it ended much too soon. They stared at each other, both breathing hard. “I guess we should go back inside.”
“Do we have to?” Kennedy whispered before she could stop herself. The smallest ghost of a smile appeared on Ellie’s face. She looked towards the back door.
“Jared is watching us,” she said. Kennedy looked over as well. Jared was standing inside the kitchen, watching them through the window.
“He’s going to kill me,” she said. “If he saw us then anyone could have. It would have ruined his cover.”
“No point in dwelling on fantasies, huh?” Ellie asked. Just like that, any magic that had been in the air, the spark that had existed between them, evaporated into the night air. “Let’s go in. Why bother delaying the inevitable?”
“Hey,” Jared said as soon as they walked in the door.
“Hey yourself,” Ellie said. “What are you doing up?”
“I was calling Henry. He’s on vacation in Australia and this was the only time that worked for him to call today. When I noticed Kennedy wasn’t in bed anymore, I figured I would come investigate. Why are you two awake?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Kennedy said. She pulled off her coat.
“So, you thought you would get some fresh air?”
“Exactly,” Ellie said. “Did you see our snowman?”
“It’s adorable,” Jared said. “I also saw your kiss.”
“I mean that’s less interesting than the snowman,” Ellie said. “Why don’t we keep talking about that instead?”
“Why are you being so weird?” Jared asked. He was visibly confused. “It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything. You’re both gay and single, I think it’s nice.”
“You’re not mad?” Kennedy asked.
“Why would I be mad?”
“I don’t know, someone could have seen us and put together that something weird is going on here.”
Jared waved it off. “Nobody’s awake. And I’m not exactly going to ask you to put your love life on hold just to keep up this ruse. Do what you want. Just please don’t let anyone see you until I tell them we’ve broken up.”
“Oh,” Kennedy said, somewhat taken aback. “Okay. Great.”
She and Ellie shared a glance. It was clear neither of them knew how to proceed from there. The kiss had been unexpected, at least on Kennedy’s side, and with Jared there, it was hard to talk about it.
“I guess I should go to bed,” Ellie said quietly. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”
Kennedy’s heart dropped. She didn’t want to leave it off there, but she knew there was nothing she had to say either.
“Goodnight,” she said. “See you in a few hours, I guess.”
Ellie went upstairs. Jared turned to Kennedy and raised his eyebrows.
“So, of all the girls you could have picked, you chose my sister,” he said. He smirked. “You really like my family, huh? I mean first me—”
“Oh, shut up,” Kennedy laughed. She slipped off her boots and headed toward the stairs. “And for your information, she kissed me.”
Jared laughed. “Yeah, Ellie goes after what she wants.”
They went back up to Jared’s room. The whole time, butterflies were fluttering in Kennedy’s stomach. She couldn’t believe she was the one that Ellie wanted.
Ellie and Kennedy barely looked at each other the next morning. Kennedy had no idea what to say in the first place, but especially not in front of Ellie’s entire family who thought they were both straight, and that Kennedy was dating Jared.
After their Christmas Eve brunch, everyone moved into the family room. Millie and Ollie took some of their toys into the kitchen to play by themselves while the adults talked in the family room. After about twenty minutes, they fell into silence. Seizing her chance, Ellie cleared her throat and straightened.
“I have something to tell all of you,” she said. Everyone looked at her. She
closed her eyes, took a deep breath and said, “I’m gay.”
The room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
“Oh,” Adrienne said. She looked at Brandon, who was clearly unsure of what to say.
“Good for you,” he said finally.
“Good for me?” Ellie asked slowly. “You’re not… mad?”
“Of course not,” Adrienne said. She fanned herself with her hand. “Just a little surprised, that’s all.”
Jared grabbed Kennedy’s glass of eggnog that was sitting next to him and drank the whole thing in one go. Filled with temporary confidence, he stood up.
“While we’re at it,” he said, “I feel like I should tell you that I am also gay.”
There was more of a reaction at that. Adrienne’s jaw dropped. Ryleigh looked between Kennedy and Jared over and over again, as if expecting Kennedy to turn into a boy if she looked away enough times. Brandon was muttering under his breath, with a look of concentration on his face. Parker and Greta were both simply staring at him in shock. Even Kennedy was surprised, as she hadn’t expected him to say anything until sometime in the new year, at the earliest. Ellie was the only one smiling.
Lincoln jumped up and pointed at Jared accusingly.
“You’re dating Henry, aren’t you?” He exclaimed. Jared rubbed his hand on the back of his neck.
“Uh… yes. Was it that obvious?”
“I’ve suspected it for years! But you never said anything and then you brought home a girlfriend, so I convinced myself I was crazy!”
“I wasn’t sure how everyone would react, so I tried to keep it under wraps as much as possible,” Jared admitted. “But since you were okay with Ellie, I just thought…”
“Of course, we’re okay with it, honey,” Adrienne said breathlessly.
“I think we just need a bit more of an explanation,” Brandon said. “Because you’re dating Henry… but your girlfriend is sitting right there.”
“Did you know about this, Kennedy?” Parker asked. “You look shocked.”
Kennedy cleared her throat. “Oh, I did actually know about this. I actually am also gay. But, uh, what a way to find out if I didn’t know, huh?”
“I’m sorry, I’m confused,” Adrienne said. “If you’re both gay, why were you pretending to be dating?”
Jared picked at his fingernails and looked down. His face flushed.
“You’ve been bugging me to bring a girl home for a while,” he said. “And I wasn’t ready to come out to you yet so… I thought I would bring Kennedy home to appease you for now.”
“What was the long-term plan here?” Greta asked. “Obviously you couldn’t pretend to be dating forever. And at some point, you knew you would have to bring Henry home, right?”
Jared shrugged. “I figured I would pretend that Kennedy and I broke up in a month or so. After that, there wasn’t much of a plan. I was hoping to come out next year and then ease you all into the idea of me and Henry being together.”
“Sorry, how long has that been going on?” Adrienne asked. “You and Henry, I mean.”
“Uh, well, pretty much since I’ve known him,” Jared said. “We met in September of first year and started dating just before Christmas.”
“Five years?” Adrienne all but shrieked. “You’ve been dating for five years and you never thought to mention it?”
“I did consider mentioning it! Many times! I just didn’t know how to do it.”
“So, you thought the best course of action was to bring home a girlfriend,” Parker said.
“Hey, I don’t need any judgment from you, Parker! You married your high school sweetheart. You didn’t have to deal with years of nagging about when. You were going to bring a girl home, and you certainly didn’t have to deal with years of guilt for being gay!”
“You didn’t need to feel any guilt, Jared,” Adrienne said softly. “We would have accepted you, no matter what.”
“We had no way of knowing that,” Ellie said softly. “With all the pressure for me to get a boyfriend and him to get a girlfriend… it felt like you would never be okay with us being gay.”
“Then I failed you as a mother,” Adrienne whispered. Jared closed his eyes as he tried to hold back his tears.
“Um, I think I should go,” Kennedy said softly. She stood up. “I think this is something you should discuss as a family, without… guests here.”
“I’ll give you a ride,” Jared said immediately.
“No, you just drank alcoholic eggnog, Jar,” she said with a wry grin. He looked at the empty glass guiltily. “It’s really okay, I can just walk.”
“I can give you a ride,” Ellie offered. “I haven’t had anything to drink and honestly, I feel like I need some time to process everything that is happening right now.”
“Are you sure?” Kennedy asked. Ellie nodded. “Okay then.”
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” Ellie murmured. Nobody said anything. Kennedy and Ellie got ready as quickly as possible. Kennedy had already left her bag at the door earlier, so she grabbed it quickly and went outside. As soon as the door closed behind her, Ellie stopped Kennedy with a touch of her arm. “I’m sorry about that.”
“About what?” Kennedy asked. “You had every right to come out to your family.”
“I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable to be there while all of that was happening, though,” Ellie said. “I didn’t know that Jared was going to say anything. I really thought he was going to wait. I just… couldn’t keep living a lie. Having to pretend that the reason I didn’t have someone was because of the long hours of my job, when I’ve had four girlfriends in my life that my family never knew about.”
“I’m sorry you had to do that,” Kennedy said quietly. Ellie shrugged.
“It is what it is. But I’m sure that the whole situation was uncomfortable for you, and I want you to know that wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to come out before…” she trailed off and looked away.
“Before?” Kennedy prompted.
“Before I asked you out,” Ellie finished. “If you said yes, I didn’t want to have to feel like I had to sneak around… So, what do you say?”
Kennedy grinned. “I don’t know. I’m actually just getting out of a relationship — you know, with your younger brother—”
Ellie laughed and walked to the car, shaking her head.
“Tell you what. If it’s a yes, get in the car. If it’s a no…” she shrugged. “You can walk home. I promise my feelings won’t be hurt. Too much.”
She got into the driver’s seat. Kennedy hesitated only for a moment before she followed and climbed in the passenger side.
Ellie grinned at her. “Merry Christmas to me.”
What Did You Think of Come to Stay?
First of all, thank you for purchasing this book Come to Stay. I know you could have picked any number of books to read, but you picked this book and for that I am extremely grateful.
I hope that it added at value and quality to your everyday life. If so, it would be really nice if you could share this book with your friends and family by posting to Facebook and Twitter.
If you enjoyed this book and found some benefit in reading this, I’d like to hear from you and hope that you could take some time to post a review on Amazon. Your feedback and support will help this author to greatly improve his writing craft for future projects and make this book even better.
I want you, the reader, to know that your review is very important and so, if you’d like to leave a review, all you have to do is click here and away you go. I wish you all the best in your future success!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many people in my life I would love to thank for helping me to follow my dream of writing a book.
I would like to thank my family, especially my parents, for always supporting and encouraging me. Thank you to my friends for listening to me ramble about my writing for the past few months. To Aaliyah, the first person to ever read my books, your love and support has
meant the world to me. Thank you to Corinne, for encouraging me through my whole writing journey. To Ava and Jenna, who were there from the concept of the book to its finish, thank you for encouraging me to continue, even when I wanted to give up. Thank you to Charlotte for the beautiful cover work. This book could never have been the same without all of your help and support.
To all my friends, old and new, although I cannot thank each and every one of you by name, please know how grateful I am for all your help.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Natalie Anglin is a Canadian author. She is from Toronto, Ontario, and is majoring in Classical Studies at the University of Waterloo. Come to Stay is her debut novel.
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