Winter Hearts

by A. E. Radley

  “Let’s put both mattresses on the floor,” she suggested. “At least there’s a carpet if you roll off.”

  “You know who’s going to be sleeping in the crack tonight,” I said.

  Wendy shot me a look. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “No, it was Michael’s,” I said. “What’s up with him anyway? He’s barely said two words to me all night.”

  “Nothing is up with him,” Wendy replied.

  It was my turn to give her a look.

  “Okay, fine. He’s been on the phone with his friend Ross for the last two days.”

  I knew that name. “Ross… as in Mimi’s ex-fiance?”

  “Yeah him. He’s a mess, apparently, and Michael feels responsible.”

  That didn’t make any sense. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, because he’s the older brother and he thinks that Mimi will do whatever he says. I told him that you never listen to me either.”

  “What are you talking about? I value your opinion.”

  “Come on, I told you I never trusted Melissa and you didn’t listen.”

  “You never-”

  My sister shot me her I did so and you know it look.

  “Okay, I should have listened,” I said.

  “Ross was Michael’s best man. They’ve been friends for years, and now Mimi is clearly thinking about switching sides.”

  “How do you know that?” I said, trying my best to play dumb.

  “I have mom eyes; I see everything. Besides, you two couldn’t be more obvious.”

  “I… didn’t realize that.”

  “Michael is just feeling bad for his friend and he’s trying to make up for everything with his parents. He’s a little on edge. He’ll relax once all this is all over. He just wants Christmas to be perfect.”

  I sat down on the bed.

  “But hey,” my sister said and grabbed my hand. “I’m really happy that you’re here. Thank you for coming down.”

  I looked up at her. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Of course, I invited you. It wouldn’t be the same without you here.” She gave me a hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t know about the big plan sooner.”

  “Does Michael make you happy?” I asked into her shoulder.

  She pulled back and looked at me. “I love him, I really do. He makes me laugh. I haven’t laughed in a long time.”

  “You seemed so stressed-out earlier, I couldn’t tell if-”

  My sister laughed. “Oh gosh, you know me, I’m always stressed-out. But this has been a really great Christmas so far, hasn’t it? We haven’t spent Christmas as a family in years.”

  “I know. It is nice,” I agreed.

  “Hey,” she said, lowering her voice, “once the girls fall asleep, you’re free to sleep wherever you want.”

  “Can I sleep with you?” I asked jokingly.

  “Um, no,” she said flatly.

  I smiled at her. “I love you, Wendy, and I’m really happy for you.”

  She smiled back at me. “Thanks, Brooke, I love you too.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The girls and I snuggled up on the mattresses on the floor. After a few lullabies and a solemn promise to wake them if I heard reindeer on the roof, they began to settle down. Soon, they were asleep and I was trapped beneath both of them. Carefully, I worked one limb out at a time. When I’d removed myself entirely, Hailey rolled over and reached for her sister. By the time I’d reached the door, they had curled up like they used to when they were babies.

  I walked upstairs to the main floor but no one was there. I heard the shower running in one of the upstairs bathrooms and wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Ling had retired for the night. I sat on the couch in the dark for a few minutes but then I heard creaking and whispers in the upstairs hall. Mimi’s niece was still awake.

  I should have been tired but I wasn’t. Mimi and I hadn’t properly said goodnight and the anticipation of that was killing me. I felt like I did when I was a kid on Christmas Eve: excited and nervous, curious and apprehensive. I wondered if something magical had pushed Mimi and me together. It all seemed too much to just be a coincidence. But… did I even believe in that stuff?

  I heard a door open upstairs and Jenny’s little voice calling for her daddy. Then I heard Michael’s soothing tones as he carried her back to their room for the night. I waited for a while, unsure of what my next move should be or whether there should even be a next move. The house had completely quieted; no more showers, no more sleepless kids. Everything felt at peace. But somehow I knew that Mimi was still awake. I tiptoed up the stairs, quiet as an elf, and stopped at her bedroom door. I felt her standing there in the darkness on the other side.

  Then, the handle twisted. The wood door stuck and then squeaked against the frame; the sound echoed through the hallway. We both stood there in the darkness wearing our pajamas, excited, wide awake and breathing fast. She reached for my arm. I stepped in and closed the door.

  “You’re here,” she whispered.

  “Mimi?” We both jumped. It was Michael again and it sounded like he was right outside the door. Mimi shook her head before pulling it open again.

  Michael looked at me first and then at Mimi. “I… heard a noise.”

  “It was Santa. Go back to bed,” Mimi said, trying to close the door. But Michael pushed it open and stepped in. “For goodness sake, why are you in here?” Mimi whispered.

  He looked back and forth between us. “Ross is a good guy, Mimi.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Then maybe you should marry him.”

  “He deserved better.”

  Mimi sighed. “I know he did. That’s why I let him go.”

  Michael nodded and looked down at the floor. “Wendy and I are getting married, have you taken that into consideration?”

  “Yes, I have,” she replied.

  “What happens if this thing between you two doesn’t work out?”

  “We’ve talked about it,” I said, breaking my silence. There we were, standing in yet another completely un-sexy Christmas moment. So much for Mimi’s elf fantasy. “I… I’m going to go,” I said quietly.

  “No, wait,” Mimi said, reaching for my arm.

  I looked at both of them and smiled. “You two should talk. The year is almost over; don’t leave any unfinished business behind.” Michael nodded to me just before I closed the door.

  I went downstairs and plugged in the Christmas lights. With the rest of the house dark, the tree looked magical. I curled up on the couch and threw a blanket over me. I thought of Michael and Mimi and wondered if they’d be able to work things out. I thought of how different my sister and I were but how much I cared about her. I thought of my little nieces, snoozing away on their beds and how cute it was that they still cuddled. Then I heard voices outside that sounded like my parent’s. They came up the steps with their robes on. Dad slid open the door and stepped inside, looking surprised when he saw me sitting there. “Hey Brooke, I thought you were asleep.”

  “Nope. The littles took over the bed,” I said, leaving out the part about Mimi and her brother. “Did you guys enjoy the hot tub?”

  “We did,” my mother said, smiling. “Your dad and I have been discussing things.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  My dad took a perch on the arm beside me. “We’ve been thinking—now that the girls are old enough to remember things—we’d like to start spending Christmas together as a family again.”

  “It’s been nice here, hasn’t it?” My mom said to me.

  “It has,” I agreed.

  “Michael’s heart seems to be in the right place. And his parents are funny, don’t you think they’re funny, Ben?”

  My dad nodded.

  “I’m down for Christmas next year,” I said. “I don’t have any plans.”

  My mom gave me a loving smile. “Did you call Melissa today?”

  “No, that’s all over.”

  My mother nodded and gave me another smile.

  Dad chuckled. “Dis
neyland tomorrow, huh?”

  “Yep, that’s the plan,” I said. “Just us and several thousand others.”

  “Oh, it’ll be fun,” my mom said.

  Dad leaned over and gave me a big hug. “Thank goodness you’re still here, kid. I’ll never bug you about driving that gas guzzler again.”

  “No, you won’t,” my mom said. She bent and kissed the top of my head. “G’night, sweetie. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas, you guys. I love you.”

  I listened to their footsteps pad up the stairs and then disappear down the hall.

  I opened my eyes and realized that I must have fallen asleep. The Christmas lights were glowing on the tree but the house was silent. I reached for my phone to check the time but remembered I’d left it in my room. I sat up and then realized that Mimi was sitting, fast asleep, on the rug below me, with her back against the foot of the sofa. I reached out and gave her a gentle tap.

  She inhaled sharply and lifted her head. “Mmm. You’re awake.”

  “How long have you been down here?” I asked.

  She looked around. “I don’t know, awhile.” She pushed herself up and sat on the couch beside me.

  “Here, have some blanket,” I said and threw half of it over her.

  “Thanks, I got chilly.” She shivered a little.

  “What were you doing down here?”

  “I came down after my brother left but you were asleep. I thought of waking you, but you looked so peaceful. So I just sat here and looked at the tree.”

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it.”

  “It is,” she said and smiled.

  “Did you and Michael have a good talk?”

  “We did. He still thinks I made a mistake with Ross, but I think he’s realized that he has to let it go. He feels responsible—that somehow him breaking up with his wife encouraged me to end it with Ross.”

  “Did it?”

  “No. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way people want them to. It had nothing to do with Michael.” She reached for my hand. “I’m glad we talked, though. Thank you.”

  I slid my fingers through hers. We both looked down at our interlocked digits and smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  “He told me how he felt about Wendy. He’s a strange guy sometimes, but he really loves her.”

  Knowing that made me feel a lot better. “That’s good to hear.”

  “I know, right? We don’t need any more break-ups in this family.”

  Mimi was right; every single one of us—Mimi, her brother, me, and my sister—had all recently dealt with heartache. “To new possibilities for all of us,” I said.

  “To new possibilities,” Mimi whispered. She looked over at me. “So… here we are. It’s early Christmas morning. Santa hasn’t come yet.”

  I smiled back at her. “Are you sure? Maybe Santa is right here.”

  Mimi crawled closer to me and straddled my lap. She looked down into my eyes. “I completely understood what my brother said in his speech tonight. I knew there was something special about you the first time I saw you.”

  “And I thought you had an incredible ass,” I whispered. I slid my hands up her back and felt the ache inside my body disappear. Mimi closed her eyes and took a long, languid breath. “I feel like I’ve been waiting so long for this,” she whispered.

  I trailed my fingers along the muscles of her shoulders and gently kneaded the tightness around her neck. I let them drift down her back and over her hips, past the waistband of her pajamas, and then down the firm muscles of her thighs. Feeling her respond to my touch removed all doubt from my mind. She looked down into my eyes, stroked the side of my cheek with her fingertips, and then slowly tipped her head forward.

  I thought of the game we had played in the truck when she’d teased me with her secret cache of chocolate. I remembered how that first piece had tasted: of oranges and spice and how perfectly it had melted on my tongue. Mimi’s kiss was just like that: perfect, rich, and exotic in all its flavors. It was hot but unhurried. It melted my lips, mouth, and each of my senses, one by one. When I opened my eyes and gazed back at her, I knew something momentous was about to happen. She smiled down at me while her hands still gently held my face. “There… you don’t look like a puppy-dog anymore,” she whispered.

  And I didn’t feel like one either. I lifted her off the couch and planted her gently on the floor. Then, I took her hand. We closed the front door gently behind us and ran across the paving stones to my truck. The motion sensor light went on suddenly and we both fell into a fit of giggles. I opened the back door of the truck as quietly as I could and let her climb in first. Mimi slid backward to the top of the bed and I crawled in after her. She laid down on the foam cushion and wrapped her arms around my neck.

  Our kiss wasn’t slow or soft that time; it was fast and fierce. It traveled from our mouths down our necks and over our shoulders, down the skin behind our pajama tops until it dipped low between our breasts. Mimi’s body moved under me as I wrapped my mouth around her nipple. Her breath turned to moans, her hands kneaded my shoulders, her hips pushed back against my abdomen. I raked my hand up her thigh and pulled her into me.

  She gripped a handful of hair at the back of my head and pushed me into her breast again. The truck was picking up momentum, shaking around us. With Mimi’s nipple tucked between my lips, I began to laugh.

  “Have you ever been with anyone else inside this truck?” she rasped.

  “Never,” I said and then slid my tongue along the tight band of muscle that curled under her ribs.

  Her back arched and she pushed into me again. “And here I thought we’d just kiss a little on the couch.”

  I immediately stopped what I was doing and looked up at her. “Uh… oh…”

  “I’m kidding,” she said, giggling down at me, then she pushed my head down again. “As you were, Santa.”

  I lifted my head again. “Hey.” I pulled the waistband of my pajamas down a little to reveal the tight red swimming bottoms I wore underneath. It was the best I could do for a Santa suit.

  Mimi’s smile beamed. “Take off your pajamas.”

  I slipped out of them easily, leaving them somewhere down by the water jug.

  “Now the shirt,” Mimi said, looking up at me.

  I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it over my shoulders. I wore a tight white tank top underneath.

  “Santa, you’re here,” she whispered as she gazed back at me.

  “Have you been good this year, Mimi?” I asked, trying my best not to look serious.

  “I’ve been so good,” she replied breathlessly.

  “And that purple vibrator in your bathing suit drawer; have you been giving it lots of attention?”

  Mimi grinned back at me. “I’ve been wondering whether you’d noticed that.”

  I pushed her backward and lowered my body on top of hers again. “Did you want me to see it?”

  “Well, I was high on wine and painkillers and wanted to have sex with you. It made perfect sense at the time.”

  I had to laugh.

  “But then you chose the most boring bathing suit in my drawer and I knew that I wasn’t going to get lucky.”

  I looked down at her. “I wanted to, Mimi, but it wouldn’t have been right.”

  “I know,” she whispered and then kissed me again. “You look hot in your Santa suit. Thank you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her deep brown eyes locked with mine. “Are you going to unwrap me now?”

  She didn’t need to ask twice. Soon, the windows of the truck were completely fogged-up; the air inside was hot and humid, and the sheets below us were soaked with sweat. I pulled out all the stops so that Mimi’s first time was as pivotal as mine had been. But the night passed quickly and neither of us knew what time it really was.

  “Oh my God! You can just keep going,” Mimi cried breathlessly. Her hand rested on the top of my head, pushing and then pulling as if it couldn’t decide if it wanted me to sto
p or continue. “This is the best Christmas ever,” she said, grinning down at me.

  I lifted myself up and kissed her warm inner thigh. Then, I heard a sound outside the truck. “Are those… birds?”

  Mimi’s eyes opened. “Birds?”

  “Hmm, I wonder what time it is.”

  There was nothing inside the truck that could help us. Mimi pulled one of the curtains open. “Oh no! It’s starting to get light outside.”

  “We should go back to the house,” I said and sat up.

  Our pajamas were draped over the back of the passenger seat. I handed Mimi’s hers.

  “We need showers,” Mimi said.

  “We really need showers,” I agreed.

  We dressed quickly and then kissed each other one last time. “Okay, act natural,” I said and pushed the back of the truck open. Mimi started to giggle again.

  We ran back across the paving stones to the house but when I reached the front door, it was locked. My stomach hit the paving stones. “Holy shit.”

  “What?” Mimi said as she tucked in behind me.

  “We’re locked out.”

  She tried the handle too and then started to giggle again.

  “It’s got to be close to five if the sun is coming up,” I whispered. “What are we going to do?”

  “Maybe the patio door is open,” she said.

  I wondered if my father had locked it after they had come inside from the hot tub. “It’s worth a try.”

  We snuck around the side of the house in our bare feet and took the stairs down to the beach. Then we ran around to the front. “I’ll go,” I said since there was no sense in both of us making noise. I tiptoed up them two at a time, but when I reached the top deck, the sliding door was locked. I peered down at Mimi and shook my head.

  Back on the beach, we tried to figure out how we could get back in the house before the kids woke up. The sky was indigo blue. I knew if we were planning on climbing in any windows, we had to hurry. Then there was the point of needing showers. “We didn’t think this through,” Mimi said.

  “Okay wait,” I said. “Say we just woke early and decided on another polar bear swim. Then we got locked out.” That scenario took care of both problems: being locked out and looking like we’d had sex all night.