by Megan Crane
Or worse, what she’d say to them.
So maybe it was better, all told, to concentrate on the exes’ obsession with Derrick.
“And since my dad won’t be here,” Devyn found herself saying now, sounding significantly more upbeat than she felt, “I guess everyone will have to find different ways to measure their manhood and show off for my mom.”
“It’s like you’re psychic,” Vaughn had said then, nodding to the scrum of obviously irritated men off to one side.
It was like Devyn’s worst nightmare was coming to life, right there in the center of Jackson, Wyoming, with merry Christmas lights all around. Howie, a tool to the end, was doing that particular dance aggressive men did. He was all chin and a smirk as he exchanged words with Hector, the shortest, roundest, and most easily riled of Melody’s exes, who Melody claimed had given her the house she currently lived in as a gift after a month of dating back when. The other men stood around watching the exchange as if they were all in high school and waiting for the bell to ring so they could fling themselves into a rumble.
Devyn sighed. “Great. Now I have to break up fights?”
But Vaughn grinned at her again. “Just because you maybe like a little bit more mess in your life than you want to admit to yourself, it doesn’t mean you need to be responsible for cleaning up every mess, everywhere.” He picked up the ice skates that she’d dropped onto the icy ground at her feet when she’d walked over here and showed her the pair he had hanging over his shoulder. “I say we do this.”
“Really? You’re an ice skater now, too?”
“I only do things badly, Devyn. Songwriting, skating. Other stuff.”
And the heat in his dark eyes made her forget that it was the dead of winter. That her fingertips were a little bit numb, tucked away in her mittens. Because she’d heard the tunes he’d coaxed out of the guitar. And she knew from glorious personal experience that when it came to other stuff, he was nothing short of a creative genius.
“I’m guessing that means you’re a marginally decent ice skater,” she said after a moment. Grudgingly.
He laughed. But then he sat down on a nearby bench and started working on getting his ice skates on, and she couldn’t seem to help herself from joining him. Despite the tense discussions she could hear going on between the exes. Despite the fact that her mother kept looking in her direction, as if she expected Devyn to charge over and sort it all out the way she normally did. Despite the fact that the pack of her cousins, complete with Sydney, kept looking from her to Vaughn and back again with similar expressions of speculation that told her the Grey Family Gossip machine was well oiled and in working order.
Devyn didn’t care. Or she couldn’t bring herself to care enough, to be more accurate. Not enough to walk away from Vaughn. Not enough to keep herself from lacing up her ice skates, or standing gingerly. Or tottering out to the ice there in the middle of the square.
And certainly not enough to let go of Vaughn’s hand when he reached out and gripped hers.
Then, together, holding on tight as if they’d done this kind of thing before, they skated.
And for a little while, there on a makeshift ice rink that was barely big enough to work up a full head of steam, Devyn...let go.
There was something about Vaughn that made it easy. He gripped her hand and her heart expanded. It was dangerous enough up there in the dark in his hotel room. This afternoon was bright, they were out in the open, and everything was relentlessly public.
But it was still the same. Light. Heat. As if she was flying.
And that was just when they started, wobbling there across the ice.
“You’re thinking too much,” he told her in a low voice, his dark eyes on her as if they were all alone. “Do what I do.”
And that part was easy, it turned out.
She could simply follow him and everything smoothed out. Got easy, then flowed.
Until it wasn’t only her heart that felt like it was flying.
If it had been up to her, she would have stayed out on that little rink forever. But the weather was cold and quickly turned sullen, indicating more snow was on the way. And when Devyn finally made her way off the ice, hating the fact that doing so meant she had to let go of Vaughn again, her mother was waiting for her.
In high dudgeon, with little red splotches on her cheeks.
“Everything is getting too intense,” Melody told Devyn. “I can’t deal with it.”
“What you mean you can’t deal with it?” Devyn actually laughed. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
“It’s supposed to be fun, Devyn. Not...dramatic and adolescent.” Melody threw up her hands at that—literally—and then swept off.
Leaving Devyn and Sydney to smile prettily at the scowling pack of men, and disperse the crowd.
“Why didn’t you tell Howie to just stop?” Devyn asked Sydney, after several different reports that ‘the muscly guy’ had been causing the most trouble.
Her sister smiled blandly. “Oh, I was about to,” she said, clearly lying. “I definitely wasn’t hanging around hoping that there would be an actual fistfight, so we could stop pretending this was a good idea.”
“You’re savage,” Devyn muttered. “I love you.”
And that had been that for the day, as far she was concerned, because now that Sydney was here she didn’t see how she could sneak off to see Vaughn later that evening. Which meant she had to watch him walk away with his father and the rest of the exes, and just...let that happen. As if she didn’t care. As if he really was nothing more to her that an almost-stepbrother she’d skated with.
The good news was, that probably helped dispel whatever rumors her cousins had kicked up. The bad news was, she really wasn’t sure she cared anymore if they knew.
She and Sydney ended up back in Vaughn’s hotel bar, with all the rest of their cousins, their cousins’ spouses and significant others. And kids, in Luce’s case. And because that was one of Devyn’s favorite things, the fact that Vaughn wasn’t around stung a little bit less than it might have. There were so many Greys there, hanging out with each other simply because they enjoyed each other’s company and didn’t get to see each other enough. That Jesse’s wedding to Michaela had been this past July made it better, because getting to see each other so soon after a big family gathering meant they could fast forward through the catching up part and marinate in just...being together. Talking just to talk, not to download information about their lives.
The good stuff, in other words.
They passed around pictures of Dare and Christina’s new baby. They embarrassed Luce’s thirteen-year-old with a long, involved discussion of who had changed his diapers the most. They cackled with glee as they told Michaela stories of the things they’d done to the only male Grey cousin while they were growing up.
“I’m not embarrassed,” Jesse said, kicking back in his chair while pretty Michaela sat next to him, bent in half as she convulsed with laughter. “I’ll wear a dress tonight.”
“Jesse’s masculinity knows no peril,” Skylar assured his bride. “He’s pretty much immune to embarrassment.”
“Does that mean he will or won’t be wearing a dress?” her bull rider asked from beside her. And Cody grinned. “Because there’s regular embarrassment and then there’s the internet.”
And Devyn could tell that Jesse liked his sister’s new man, because he only laughed at that.
“I’m not the one with fans,” Jesse said. “I’m not Cody Galen, bull-riding royalty. No one’s going to care what I do on the internet. You, on the other hand...”
“My masculinity prefers jeans,” Cody had drawled, and had shot Skylar a look that had made her face heat up.
Devyn sipped the hot chocolate she’d ordered from the bar and let it warm her as much as her cousins did. The lawyers were all in a knot at one table, Scottie and the shockingly good-looking Damon with Joey, the youngest of Uncle Jason’s daughters. They were telling corporate law war stories, c
racking each other up, and using words that Devyn was pretty sure qualified as an attorney love language.
Luce’s thirteen-year-old, Hudson, sat next to her. He was supposedly on his phone, though Devyn thought she caught him listening to the conversation more often than not. His younger brothers were arguing over their handheld games, but not Hudson. He was the next generation of Grey cousins, after all. Devyn remembered being his age, sitting there surrounded by her aunts and uncles and grandparents, trying to make sense of all the different personalities, stories, and connections. She loved the fact that Luce’s son was carrying on the tradition.
That family carried on, no matter what.
She and Sydney shared a banquette with Rayanne, Joey’s sister. And Devyn liked to look around groups of her relatives and trace the different lines. Rayanne and Luce, and Jesse for that matter, all looked alike. Long, lean, and dirty blonde, just like Melody. And Grandma. Uncle Jason and Uncle Ryan, too. Meanwhile, Devyn and Sydney resembled Scottie and Skylar, and they took their dark hair and blue eyes from Uncle Billy. Who’d got it from Grandpa.
And despite the two separate lines of looks, they all shared the same gestures. The same way of sitting. All the girls were dressed more like each other than not. Today they were all wearing jeans, colorful sweaters, and differed mostly in the color of those sweaters, and the number of bangles each wore on her left arm.
When they’d been little their parents had dressed them all in matching dresses—and poor Jesse in overalls—and Devyn knew she wasn’t the only one who had a couple of those pictures on the walls in her apartment.
Some people wanted to feel unique, Devyn knew. Solitary. A perfect little unicorn, unlike anyone else around. But Devyn had always felt most herself when she was surrounded by the women who were just like her. Made from the same materials and subject to the same family drama, gossip, love, and devotion.
Best of all, she thought as she looked around at their loud, giddy group, this was her family, no matter what happened. Skylar had lost her fiancé. Jesse had lost his girlfriend to his father. Luce had kicked Hal out. They’d all suffered in one way or another. They’d all been through some stuff.
And none of that mattered, because they all had each other.
“What are you grinning about?” Rayanne asked.
“She looks like she’s up to something, doesn’t she?” Sydney asked. “She’s looked like that since I got here.”
“I’m not up to anything,” Devyn said. She lifted her hot chocolate into the air and raised her voice. “Here’s to us. Go Grey or go home.”
And they all drank to that, the way they always did.
All that cousin love was something to hold on to, Devyn thought later, when she and Sydney arrived back at Melody’s to find their mother running around the place like a whirling dervish, one of her more concerning moods.
More insane than the fluttering around, Melody seemed to be taking down her giant Christmas tree.
“You realize that it’s not Christmas yet, right?” Sydney asked her, her voice careful, as if Melody might fall apart at any moment. “You might need all those ornaments a little while longer, Mom.”
Devyn did a walk-through, but couldn’t find her father. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or bad thing. If it was related to Melody’s apparent freak-out, or not.
She refused to ask.
“Thank God you’re both home at last,” Melody said when Devyn made it back to the living room. She looked as if she’d spent the rest of her afternoon and evening communing with the yoga gods, since she was in bare feet, colorful leggings, and a floaty, silky caftan. Her hair was swept up onto the top of her head, and she wore sparkling, jangly chandelier earrings that sounded like sleigh bells every time she moved her head.
Which was often.
“You could have called us if you needed us, Mom,” Devyn said.
And realized when Sydney slid a look at her that her voice was perhaps a little less placating than usual.
Do not wind her up, Sydney’s look implored her, no words necessary. It’s not worth it.
But for some reason, Devyn was finding it hard to play her usual role. She knew she should try to soothe her mother...but she didn’t seem to have it in her.
“We can’t have a tree-trimming party if the tree is already trimmed, Devyn,” Melody threw at her, as if Devyn had argued otherwise. “You might hate Christmas, but I can’t allow you to bring down the rest of us simply because your heart is black and Scrooge-y.”
“Scrooge-y?” Devyn asked.
With perhaps a little too much attitude.
“There’s no need to concentrate on Devyn’s Grinch-y ways,” Sydney said, grinning at Devyn from behind her mother’s back. “She can’t help that black heart, Mom. She was born that way.”
“Wait,” Devyn said, because she might not be Scrooge or the Grinch, but she was perfectly satisfied with the lump of coal where her heart should have been. “What tree-trimming party?”
Her mother’s earrings jangled. There was strange New Age music playing on the speakers, which made the ornaments that had been strewn all over the couches seem like casualties of some kind of horror film massacre.
Or maybe Devyn was the one being dramatic.
Melody sighed, and slung an arm over Devyn’s shoulders, which shouldn’t have been calming in any way. But then again, whatever else she was at any given moment, she was Devyn’s mom.
“If you don’t start paying attention to your life, baby girl,” Melody said then, very seriously, as if she’d been waiting her whole life to impart this knowledge, “you’re going to sleep through the whole thing.” She squeezed Devyn to her, with surprising strength. “It’s time you woke up, don’t you think?”
Chapter Thirteen
Vaughn had never been to a tree-trimming party before.
Mostly because he usually went down to his father’s house in Huntsville for Christmas—in the years Frederick felt like celebrating—and they didn’t decorate. They cooked a little, ate a lot. And talked about proper man things, like the golden age of college basketball and fishing trips they’d never taken.
But here he was in Melody’s extremely nouveau western home, all Santa Fe colors, antlers of undefined creatures, and Pendleton blankets everywhere, taking part in yet another thing that made absolutely no sense to him.
“I don’t get this,” he said to his father when they’d handed over their coats to Sydney, who looked as if someone was forcing her to smile at gunpoint while she played hostess. There were already too many people in the living room, most of them the same exes Vaughn hadn’t liked the look of previously. “Is a tree-trimming party just...getting other people to decorate your Christmas tree?”
Frederick shot him a look. “If it is, I’m happy to be invited to take part.”
“I’m happy you’re happy,” Vaughn said, and wasn’t surprised when his father walked away from him to take possession of one of the sparkly ornaments that had been laid out on the tables. And then fight—without appearing to fight—to hang it on the tree where Melody could see and cheer.
Frederick was getting frustrated with Vaughn’s attitude. Vaughn was just frustrated.
He didn’t want to hold hands with Devyn out on the ice and then let her disappear with her family as if he didn’t exist. As if it had all been platonic when nothing between them was anything like platonic.
He didn’t like that at all. He didn’t like any of this.
He liked her. That was about it.
And he didn’t need Frederick to remind him that this wasn’t the time or place for Vaughn to really dig into all the things that were currently bugging him.
He’d spent two nights with Devyn. It was ridiculous to feel like he couldn’t sleep without her beside him. He’d told himself so, all night long. But he still hadn’t slept.
And he’d spent all day today in a state of agitation. He’d written a song. He’d acted outraged when his team had called him to talk a little b
usiness before the end of the year, when the reality was there was no good reason he couldn’t take a phone call because he wasn’t doing a damn thing besides brooding in his hotel room.
He’d spent an hour on the treadmill in the hotel gym, pounding out some angry miles. He’d swum a few hundred laps in the pool. He’d streamed one of those killer workout programs just so he could push himself to the point of exhaustion and think about his aching body instead of how lonely he’d never been, ever, until this awful little Christmas.
But nothing had helped. Until now.
Because he looked across the room and there she was, lit up by all the sparkling Christmas lights, making it hard to breathe. She was wearing a dark velvet dress that made her look even prettier than usual, with something glossy on her mouth and darker lashes than usual that made her eyes so blue he was surprised the cousin she was talking to wasn’t blinded.
If she was the ornament, this whole party made sense.
As if she felt his gaze on her, and it was a little bit astonishing how deeply he wanted that to be true, Devyn looked up. Their gazes locked together from across the room.
And the party disappeared. All the people, their parents, this epic craziness—gone.
Then she smiled, and the world caught fire.
Or maybe that was just him.
Vaughn told himself he needed to get used to it. Because the effect she had on him certainly didn’t appear to be wearing off any.
He watched Devyn drain her drink, then excuse herself from her conversation. And as she made her way along the edge of her side of the huge living room, he did the same, catching her eye now and again as he navigated his way through the crowd.
When he made it to the makeshift bar that had been set up on the far side of the room, flush against the windows that he imagined had stunning views in the light, Devyn was already there.
“Explain tree trimming to me,” he said, standing next to her as if there was nothing humming between them, edgy and sweet at once. As if keeping his hands to himself was easy. “Because it seems like a weird basis for a party.”