A Crazy Christmas

by B. Cranford

  And it was about shoes.

  I fucking love shoes.

  “It’s awesome, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome”—a swift kiss on the lips—“and now this one.” He held out a larger box, one that was much heavier than the other two had been—the ring, which was still sitting on her middle finger, and the book, resting in her lap.

  “Oooh,” she sung, making like she was about to shake the gift, but stopping when Declan looked panicked. “I shouldn’t shake it?”

  “Maybe just open it.”

  “Right, on it.” Once again, she started to carefully unwrap the gift, but this time her husband—her husband—stopped her.

  “Jay, just rip the fucking paper off already. I know you want to.” He looked exasperated, so she did as he suggested and tore open the gift.

  “Oh my God!” Her voice was a little high pitched, but who could blame her? He’d bought her a camera.

  One she’d been eyeing for months.

  One that was not cheap.

  “I know you love taking those photos of your sisters and of Brighton and the trees and me, sometimes, naked”—he wiggled his eyebrows at that, before continuing—“and I know that you want to get better at it . . .” He trailed off.

  She felt tears threaten, but was determined to not become a weepy, happy crier. She’d shown him the photos she’d taken of her family the first night they’d had a real date. When they’d moved into their house together, he’d helped her carefully relocate them. He’d listened when she’d occasionally mentioned wanting a new, better camera, and mused about getting lessons or taking a class.

  It was such a throwaway thing, she never much thought of it beyond a general urge to get better at something she enjoyed.

  And yet, here he was, giving her something that she now realized she’d been wanting, badly, for a long time.

  “This is incredible. You are incredible.”

  “Nah, I just really like you.”

  “Like me? Or like me, like me?” she asked, a note of mischief in her voice.

  “Definitely like you, like you. Here, last one.” He held out one more present, a flat rectangular box that was the largest one yet, though far lighter than the camera had been. “Then we have to get ready to go to your mom’s, right? She promised me dessert yesterday, when we were talking about the wedding cake.”

  “But what about your other present?” she asked, knowing that the large frame was wrapped up and tucked away in the back of their closet. Buried might have been a better word. To ensure he didn’t stumble upon it, Jade had piled old T-shirts and blankets over it, making a messy hill of deception.

  “I can wait. I want my damn dessert.”

  Jade rolled her eyes at him, while simultaneously ripping the wrapping paper away from the final present. “You’re obsessed.”

  He looked her square in the eye. “You have no idea, Freckles.”

  Looking down at the present in front of her, Jade began to respond when she realized what she was looking at. Then, laughter took over her body, making the bed shake with it, making Declan join in, making her stomach begin to ache.

  “Where the hell did you find this? It’s amazing.” She pulled the material free of the box it was sitting in and held it up, noticing the name J. Young on the back.

  Jade Young.

  That’s me.

  For how long, the demons whispered.

  Forever. Now, fuck off.

  “I used the power of the Internet. And Mel helped me,” he added, though Jade had already suspected his on-top-of-everything assistant likely did the legwork in finding someone, even if he called and arranged the rest. “So, you like it?”

  She nodded, her lips pursed as the memory of their first date flashed in her mind.

  “Favorite sports team?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “What? I call bullshit.” The disbelief was in her wide eyes and her voice, pitched slightly higher than normal.

  “It’s true. I can’t be biased, you know.”

  “Oh, come on. You have to have a favorite. Everyone has a favorite.”

  “Everyone? What’s yours?” He challenged her, enjoying their little game, despite how run of the mill it could have ended up being. Asking Jade the easy, simple questions had relaxed her, and now she was sitting up with a playful twinkle in the hazel of her eyes.

  “The Sixty-Niners.”

  He’d had a jersey made for her favorite sports team, no matter that they were fictional.

  He’d remembered a small joke from a night that had other, more memorable, highlights.

  And then he’d gotten her a jersey with her married name emblazoned across the back.

  In fact, all of his gifts had harked back to that first date. Months and months later, and he was showing her how much he cared, how well he’d listened and how well he knew her.

  “I love this. And I hope you’re ready.” She dropped her voice, lacing her words with as much sex as she could.

  His eyes widened, the gray disappearing as the black of his pupils filled with need. “For what?”

  “I told you they were good at ball sports.”

  “They’re good with balls. They hit it hard and fast, you know? I like that.”

  “And now I need to show you exactly how good . . .”

  New Year’s Eve

  “Is that it?” Sebastian asked, walking into Declan’s office, looking at the framed poster hanging on the wall above the desk.

  “Yeah, pretty fucking cool, right?” Declan looked over his shoulder at the signed poster of The Big Lebowski, the gift that Jade had finally been able to give him on Christmas Day.

  After he’d made sure they’d thoroughly consummated their marriage, that is.

  “Nice, and it’s signed by both of them?”

  “What’s your favorite movie?”

  “Shit. Um, The Big Lebowski?”

  Declan nodded, smiling at the flash of memory, loving that his girl had gone to the trouble of hunting down a piece of movie memorabilia. Loving even more that it was linked to their first date—just like his gifts to her had been. “Bright here?”

  “She’s out in the kitchen, helping Jade,” Sebastian responded, putting air quotes around “helping”, because everyone agreed that Brighton’s help in the kitchen should mostly be limited to setting the table and keeping the cook company.

  Even Brighton agreed.

  “Can’t believe it’s New Year’s Eve already. Fuck, time’s flown this year.” Declan’s musing earned a scoff from his best friend.

  “Time’s flown for you? I have a baby who’s acting less like a baby every day. She said ‘cat’ this morning and I thought I was having a heart attack.” It was a joke, evidenced by Sebastian’s dramatic chest clutching, but Declan sensed a kernel of truth in there.

  It had been a hell of a year.

  A hell of a few years, really.

  From the moment Sebastian and Brighton came face-to-face at the Panera near Seb’s office, they’d been through a lot. And come out the other side in better condition than they likely had the right to, in Declan’s estimation.

  “What’s the plan for tonight then?” he asked, pulling himself from his thoughts and heading for the door, Sebastian following along beside him.

  “Dinner, cooked by your wife”—Sebastian punched his shoulder, the closest thing the two of them might get to a shared moment over Declan’s recent marriage—“then games, I think.”

  Declan groaned. “I don’t know. I know we’re supposed to celebrate the New Year with fireworks, but typically that means the outside kind, not the ‘Sebastian’s at it again’ kind.”

  “I’ll be on my best behavior.” Sebastian shrugged. “And I’ll be holding Stella, so I have to keep in check. She’s my failsafe.”

  That earned a laugh not just from Declan, but from Brighton and Jade, too, as the men walked into the kitchen. “You’d better keep in check, Sebastian. I won’t have my daughter meet the same fate
as my orchid.”

  He’s never going to live that down, Declan thought, remembering the night Sebastian emptied vodka on Brighton’s orchid. It was years past, but still one of his and Brighton’s favorite things to tease Sebastian about. Even Jade, who hadn’t been a part of their lives yet, but who’d heard the story enough times to know it by heart, liked to rag on Seb at times for his tantrum.

  It was all part of being friends.

  Sebastian swooped in to take Brighton’s lips in a kiss that made Declan wiggle his eyebrows at his own wife.

  Wife. One week later and he still couldn’t believe his luck.

  “Dinner will be ready in a few, then I think we’re playing Monopoly,” she offered, rolling her eyes at their friends, who were still lip-locked and didn’t appear to be coming up for air anytime soon.

  “Monopoly? Come on, we have to have better than that,” Declan grumbled. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t like Monopoly, but that he was terrible at it—not that he’d admit that to anyone in the room.

  For as effortlessly as he could negotiate a killer contact for an athlete, of any gender, in any sport, he was the worst at the classic property game.

  “You’re just saying that because you never win,” Brighton broke in, her voice sweet, her lips finally free of Sebastian’s and her eyes hinting at mischief. “Sucks to be you.”

  Sucks to be you. Not hardly, he thought, glancing around the room at Brighton, sitting on a stool in front of his kitchen counter; at Sebastian, standing with his arms still loosely around her, their daughter on the floor at his feet, intently studying a piece of paper, babbling “cat, cat, cat” over and over.

  And finally, at Jade, who he loved more than ever.

  His wife.

  His best friends.

  They meant the world to him and he couldn’t imagine ringing in the New Year with anyone else. And he wouldn’t want to.

  After all, they brought just the right amount of crazy into his life.

  The End

  I know from personal experience that it is not always easy to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to believe that you will be okay. If you suffer from depression, anxiety, or any kind of mental illnesses, please know that you are not alone. It’s time to fight the stigma, to let yourself be heard and to ask for help.

  It will be readily, happily and lovingly given.

  Call a friend or family member.

  Call your doctor.

  Call 911.

  Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255).

  Please, just remember that it’s more than okay to ask for help.

  It’s brave, it’s scary, but it’s okay.

  Since the book is short, I also want to (try to) keep the acknowledgments short.

  Thank you to Charles, Annabelle and Dominic for putting up with me and for making me laugh. Yes, even at the fart jokes.

  Thank you, Mum and Dad, and the rest of my incredible family for loving me, spoiling me and just generally being the best family a girl could ask for. Except the Royal Family, but they’re only better because I look smashing in a tiara.

  Thank you to my friends, my tribe, who have supported me from day one and have given me their time and their knowledge selflessly. Sometimes I’ve even asked for it.

  And thank you to my readers—you are few, but you amaze me. Thank you for embracing these characters and for loving them despite their flaws. That’s pretty cool. Not as cool as, say, erecting a statue in my honor, but there’s still time for that.

  ❤ Beth

  B. Cranford is a proud Australian living in the USA, a lover of books, breadsticks and bed, and the mother of two children who are far too similar to their father for her liking. A lifelong reader, she dove into the romance genre on the recommendation of her best friend and hasn’t looked back since. After three years as a blogger, she decided it was high time she finally finished one of the 12,002 books she’d started writing, and the end result was her debut novel, The Brightest Star.

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  The biggest gamble he ever took was leaving . . .

  Find out how Brighton and Sebastian fell (back) in love when you read The Brightest Star. Free with Kindle Unlimited

  - http://mybook.to/TheBrightestStar

  She thinks they’re enemies, he knows they’re something more . . .

  See Jade try—and fail—to fight her attraction to the World’s Biggest Jackass, Declan in A Little Bit Crazy. Free with Kindle Unlimited.

  - http://mybook.to/ALittleBitCrazy