Kiss Her Once for Me (48)

“Who’s going first this year?” Katherine asks gleefully.

Meemaw whips around to face me and Andrew sitting side by side on an ottoman. “Why don’t the lovebirds sing a little duet for us?” She waggles her eyebrows at us.

My singing voice is awful, but if Meemaw needs to hear Andrew and me sing a duet to believe our relationship, I’ll step up to the piano.

“Oh,” Andrew says, tensing. “A duet. I mean, Dylan and I usually—”

“Dylan and Andrew’s duet is a tradition,” Katherine says, and her declaration is final in this and in all things. Meemaw’s request is forgotten as Andrew rises from the ottoman and slides his body onto the piano bench. He sits behind the keys like he was born there. Dylan rubs the back of their neck with the hand not gripping their guitar.

“Eh, are you sure—?” They shoot me a look. “I mean, it is a tradition, but… you don’t mind if we—”

I wave a hand and take a gulp of my sangria. If my fake fiancé wants to serenade his secret ex in front of his family members, who am I to protest?

Dylan pulls a chair up beside Andrew on the piano bench. They both look stiff and uncomfortable with the new proximity, but then Andrew begins playing the opening notes of a song, and all the awkwardness between them dissolves.

The song in question is “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” and while I have a number of issues with this choice, I forget most of them as Dylan begins to strum their guitar. Then Andrew’s voice lifts over the instruments, and I fall in love with this stupid song. I can’t help myself. Andrew’s voice is rich molasses, turning the first line of the song into something luscious and sweet. When Dylan responds with a “but baby it’s cold outside,” it blends perfectly with Andrew’s. Their voices circle and cross each other in flawless harmony.

On the couch, Meemaw films on her phone, Lovey waves a lighter, and Katherine beams with pride. My gaze finds Jack across the living room, leaning against the fireplace mantel instead of sitting with the rest of us. She smiles crookedly as she watches her brother and her best friend sing this practiced duet.

When Andrew and Dylan’s voices braid together for the final “oh, but it’s cold outside,” Jack puts two fingers into her mouth and whistles. Andrew turns around on the piano bench, smiling almost shyly. Dylan puts their guitar aside and rubs the back of their neck again, pointedly not looking at Andrew. Andrew is very pointedly looking at Dylan.

For some reason, Meemaw is pointedly looking at me.

“Jack, take over,” Andrew says as he climbs up. “I’m going to make us some real holiday cocktails.”

Apparently, both siblings took twelve years of piano lessons, so Jack folds her large frame behind the piano while Andrew goes back into the kitchen. Meemaw sings next and performs a raunchy, off-key rendition of “Santa Baby,” then a stoned Lovey performs “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” making me laugh so hard sangria actually shoots out of my nose. Andrew finally brings out a tray of drinks in time for Katherine to go stand beside the piano while Jack plays “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” from the sheet music in front of her.

Andrew’s cocktail is a variation of whisky eggnog, and as soon as the taste hits my tongue, I’m back there, sitting in a dark bar with Jack on Christmas Eve, sipping spiced eggnog while our knees brush. I’m on the metal step of the Airstream, tasting eggnog on Jack’s mouth.

“If only in my dreams…” Katherine sings, and as the song comes to its pretty end, she turns to me. “Okay. It’s Ellie’s turn!”

Suddenly, there’s not enough alcohol in the world to make my legs unstick from the furniture. “Oh. No. I don’t think I—”

“Come on, sugar. We don’t judge. This is just for fun.”

I believe Meemaw, but the Kim-Prescotts’ general decency doesn’t seem like sufficient justification to humiliate myself. Andrew clearly disagrees, and he hoists me off the couch. “Come on, Oliver. You’re family now. You’ve got to sing.”

“Yeah, come on,” Dylan agrees. “You’ve gotta,” and I don’t trust for one minute that Dylan isn’t going to judge me.

Andrew positions me beside the piano. Jack is still on the bench, her long, square-knuckled fingers resting on white keys. She looks up at me, flicking her chin to get the hair out of her eyes. “What do you want to sing?”

“Nothing.” I set my eggnog down on a coaster atop the piano. “I—I don’t know very many Christmas songs.”

Jack drops her head, and I stare at the lock of hair that spills forward again. My whisky eggnog brain so badly wants to sweep that hair aside.

“How about this one?” Jack’s long fingers dance out the opening bars to “Holly Jolly Christmas.” We’ve heard this song a half-dozen times just in the past two days.

“Everyone knows this song.” Jack quarter-moon smiles at me, and my insides are a runny glass of eggnog. I hear the moment I’m supposed to start singing, but the words get caught in my throat, lodged behind memories of that smile and those fingers.

Jack loops the song back to the beginning to give me the cue to start again, but I’m frozen. Paralyzed by the idea of embarrassing myself.

She loops the song again. “We’re okay,” Jack whispers—actually whispers—so even Katherine close by can’t overhear. “No rush. Sing whenever you’re ready.”