Best Friends Don't Kiss(70)

Cinnamon rolls and pancakes.

Waffles and eggs.

Biscuits and gravy.

And well, pretty much any morning-inspired food item known to humankind.

We ate, we laughed, and we all most likely walked away from the kitchen with an extra five pounds.

But now that our bellies are full and my dad has what he calls “Guy’s Famous Christmas Tunes” playing through the Bluetooth speakers in the living room, it’s time to gather around the tree and open presents.

“Who wants to go first?” my dad asks, looking around the room, and to my utter surprise, Luke stands up from his spot beside me on the small sofa near the bay window.

“If you don’t mind, Guy, I’d like to start us off by giving Rose and your girls a gift.”

My dad’s lips curve into a smile beneath his fake white beard. “By all means, get us started, son.”

Luke walks over to the tree and picks up four large wrapped gifts, all the same size and shape, and hands one to my mom, then to Em, then to Kate, then to me. “Merry Christmas, Ace,” he says with a little wink and sits down beside me.

All four of us just kind of sit there, looking at one another, and it takes Luke saying, “Go ahead, open them” before we actually begin to tear into the wrapping paper.

But none of us anticipates what’s inside.

“Oh, Luke.” My mom gasps and puts a hand to her lips.

Em looks up at me with wide, tear-filled eyes.

Kate smiles.

And I just stare down at the gift in my lap in awe. “W-when did you do this? H-how did you do this?” I ask and lift my eyes to meet Luke’s soft gaze.

It’s the painting. The one I did of my sisters and Mom and me before I took a hiatus from painting all together.

“I saw the painting in your studio, and I just…I felt like your mom and sisters needed to have it. So, I had to borrow it from your apartment for a short while to have these prints made and framed.”

“You did this, Avie?” my dad asks, and I look up to meet his eyes. They shine with pride and love, and it makes a knot form in my throat.

All I can do is nod.

“My God, Ava. Your talent takes my breath away,” my mom whispers, her voice tender. “That’s you, you know,” she says and points to Kate. “Inside my belly, that’s you.”

Kate’s eyes shine with unshed emotion as she smiles at Mom. Then, she turns her attention to Luke. “Thank you for this,” she says. “This is…the most special gift I think I’ve ever received.”

“Me too,” Em says and leans back to rest her head against her husband Landon’s shoulder. “Ava, you’re so talented, it’s unreal.”

“She certainly is,” Luke agrees, and when a single tear flows down my cheek, he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close to his chest.

Within his embrace, while I look around at my mom and my dad and my sisters and the way Luke’s gift touched them, my heart wants to climb out of my chest and burrow inside his.

A few more tears slide down my cheeks, and I reach up to turn Luke’s face toward mine, gently pressing my lips to his.

“Thank you. So much,” I whisper against his mouth, and his lips quirk up into a smile against my skin.

“This was okay?” he asks, leaning back to meet my eyes again. “It was a good gift?”

“More than good,” I whisper back. “This means everything to me.”

You are everything to me.





Luke



“I’ll be honest,” I begin and sit down on the bed while Ava finishes brushing her teeth in the bathroom. “Christmas Day with your family is wonderful, but it’s also exhausting.”

She peeks around the door, the toothbrush clutched in her hand and the bristles still moving over her teeth, and giggles. “Tired?” she asks around a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Tired is an understatement.” I laugh and run a hand through my hair. “Tomorrow, we’re sleeping in. Hell, I might even skip my workout.”

“Skip your workout? What?” Ava pushes a wide-eyed, albeit dramatic, shocked look to her face. “That’s blasphemous,” she adds through a giggle and moves back into the bathroom to finish her bedtime routine.

The faucet switches on, and I glance out the window to spot snow still descending from the sky. A true white Christmas in Vermont. With Ava and her holiday-crazy family. Frankly, I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun.

Today’s events didn’t disappoint.

Between the big breakfast buffet and opening presents and drinking insane amounts of hot chocolate and her great-aunts bickering over who makes the best cookies and Ava giggling her ass off over their bickering—while eating their cookies, mind you—and watching her dad buzz around in his Santa suit, saying “Ho ho ho!” every chance he could get, this is, hands down, the best Christmas I’ve had in a very long time.

When I woke up this morning, I was nervous over the painting I had made into prints. I just wasn’t sure how Ava would react. Lately, she’s been so private and hesitant about her art. But when I spotted that painting in her makeshift studio a few weeks ago, I felt like it would be a travesty if her family never saw it.

I simply knew they would love it, and more than that, that they’d see what I see—Ava is incredibly talented.