I laugh and play hit him, but he catches my wrist and pulls me closer to him. I react the way any rational girl in my position would—I kiss him.
No matter how many times we do it, my body always reacts like it’s the first time. Butterflies, electricity, heart in overdrive. We end up tangled in each other, with Aiden lying on top of me. He pulls away and hovers over me on his elbows, my hands in his hair.
“You know I was just joking before,” he says, his voice low and honest. “I would never force you to do anything before you’re ready. I’m not in any rush.”
I answer him by pulling him toward me and kissing him with all I’ve got.
Right when things are starting to get heated, the door bursts open. “Hey, guys, we’re going to—Oh God! Get a room, Jesus!” Noah throws his hands over his eyes, acting as if the sight of us together has physically burned his corneas.
Aiden gives a very agitated sigh and grudgingly rolls off of me. “We did, Noah.”
Since we hadn’t yelled at Noah to leave, he peeks through his fingers and calms down when he realizes that I’m fully clothed.
“You should start knocking before barging into rooms,” I tell him, not really mad, more just perturbed my time with Aiden was cut short.
“You guys should start locking doors when you’re planning on getting it on.”
“We weren’t—”
“Doesn’t matter! Don’t want to know the details. Like, ever,” Noah interrupts me. “Just came to tell you that the twins have passed out in bed and the adults have decided to play a drinking game, if you want to join.”
“They’re asleep already?” Aiden asks. “They’re usually too excited to go to bed since they can’t wait for morning to open presents.”
“Yeah, I think they’re just really tired, there’s a lot going on here. We promised them we’d set the milk out for Santa before bed, though. Are you guys in for some Christmas Eve drinking fun?”
Aiden’s not really a big drinker. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drink alcohol. He responds by pulling on his shirt and telling Noah we’ll meet him in the family room.
“Are you sure? I can always just tell everyone you guys were too busy fuc—”
I cut him off by lobbing a pillow at his head à la Annalisa, and he laughs, shutting the door as he leaves and makes his way back to the group.
The drinking game we settled on was king’s cup. Basically, we sit in a circle with our drinks and a deck of cards in the middle, and take turns flipping over the top card. Every card is assigned a meaning, the end goal being that someone has to drink.
For example, two means you, so if I flip over a two, I get to choose someone to drink. Three means me, so whoever pulls a three has to drink. Seven means heaven, so the last person in the circle to raise their hands in the air has to drink, and so on until we finish the deck, shuffle, and repeat.
Aiden plays with us, and despite him not being much of a drinker, the alcohol is barely affecting him as far as I can tell. But four full decks and an endless number of empty beer bottles later, the rest of us are all pretty much smashed, Mason, Chase, Julian, and Charlotte the worst of us. It’s a good thing Aiden got the twins’ presents sorted out, along with the stockings, before we started, or else it’d have been a very disappointing Christmas for Jackson and Jason.
Mason and Chase are drunk because instead of taking regular sized drinks when it’s their turn, they basically take two giant gulps or chug half their beer. Julian because he was a really good Question Master the first game and kept screwing everyone over, (if you pull a Queen you become Question Master until someone else pulls a Queen, and if anyone answers any questions you ask during that period, they have to drink), so for the rest of the night, everyone has been targeting him as retribution. And Charlotte’s plastered because she’s a lightweight.
“Whose turn was it again?” Noah slurs as I sit back down on the floor with a couple of beers for whoever’s empty.
No one answers, not to be rude, but because we all remember that he’s the current Question Master.
Instead, Mason flips over the top card. It’s an eight, which means he gets to make up a rule that lasts throughout the entire deck, and every time you break it, you need to drink.
“If you say ‘no swearing’ again, I will dump my entire beer on your head,” Annalisa threatens.
The no swearing rule in the second game is pretty much the reason most of us are a bit more than tipsy.
“Now, now, Anna. You can’t coerce the rule maker.” Mason smiles drunkenly. “Okay, if you pull a card with a suit of hearts, you need to kiss the closest person of the opposite sex on your … left!”
Mason is the closest person of the opposite sex on my left. No matter how hard I tried, fate put me right beside him.
“I don’t want Noah planting his lips on my girl!” Julian announces, throwing a heavy arm around Annalisa.
“Why? Scared she’ll realize she’s madly in love with me and dump you?” Noah retorts.
“More like I don’t want her catching whatever you’ve got,” Julian counters.