“Well,” she says, holding my gaze, “if that’s something you really want, then you’ll have to figure out how to make it happen.”
Her response surprises me, jolts me, and I drop her arm.
She walks toward the car, hopping in the driver’s seat. Skylar gets in next to her, the tree tied securely on top. Xavier walks back to my side, waving as their doors close.
“What did she say?” he asks out of the corner of his mouth.
“I think she just issued me a challenge.”
“Oh yeah?” His gaze flits briefly to me. “You going to take it?”
I nod, watching the car pull out of the parking lot. “Since when have I said no to a challenge?”
30
Gwen
The days before Christmas pass quickly, filled with shopping, baking, and all of our family traditions. They’re also filled with something unexpected. Little gifts begi
n showing up for me on the front step. They’re wrapped shoddily—too much tape, jaggedly cut paper—like it was either done by a child or someone who has never wrapped a gift in their entire life.
Someone with delicate hands.
The first day is a T-shirt, personalized to ‘Monkey Bar President’, and it’s randomly cryptic enough that it takes me a few solid hours to work up a good suspicion regarding who it’s from, and what it’s a reference to.
The second day is a box of Eggos, which erased all my doubt as to who was sending them.
The third day, a pizza arrives, and it’s feta and artichoke, prompting a lot of questions from my family.
“Care to share who this secret admirer is?” Mom asks as I take a bite, making it impossible to reply.
“Is it Tyson?” Michaela wonders, propping her chin on her fists. “I like him.”
“I like him, too. I also like his girlfriend,” I reply, not wanting my sister to run with a new rumor.
“Well, who else could it be?” she asks, picking off a piece of feta. “You don’t know anyone else.”
Micha stays conspicuously silent about it all, while Brayden just sends me significant looks. They both must know. I’m pretty sure I know how Micha feels about it, given his whole forgiveness lecture, but Brayden’s a bit of a mystery. Granted, that alone is saying a lot. A few days prior, he’d gone with me to the store to find a joint gift for Dad, and had brought Hamilton up. It was jarring, to say the least, especially when he turned to me and said, “I don’t know if he’s a good person, and you definitely deserve better. But that guy is a complete fucking mess over you, Gwen. You need to hear him out. Woman up and let him tell his side. You both need it.”
When he told me about Hamilton coming over to see me, I was stunned speechless. When he told me that Hamilton had nothing to do with what happened to Micha, I realized that he didn’t even need to. Deep down, I suppose I already suspected—already knew that Hamilton was better than that, even at his worst. Then Brayden confessed that he’d taken Hamilton to have that damn shoulder finally looked at. What is going on here?
It’s not a blessing, but it isn’t not a blessing, either. I get the feeling Brayden has absolved Hamilton for the crimes he had no part in, and feels the rest could be forgiven, for someone who really wanted it, really earned it.
Other than the gifts, I haven’t heard a word from Hamilton. That’s not unusual, but these new tactics definitely are. Before, when he wanted something, he either took it or hounded me into giving it to him. This is something way different. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and Hamilton Bates has always been a sprinter.
Something has changed.
On Christmas Eve, I make increasingly pathetic excuses to go outside and check the porch. I pretend I’m looking for a UPS package. I need to get something out of the car. I need to put a card in the mailbox, despite knowing the mail won’t even run tomorrow. But each time I go out there, the front step is annoyingly void of any gifts, and I begin to worry that the game is over.
This upsets me more than I’d like.
Maybe those three things are all he knows about me? Maybe that’s all there is. Maybe our relationship is hollow and predicated on nothing more than years of competitive angst toward each other. All the same, maybe he’s just been waiting for me to respond in some way? How would I go about doing that? Where would I leave the presents? I don’t even know where his sister lives.
There are no rules here. Hamilton and I are in the wilderness.
I try not to let it get me down, instead determined to focus on my family for the remainder of the day. Every Christmas Eve since the dawn of mankind, my mom has made a big pot of her incredible potato soup, and for the last couple years, Skylar and Michaela have made fresh bread to go with it. Brayden and my dad spend each year making bets on the football game, and Micha adds another move to the rather ambitious Christmas dance routine he’s been building on since he was six. We already have way too many desserts, and we gather around to watch classic Christmas movies in our matching pajamas, which is another Adams tradition. It started as a way to get the twins to settle down and go to bed, but now that everyone is older, it’s just something we have to do every year.
We’re in the middle of A Year Without Santa Claus when there’s a knock on the front door. Dad’s in the kitchen getting more cookies, and a few minutes later he calls, “Gwen, can you come in here?”