I felt Tobe had gone solid at my side.

“Not that Johnny isn’t cool, but I mean, you got it goin’ on,” she finished hurriedly. “When she heard you were coming tonight, Bea wanted to make you a fake key to Matlock and present it to you. Jocelyn works in the city. Rumor has it she’s looking for places up there so she can move. So, uh . . .” she seemed to belatedly read his vibe, “at the very least, let me get you a beer.”

“Great,” Toby said kind of tightly.

“Come on. There’s lots of food too,” she invited. “I’ll show you.”

We followed her, and as we did, I looked up at Toby.

He was watching the back of her head like he couldn’t tear his eyes from it.

I didn’t have the shot to ask after his state as she led us to a little dining room.

She was right. There was a lot of food.

“Wow, impressive spread,” I noted.

“I’m completely incapable of letting anyone leave my house feeling anything less than bloated, but I’m going for that dude in the Monty Python movie that exploded. That’s a warning. I mean that not just at Christmas, when it’s a moral imperative to eat until you explode, but even when I have my semi-annual Magic Mike nights,” Lora told me.

I again started laughing.

She led us to a sideboard that was covered in booze and big tubs of alternate drinks.

“Beer.” She waved her hand over a tub. “And what can I get you, Addie?”

“Beer is good for me too,” I said.

She put the bottle of wine down that I gave her and assessed our faces as she touched bottles, pulling out our preferences, snapping the caps and handing them to us.

“Koozie stash at the end,” she said.

“This is for you,” Toby told her, offering the chocolates.

“Oh no you didn’t! Yay!” she cried, taking them. “I have to hide these. Immediately! Be right back.”

Then she took off.

I turned right to Toby.

“You good?”

“Guess the mild qualms I had that I was a colossal dick to Jocelyn are gonna go away. Even I didn’t know she was that big of a bitch.”

“You had qualms?” I asked.

“Babe, I was a colossal dick.”

That was so Toby.

I leaned into him and he put his arm around me. “You’re a Christmas hero.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, his lips hitching, then he sucked back some brew.

“And you’re the cool Gamble brother.”

His eyes came down to me.

“And you so totally are,” I finished.

“Focus on the shit, gotta learn,” he said.

“Sorry?”

“You focus on the shit. The shit people say about you. The shit people feed you. And when people treat you like shit. Focused on that with my mom, focused on that with crap people would say about me. Didn’t focus on Margot thinkin’ I could do anything. Dave and Dad bein’ proud of me. Even with Johnny, when it was mostly all good, I focused on the big brother thing that was annoying the fuck out of me.”

“Even I thought that last was a bit much,” I told him. “And you know I adore Johnny.”

“Yeah, but I knew who I was and what I was doin’, and I’ve always known that. Fuck anyone else.”

I leaned deeper. “Yeah. Fuck anyone else, baby.”

He grinned down at me.

“Oh God, you’re loved up,” Lora said after she returned. “I’d want to spend the rest of the night after everyone left plotting your murders out of sheer jealousy if you guys weren’t June and Johnny, that being the one with the last name of Cash. Though you have better hair,” she said to Toby. “And so do you,” she said to me. “And that’s saying something because those two could do hair.” She looked around muttering, “Your sister and your brother are Goldie and Kurt. Totally. Now where did I put my wineglass?”

“You didn’t have it when we first saw you,” Toby told her.

“Right!” She snapped her fingers in the air. “The other room! Be back.”

“You don’t have to entertain us,” I said.

“Sister, we need to talk,” she replied. “First, I open up the new year, obviously, with Magic Mike, the third Friday in January. Pencil that bitch in. It’s the official initiation ceremony for everyone in the posse and since our second showing doesn’t happen until July, you gotta come to the first one. Second, my cousin has a sixteen-year-old who is dying to buy a car, so she needs babysitting jobs. She’s a good kid. Totes responsible. Honor roll. Class officer. All that jazz. I’ll set up a meet and you can suss her out, and if you need her for your little cutie, she’d love me forever. Next, take your coats off for goodness sakes. Dump them on the bed in my bedroom, And last, I just need my wine. Be back!”

Then she took off.

“She’s making me tired,” I whispered on a smile.

“She’s fuckin’ hilarious,” Toby did not whisper.

“Do you want to take our coats off and stay awhile?” I asked. “Or down this beer and get out of here?”

“Tobe! Hey, man!” a male voice called from the room.

“Coats off. Stay awhile. Suss out a babysitter. Make a friend. And I’m eating every last one of her peanut butter cookies with the Hershey’s Kisses shoved in because I’m still not down with giving her the last of our nut clusters, and I feel the need to get mine back,” Toby replied, shrugging off his jacket.

I shrugged mine off too.

“Hey! Cool you’re here,” the same male voice said as Toby took my jacket.

Toby introduced me. Then said he had to get rid of our jackets.

Someone else came to us and took them away.

Toby introduced me to that somebody else too.

And it was then Toby stood by the drinks and held court, maybe not getting he was doing that, standing there in all his handsomeness, coolness and mystique, a treasured son of Matlock, town royalty, and simply just the guy, maybe one of all of two in the whole county who could show at a Christmas party and make a fun ’do the place to be.

And while he unknowingly did this, I stood in the curve of his arm, sipping beer, chatting, and wondering if I should tell him.

I decided to find the right time to tease him about it.

And I sipped beer in the curve of the arm of town royalty, enjoying a Christmas party.

The place to be.

 

The party had been fun.

And I was glad we stayed.

Even as long as we stayed.

Because it was, as I mentioned, fun.

Also because we stayed long enough to decimate Lora’s peanut butter and Kisses cookies.

Now I was glad to get home.

Have caveman sex with Toby.

Sleep by his side.

Get up, sort the apps for Christmas Eve, do my shift, and then start Brooks and my first Christmas in Matlock.

With Toby.

Okay, so I had a few presents to wrap still.

But what mom worth her salt didn’t stay up late Christmas Eve wrapping presents?

And anyway, Tobe and I had already had a present-wrapping night.

He was hopeless.

But he was good at putting his finger on the ribbon and handing me tape.

Though we wrapped presents like we did everything.