Brady

Brady limped up his driveway after basketball practice. He was ready for a long winter break to lick his wounds. Not only had he gotten his ass handed to him at practice today, but Maci broke up with him.

Talk about kicking a guy when he’s down.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. It was probably karma for the way things had ended with Chloe. Honestly, breaking up with her had been a mistake. Not only had he lost a girl he actually connected with, but a good friend, too. The way Maci dumped Brady when he told her that he couldn’t go on the ski trip had him second-guessing everything.

It had been clear from the beginning that Maci was mainly interested in dating him because he was the high school hero of the moment. Once football season ended, things started to go downhill in their relationship. Brady was still captain of the basketball team, but he wasn’t the star. That title belonged to Cooper Hanes.

So Brady wasn’t surprised when he saw Maci waiting by Cooper’s car after practice today. But that didn’t stop Brady from feeling like shit.

Things had been purely physical between Brady and Maci—which he wasn’t complaining about. He was an eighteen-year old boy. That pretty much made him a walking erection. But Brady found himself confused by the sudden emotional loss he felt. Had he loved Maci?

He’d loved the attention and the hooking-up, but they didn’t have a friendship. Not like he and Chloe did. Or used to. Not counting today, Chloe hadn’t spoken to Brady since they broke up.

Thinking of Chloe filled him with regret. Brady looked across his snow-covered lawn toward her house. Chloe’s was the only other house on Pine Drive. She lived about three hundred yards away in an old log cabin that had been passed down from her great-great-grandfather, who started Everett’s Christmas Tree Farm. Brady knew that because his mother was good friends with Chloe’s mother.

The Price family had taken Brady’s family under their wing when they moved to upstate New York. Brady had spent every summer and holiday playing with Chloe and Margot, and when he got older he spent them working at the tree farm. He had a lot of fond memories there. Regret seized him as he realized his poor decisions had cost him any future memories. Or had they?

He wondered if Chloe would give him another chance. Christmas was the season of forgiveness, wasn’t it?

Brady looked harder at Chloe’s little log cabin. There was a familiar SUV in her driveway and a ton of commotion on the front porch. Brady paused at his own porch to watch. Two dark-haired boys stood outside carrying luggage, while . . . that shriek!

Brady shivered. He’d know that shrill voice anywhere. Margot was home.

Chloe

Chloe sat at the dinner table stabbing at her salad. She couldn’t believe Margot was home. She was practically bursting at the seams to pull her sister aside and ask her everything. She wanted to know all about college in New York City and her dreamy boyfriend, but most of all, she wanted to tell her sister what happened with Brady.

Chloe had said she was done with Brady, planning to put their issues aside and forget all about him during her winter break boy cleanse. But that was before she knew Margot was coming home for the holidays. There was no way she could spend the holiday in the same room with her sister without telling her what happened with Brady. Margot would surely ask about him.

Anxiety knotted Chloe's stomach as she realized she'd have to admit to her sister that she'd been lying to her for nearly three months.

“So how long are you all staying?” Chloe’s mother asked excitedly.

Chloe watched Owen glance in his brother’s direction. Their eyes met and Ethan’s partial frown deepened. Owen’s smile faltered only for a moment before he replied to Chloe’s mother. “I’m not sure yet. We don’t want to be an inconvenience.”

“Nonsense,” Chloe’s mother said. “We’re happy to have you. And Margot, I can’t tell you how happy we are that you’re here. The whole family is back together. It’s a Christmas miracle.”

Chloe glanced around the table of leftover pizza and salad. It certainly didn’t look like a miracle. But since Margot hadn't given much warning to her arrival, dinner was an improvised affair. Everyone was finished eating but Chloe’s mother just kept gushing about how happy she was to have both her girls home for the holidays.

Her father was just as bad, reminiscing about meager holidays gone by when they didn’t have enough money for gifts so they used to make them. That’s how the ugly Christmas sweaters that were now the staff uniforms came about. Chloe’s mother had made them.

The stories should've been embarrassing but Owen was all smiles as her father regaled them with story after story. It was obvious from the way the Hall Brothers dressed and their impeccable table manners that they came from money. Chloe could only imagine what they thought of her crazy Christmas cabin. Their home used to belong to her great-great-grandfather and was well over a hundred years old. Her great-great-grandfather, Everett, had built the place with his own hands—something that everyone in the family was proud of. But to two boys who'd come from New York City this place probably looked like a hunting shack full of Christmas crazy.

Chloe noticed the slight worry in her sister's eyes as if she were thinking the same thing. Chloe wanted to pull Margot aside and ask her what she'd been thinking bringing city boys out to the country. Obviously she'd promised them a beautiful Christmas at the lodge, not having the foresight to book a room. But that was Margot. She lived in the moment.

So far, Owen didn't seem deterred by the simple surroundings of the Price’s home at all, but Ethan had a constant scowl on his face as his eyes roamed over the Christmas décor that cluttered the house year-round.

The other strange part of this whole evening was the way the two handsome strangers at the dinner table made Chloe feel. Okay, it was really just Ethan. When he wasn’t looking around the small cabin with his judgy green eyes he was staring at Chloe. No one else seemed to notice, but Chloe couldn’t help feeling nervous. She’d never been as outgoing as the rest of her family and the idea of spending a relaxing winter break with two guys, who could easily give David Beckham a run for his money, wandering the house seemed impossible. How was Chloe supposed to relax in her ratty pajamas with them around?

“So,” Chloe’s father was saying. “Where are you boys from again?”

“Manhattan, sir,” Owen replied.

“Sir. I like that,” Chloe’s mother said, charmed by Owen’s formalness. “So what brings you boys up here for the holidays?”

“Your daughter, ma’am,” Owen replied, lacing his fingers through Margot’s. “I’m just crazy about her. And when she mentioned spending Christmas together it was an offer too good to refuse.”

Chloe’s mother put down her fork. “I have to say, Margot, you two must be pretty serious to give up a trip to Italy.”

Margot and Owen shared a conspiratorial look only people in love could manage. “We are,” Margot replied.

Chloe’s mother sighed. “Don’t you just love, love?”

“We’re happy to have you,” her father said.

“That's right, the more the merrier I always say,” her mother added.

Chloe caught Ethan staring at her again. Desperate for conversation to break his penetrating gaze that she asked, “Won’t your family miss you this Christmas?”

Ethan and Owen exchanged another uncomfortable glance. Chloe swore Owen shook his head ever so slightly but Ethan answered anyway. “I doubt it since we weren’t invited to spend Christmas with them.”

A heavy silence settled over the dinner table making Chloe feel about two inches tall. Why the hell had she asked that? Ugh. This was precisely why she preferred not to speak. She somehow always managed to put her foot in her mouth.

Finally, Owen cleared his throat. “Yeah, our family’s not big on the holidays. But we sure do appreciate you taking us in on such short notice like this.”

“Of course, sweetheart,” Chloe’s mother said. “Can I get anyone another slice of pizza?”

“No ma’am,” the boys replied in unison.

“Well, then how about we move to the living room for some Christmas cookies and eggnog?”

Everyone jumped at the opportunity to escape the awkwardness at the table. And this time, Chloe felt she deserved the glare Ethan sent her way.