Andrew’s departure was sudden and got me a little worried. I was sensing that we were all winding down anyway, but with the way he had gotten up and walked off… it made me feel like he was bothered by something. I wondered if maybe I had said something that had got him upset, or maybe this entire situation was getting to him. I didn’t know, and that bugged the shit out of me. I wanted to know what bothered him—that way I could try and fix it. We may not have even spent a night together yet, but damn it, I really cared about him.

I had let him go ahead and get to the guesthouse before me so he could get some space. I held back and cleaned up the table for my mom, who was already getting into cleanup mode, but I saw how tired she looked. I told her and Grandma to get to bed before they woke up with hangovers that even a college frat guy would be proud of. They thankfully agreed and let me handle the cleaning.

After about half an hour, I went back to the guesthouse and found Andrew sitting cross-legged by the fireplace, reading one of the books that had been sitting on the bookshelf. He was wearing the red, white, and black plaid pajamas my mom had surprised us with. Just another cute little touch on her Christmas wonderland fantasy.

“You look like you’re straight out of a storybook,” I said.

“And you look like you’re straight out of a lumberjack calendar.”

I laughed, feeling myself lighten at the fact that Andrew seemed fine. I had wound myself up over the past half an hour, thinking about all kind of things that could have gotten Andrew upset. Most all of them centered around me. Thankfully, though, he didn’t seem pissed at me in the slightest.

“Just point me to some wood, I’ll chop it up.” I swung an imaginary axe. I could see what he meant since I was wearing a pair of light blue jeans that hugged my thighs, with some big ol’ Timberland boots on and a heavy dark green coat. I was just missing the thick beard. I wanted to get comfortable, though, and Andrew looked comfortable as fuck. So I excused myself and went to change into my pajamas: a pair of dark green-and-white plaid pajamas that were the most comfortable pieces of clothing I’d ever put on. I didn’t know where my mom got this, but I could only assume it was straight from heaven.

Back inside the living room, Andrew was still sitting on the couch, the book set to the side. He had been scrolling through his phone in one hand, a glass of ice-cold water in the other.

“How ya feeling?” I asked, claiming the seat opposite him on the couch.

“All right,” he said, putting his phone down. He took a big gulp of the water. I couldn’t help but watch as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Gonna feel this tomorrow, though. I get hangovers like I’m a ’90s kid getting a Furby; It’s intense, and scary, and really damn useless.”

I laughed at that. “You ever had one of those?”

“Are you kidding? I had, like, an entire farm of them. I made my mom get in line for the big release with me. We were standing outside of a Toys “R” Us starting at five in the morning.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “That’s impressive. I did that for the final Harry Potter book when it had come out. That’s the only thing I’ve ever lined up early for, though.”

“I didn’t know you were a Potterhead!” Andrew perked up. He set the glass on the small table next to the couch and turned his body so he was cross-legged and facing me. “Let me guess… Ravenclaw.”

“Actually… damn, are you going to hate me? The Sorting Hat on the official website put me in Slytherin.”

“Okay, okay, we can work with that,” Andrew said, his drunken smile just as cute and infectious as his sober one. It surprised me when Andrew had talked about my smile as a compliment, only because I had been so hypnotized by his. “Really?” he asked.

“Mhmm,” I confirmed.

“That’s fine—bad boys are sexy.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a bad boy,” I countered.

“But would you say you’re sexy? Because I would.” His eyes opened wide before I saw his cheeks flush pink. “Okay, so my filter has officially left the premises.”

“That’s fine; I don’t think we need filters here. I want to be a hundred with you, and I want you to be the same with me.” The fire crackled over the logs, the scent from the burning wood filling the room. “I know this relationship we’ve sort of created isn’t real, but that doesn’t mean you and I can’t be real. I want to get to know you, Andrew. Even if it just means we turn into good friends after this. I want to get in your head and let you into mine.”

Friends. That’s the last thing I want from this.

I couldn’t say that, though, no matter how badly the words burned on the tip of my tongue. I knew if we stayed friends, I would end up pining over him for the rest of time. No, when this ended, it would have to be a clean cut.

Fuck.

“All right, fine. What do you want to know about me?” Andrew asked, pulling me away from my negative thoughts.

“Anything,” I said, wanting to get lost in whatever Andrew had to say. He was a storyteller, I’d quickly come to realize, and anything he told me was bound to wrap me up.

“Anything, huh? Okay, so did you know that mitochondrial DNA is only inherited from the mother and that it’s a really useful way of tracking someone’s heritage?”

I stared at him with a blank face before I chuckled. “You’re ridiculous. Tell me something about you.” I then added, “Although that was very interesting, thank you.”

“Welcome,” he said, smiling. “I don’t know, let’s see. I was born and raised in Philadelphia until I was fifteen. I have an allergy to strawberries and don’t like the texture of sushi. Any kind of sushi, before you ask. My Hogwarts house is Hufflepuff, badger pride. I have an intense fear of frogs, and I really don’t like bugs that much, either. Also horses scare me. Basically anything much bigger or much smaller than me gives me anxiety. I have a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice, and I attended the police academy for two days before I dropped out because it cleaaarly wasn’t for me.”

I was taken on a ride by the quick-fire round of facts, and I committed them all to memory. I honed in on the last bit first. “Wow, yeah, I can’t see you arresting someone.”

“Neither could anyone else in the academy,” Andrew said, snorting. “I’d end up feeling bad and probably let some hardened criminal go because he gave me some dumb sob story about the puppy he lost as a kid.”

I laughed at that. “That’s not such a bad thing. Means you’re a good person.”

“No, it just means I’m naïve,” he said.

I didn’t believe that. Andrew struck me as the kindest guy on this planet. “So Philly, huh? What got you to come to New York?”

“I, um, well.” He picked up the glass of water, the ice clinking together. He took two long drinks. The clink of the glass getting set back on the side table sounded like a gong vibrating through the silence. “So, I left the dinner party a little abruptly because… I lost both my parents. Back when I was fifteen. It was around this time of the year, actually, four days after Thanksgiving. They were coming home from a date night, one that my mom had been so excited for. And, um.” Andrew swallowed but couldn’t hide the emotion that welled up inside him. It felt like a stab through the chest, seeing him hurt like this, hearing the pain he had gone through. I moved over on the couch so I could hold his hand. There were a few tears sliding down his face. I wiped them away, looking into Andrew’s eyes and letting him know I was there for him.

“So they were coming home,” he continued after a few moments of collecting himself. “And when they were five minutes away from the driveway, a drunk driver took a red and rammed straight into them. There was a fire… there… I…” And Andrew cracked. He started to cry, as if his soul were being pulled from out from his body. I put my arm around him and pulled him in, letting his head bury into my neck, his tears soaking through my shirt. He couldn’t see, but tears of my own were forming and falling, dropping onto the top of Andrew’s head.

It was a while longer until either of us spoke. “I’m so sorry, Andrew,” I said. “I’m so, so fucking sorry.” He looked at me, his eyes puffy and red but a smile still flickering on his face, trying to break through the darkness. “I lost my father. It was sudden. A heart attack—I was seventeen. The pain never goes away, does it? But pain is a human experience, just like love, like happiness, like excitement. It’s a necessary component to life, even if the pain is caused by the loss of life. So I acknowledge the pain, every damn day; I see it for what it is. And then I think of my dad, and how he would want me living this life to the fullest every single day. And so the pain quiets down.”

“I do the same,” Andrew said, his lip trembling but his tears stopping. “I know they’re looking down, wondering why the hell I still leave clothes in the dryer for days.”

“I’m sure they’re looking down and feeling pure pride at the man you’ve turned out to be.”

Andrew smiled at that. “I hope so.”

“Who helped with taking care of you after they passed?” I wasn’t sure if my questions were unwarranted, but I remembered my childhood being thrown off its axis by the death of my father. Thank God I still had my mother, but Andrew had been left with no parents from one day to the next. That was just… it was unfathomable.

“My grandparents,” he answered, his voice shaky. “They were incredible. Kept me from dropping out of school and focused on the future. I don’t think I would have made it out of that if it weren’t for them.”

With the way Andrew was speaking about them, I already knew the sad truth before he said it.

“They passed three years ago. Two months apart.”

“Jesus, Andrew.” I rubbed his back, feeling absolutely useless in the moment. How was someone who was such a bright source of positive energy so touched by tragedy? It was monumentally heartbreaking in a way I hadn’t felt before.

“It’s been difficult, I’m not going to lie.” He looked up from the floor, his eyes wet. “No filter, right?”

“Right,” I said, managing a weak smile.

There was something that happened then. A bond was formed that went so much deeper than the house of cards we had built up around us in such a short amount of time. We both had a current of pain inside us, and that linked us in a way we hadn’t been connected before.

“You’re inspirational, you know that, right? You’ve been put through challenges that would break even the strongest-willed warrior. And you somehow maintained your sense of humor and love of life, even after life tried beating you down. That’s pure inspiration, Andrew.”

His brows went up, and his head went down. I put a finger on his chin and lifted it so that his eyes were back on mine. “I mean it, Andrew. I honestly don’t know how someone could have let you go the way they did. He’s losing someone really special. Like chucking a boulder-sized diamond straight into the middle of the Atlantic.”

“Well, I just hope someone has a good enough submarine to find that diamond you’re talking about.”

And there it was, his humor coming through again, even when the dark clouds of our past hovered over us, threatening us with a deluge of sadness. Andrew, instead of succumbing, said fuck it and threw a joke into the air, and just like that, the clouds dispersed.

“I’ve got a feeling someone is braving the depths as we speak.”

Andrew stayed silent for a moment. He kissed me then, surprising me. It was short and quick and sweet and left me with the taste of cinnamon and red wine on my lips.

“I wish him the best of luck, then,” Andrew said, smiling wider now. He settled in next to me and leaned his head on my shoulder. Our conversation died down, although my brain was still buzzing with things to say. I could sense exhaustion from Andrew, though, and I didn’t want to press anything.

I held him a little longer, the crackling and snaps of the fireplace taking over as the only sound in the room. It wasn’t much longer after that I heard a gentle snore coming from Andrew. I stayed rock still for as long as I could, not wanting to interrupt a second of his sleep.

Before I knew it my own eyelids gave way and my head lolled back, and both of us were snoring, kept warm by each other and the fire burning a few feet away, the pain temporarily erased and replaced by dreams of sugar plum fairies dancing in our heads.