Chapter 6
“I can’t believe you!” Mica tapped Roger on the shoulder playfully. “You are such a freak!”
“He started it!” The young, gorgeous ball player pointed from his position in the back seat to the man in front of him.
Through her own laughter, Maya shifted in the front passenger seat and turned her attention to the car’s driver, and the one responsible for the off-color joke about the inflatable Santa’s questionable position behind Rudolph.
Everett’s gaze remained focused on the narrow neighborhood street, but his grin was blinding. “Guilty.”
Maya had never had this much fun on their traditional Christmas Eve lights ride. Usually she sat in the back seat, falling asleep as her parents slowly drove through the neighborhoods and pointed to all the neighbors’ Christmas light displays while Mica played on his phone.
Tonight, however, her parents were in their car with Trudy while she rode with Mica, the man Mica had brought home for Christmas, and Everett freaking Evans. They rode in Everett’s fancy car, cruising the quiet streets of the North Bay. And Maya hadn’t laughed this hard in years.
“I swear. Last weekend I was at a party with a dozen celebrities, an open bar, and live entertainment, and I didn’t have as much fun as I am having right now,” Roger said.
Maya turned her head to look into the back seat in time to see Mica grab Roger’s hand and pull it into his lap as the two of them stared lovingly into each other’s eyes.
“You guys are freaking adorable.” The statement, said low and with utter sincerity, came from Everett, who was glancing at Mica and Roger in the rearview mirror as the car was stopped at a corner.
“Aw, thanks hot, straight guy,” Mica said as Roger laughed.
Maya put a hand on her chest. She hadn’t done much dating lately. But the men she’d been out with over the years were a bit of a mixed bag when it came to her beloved brother, who was both proud of who he was and unafraid to be demonstrative about it. She’d immediately dumped one guy who expressed open homophobia. The others had claimed to be fine with Mica, but some seemed to be hiding discomfort that always made her hate them just a little bit.
Everett, on the other hand, was not only comfortable with Mica and Roger cuddling in his back seat, he seemed to be genuinely touched by their affection. His reaction to them was similar to that of Mica’s lifelong best friend, Joel, who had spent a great deal of their college years in gay bars with Mica despite being straight himself.
It wasn’t that it was strange. In Maya’s mind it should be the norm. It was that, for some reason, she hadn’t expected it from Everett. She mentally scolded herself for making assumptions.
“You okay?” Everett asked.
The car had stopped, pulled over in front of a modest ranch-style house with the most pathetic light display in the neighborhood. Mica and Roger had climbed out and were pulling a set of decorations from the trunk.
“I’m good,” Maya told him. Mica passed her window, his arms burdened. “We should probably help them play Santa.”
She reached for the door handle, but Everett set his hand on her other arm. She froze. “They said they got this. They wanted us to stay in the car for a quick getaway.”
Maya chuckled. “Like someone is going to come out with a shotgun because two dudes are decorating their yard?”
“It does seem doubtful.” He grinned. “Especially since this is the house of the middle school principal.” He squinted his eyes to see Mica and Roger better in the darkness. “The battery operated lights were a good idea. That way the family won’t have a bigger electric bill. Mom says they have like six kids.”
The compassion in his voice combined with the warmth of his hand, still on her arm, touched her. “Are you having fun?” she asked, because she didn’t know what the hell else to say.
“God, yes. I agree with Roger. This is the most fun I’ve had in a while. Especially at family Christmas.”
Everett and Roger had been incredibly good sports. They might have been lulled into thinking this would be a normal Christmas Eve while they were eating dinner at the McDonald dining table. But right after the plates were cleared, Bert and Henny had loaded them up into the two vehicles and taken them to the hospital to sing carols to the patients. After a couple hours of awkwardly trudging through the same four songs over and over again in various hospital wards, they’d embarked on this adventure which had taken another couple hours of driving around people’s homes like creepers and looking at the Christmas lights they’ve had up for the last six weeks.
Everett hadn’t made a single protest, produced one eye roll, or done anything other than grin from ear-to-ear all night. Maya wanted so badly to hear him grumble something insensitive under his breath or make a sarcastic comment. But he didn’t. He was everything she thought he was all those years ago. And it was killing her.
“Just wait. It gets better. After this we sit around the kitchen table and decorate Christmas cookies while listening to Bing Crosby,” she warned him.
His smile grew impossibly larger. “I can’t wait.”
****
Seven years ago…
Butterflies danced in Maya’s stomach. She peeked out from beneath her dark lashes at the beautiful man sitting across from her at the all-night diner.
“So after I got out of soccer practice and Elias was done with fencing practice, we would sit in the basement and do crafts together.” He chuckled, and the thick, rich sound affected Maya all the way to her toes. “It was our way of relaxing.” He shook his head. “People thought we were so weird. Well, the people who knew.”
“I’ll bet it was a pretty guarded secret.” Maya smiled at him.
His eyes snapped to Maya’s lips.
Maya stayed still as the silence stretched between them. She was sober now. The few flutes of champagne she’d had while chatting with him at the senior art show had not held up well as they stood in the parking lot outside the gallery in the darkening evening and talked for another hour after the show was over. Then any buzz she might have had completely succumbed to the coffee and waffles they lingered over. Plates empty, cups nearly so, it was late, but Maya was wide awake as she watched his tongue smooth over his bottom lip.
“Maya,” he said, his voice quiet and rough. “You are an incredibly beautiful woman. And I don’t think I’ve ever had such easy conversation with a stranger in my life.”
It was so true. They’d been together for the past five hours and their conversation had been nearly constant and mostly filled with laughter and smiles.
They’d avoided the subject of his unfaithful—presumably now ex—girlfriend. They didn’t discuss Maya’s awkward approach or whether or not two strangers should be hanging out together so deep into the night. Instead, they talked about everything from her art to his schooling to their weird hobbies.
“It doesn’t feel like we’re strangers.” Her voice was soft, nearly pleading.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Maya hadn’t touched Everett all night. And he hadn’t touched her. Now the urge to not only reach toward him, but to plaster herself to him from head to toe and seal her lips with his, was overwhelming.
“Any chance…” Maya swallowed. She’d never done anything like this in her life. “Any chance you might want to take me home? My roommate is out of town, and I thought…” She was going to lose her nerve. She was incapable of continuing.
“Have a drink?” Everett suggested.
Maya let out her breath. “Yes.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”
****
Maya woke up Christmas morning and nearly fell out of bed. An impossibly fat, tiger-striped cat had startled her awake by running its sandpaper-like tongue over her nose.
“Gah!” She managed to catch herself by gripping the headboard and swinging her legs back onto the mattress. “Jezebel!”
Trudy’s obese life companion didn’t seem the least bit sorry for having nearly caused Maya to break multiple bones on her second favorite holiday. The pompous pussycat, who had recently decided Maya was her favorite person in the whole world, snuggled herself between Maya’s chin and chest.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” Maya wrestled the cat, which had to weigh at least twenty pounds, away from herself enough to sit up in bed.
The door to her room flew open and Maya looked up in shock to see Everett in the doorframe. He looked down at her as she sat up against the wooden headboard her father had hand carved for her when she was eight years old.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he said quickly.
That made Maya look down to see the snug cotton tank top she liked to sleep in had shifted to the side during her scuffle with the cat. One breast was mostly exposed and the other was nearing indecency.
Maya grabbed the light-blue patchwork quilt and slammed it against her chest. “What are you doing in here?” Her voice had gone at least an octave higher.
“We heard you scream, and your mom insisted I come check on you. I know you’re prone to…”
“I’m clumsy! Okay! I’m a little clumsy! That’s no reason to bust into my bedroom!”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” But despite the sincerity in his voice, he didn’t leave. It was as if he was frozen in the doorway.
“Is everybody up?” she finally asked, needing to talk about something normal.
“Yeah. We’re…ah…just waiting for you. We have coffee and cinnamon rolls and all the presents are sitting under the tree. We were kind of wondering where Jezebel had gone to. It being a strange house and all. She wasn’t in the room with my mom when we got up and we thought maybe—”
“Okay. Stop.” Maya held up her hand to cease his babbling. An involuntary smile curved her lips. The man who always seemed so well put together had fallen apart when confronted with a barely dressed woman lying in her childhood bed. It would have been adorable if he weren’t her sworn enemy.
“Sorry.” He finally ripped his gaze away from her and looked down at the beige shag carpet. “I’ll just go.”
“See you downstairs.” Maya was able to contain her giggles until he’d left and shut the door behind him.
Ten minutes later, now dressed in flannel jammies covered in snowmen and a pair of red fuzzy slippers, Maya sat on the sectional between her mother and Mica, who had Roger cuddled up beside him. Much to her dismay, the stupid orange cat was perched on her lap.
Her father and Trudy sat opposite them on the loveseat, and Everett was folded into an overstuffed lounge chair that completed a semicircle of furniture in the center of the living room. The coffee table had been moved to the side to make room for the present debris being collected in the center of the room from the gifts that were making their way from under the tree.
“Jezebel sure has taken a shine to you,” Trudy observed. Her eyes crinkled up at the corners as she smiled at Maya over the top of a massive box covered in Santa wrapping paper that sat on her knees.
Maya looked down at the feline, who was currently scratching at the small, shoebox-sized gift she held. “Maybe she knows I’m allergic. Cats are like that. They’re attracted to the person with the allergies.”
“You’re allergic?” Everett looked startled and jumped half out of his seat as if to move toward the cat.
“No, she’s not,” Henny said quickly, motioning for Everett to sit back down.
“What?” Maya turned to her mother. “You told me I was allergic.”
“That’s because when our cat, Mittens, died,” Henny addressed the entire room. “Maya was so distraught she wouldn’t leave her room for three weeks. So a couple years later when she asked for another cat we told her she was allergic. No cat, no drama.”
“Oh my God! You lied to me!” Maya was flabbergasted, irritated, and embarrassed all at the same time.
Her mother shrugged and smiled sweetly. Her father got up and walked back over to the Christmas tree to hunt for more presents. Mica laughed his stupid ass off while Roger buried his face in Mica’s neck. Trudy smiled lovingly at Maya. And Everett held his hand over his mouth as if to stifle a chuckle.
Maya leaned back in the couch and huffed. She had to remind herself that she didn’t care if her parents wanted to completely humiliate her, or if she wanted to completely humiliate herself for that matter, in front of Everett because she didn’t give a rat’s ass what Everett thought of her.
Bert shifted the conversation by bringing out a new round of gifts for everyone. Maya pretended not to be completely touched by the gift Everett got his mother, a framed photo he’d found and had restored of her, him, and his father when Everett was just a boy. She also tried desperately not be completely floored by the gift he got her.
While she had made sure to get a gift for Trudy, Maya had not gotten Everett a thing. So she was embarrassed and surprised when he pulled a small box out from under the tree and handed it to her with a shy smile.
The box was long and thin, sort of like the kind of box that usually held a necklace. Maya held her breath as she pulled the crisp paper off to reveal a non-descript brown cardboard box. Her brow furrowed as she opened one end of the box and poured out a felt tray containing a variety of expensive, paint brushes.
Maya’s head shot up and her eyes met Everett’s. He was watching her, his gaze intense. It made butterflies dance in her stomach, just as they had seven years before when she stared at him from across the scrubby table at a dive diner in San Francisco.
“Thank you, Ev.” She said it so softly, it was possible he couldn’t hear her from across the noisy room. But she knew he had when he nodded quickly before turning his attention back to his mother as she opened another gift.
****
For Everett, Christmas dinner was particularly cacophonous and incredibly fun. The addition of new people to celebrate with seemed to have upped the McDonald’s already high joy quotient.
Roger and Mica were nothing short of adorably smitten and hilariously immature. Bert and Henny were filled with love, and they both sported massive smiles the entire time. Everett’s mother was so deeply happy it was written all over her kind face. And Maya grinned and laughed more than he had ever seen, save that one night seven years ago.
She was impossibly beautiful. Her eyes shone. Her smile showed off plump lips that gave him a peek of the slightly spaced teeth behind them. Everett remembered staring at that little gap between Maya’s front teeth the night they’d met. He remembered wanting to run his tongue along it. He had to turn away and focus on his mother as he started to remember the moment he’d done just that.
After the dishes from Christmas dinner had been cleared, they went for a walk to the neighborhood park. The sky was just turning a soft shade of pink tinged with muted orange hovering in the light cloud cover. The air was crisp, but without the distinct bite of cold. Everett was comfortable in his light jacket. Maya wore a pair of dark jeans and was wrapped in a soft fleece. She looked comfortable and cozy, and Everett really wanted to wrap her up in his arms.
He didn’t, of course. Instead, he settled for walking beside her at the end of their little human train. Henny led the way, taking the role as the trek organizer and tour guide. She would occasionally walk backward and shout to them all to look at the beautiful trees in one backyard or the newly painted porch in another. Everett’s mother and Bert walked immediately behind her, Trudy’s arm looped around Bert’s as he steadied her stride. Mica and Roger lagged a little behind the parents, holding hands and talking quietly to one another. And Everett and Maya were even farther back, barely within hearing range of Henny’s shouts.
It took a good twenty minutes to reach the park, and he and Maya didn’t utter a single word to one another on the way. Something about the green grass, tall trees, and darkening sky must have sparked something in Maya because as soon as they reached the park she broke away from the rest of her family.
Everett hesitated as Maya moved to the right while everyone else continued straight toward the shell-shaped amphitheater in the center of the park.
“Come on,” Maya called to him, curling her fingers in a come hither gesture he could not resist.
He followed her over a small hill and into an area covered in sand and stuffed with playground equipment. Maya plopped down onto a seat in the larger of the two swing sets and began to push herself off the dented sand bottom with her feet.
Everett stood in front of her for a moment, watching as she gently swung forward and back, her movement slight and calm. “Do you want a push?”
She smiled up at him and it nearly stopped his heart. “No. I want you to sit down.” She gestured with her head to the swing beside her.
Everett glared at the black rubber seat skeptically. “Will that even hold me?”
She shrugged and continued to smile.
Everett figured he was only going to live once and being able to bask in that smile was worth whatever damage might occur to himself or the equipment as a result of a six-foot-three, two hundred pound man sitting on that questionable looking strip of material hanging from two metal chains. He sat down on the swing and looked over at her.
“You look like you’re in pain.” Maya laughed.
“I don’t remember the last time I sat on a swing.”
She straightened her legs and leaned back, making the swing take her higher. “That’s too bad. I ardently believe that swinging is something all adults should do at least once a year.”
“Once a year, huh? Why’s that?”
“To remind us to have fun,” she said simply. She took three good swings before stopping herself by planting her feet in the sand beneath her. “You’re not swinging.”
“Um. Sorry.” Everett used his legs to move back and forth the length of his calves.
Maya laughed again. “Pathetic.”
“I do know how to have fun without using a swing, you know.”
“Hmmm. I bet you do.”
Everett stopped his motion. “What does that mean?”
“Parties, extravagance, women. Am I wrong?” She grinned mischievously at him.
“Yes.”
Maya stilled. She turned in her seat, twisting the chains so she was facing him. “What do you mean? Your lifestyle is practically documented.”
“Was. I had a bit of a meltdown after…” He stopped, unwilling to say Rebecca’s name in Maya’s presence. Everett ran his hand over his freshly shaved head. “I had a bit of a playboy moment there for a while. But that’s not really what I’m like. And I quit all that several months ago.”
Maya abandoned her swing and stood in front of him. “So, now what do you do to have fun?” She didn’t look angry or put out. In fact a smile danced on her lips, and in the moonlight he could see a sparkle in her eyes.
“I hang out with Carlos mainly. I have a few other friends as well. But mostly, I hang out with Carlos. We go to movies and sometimes a bar. I go to ball games. I coach soccer at the rec center. I like to—”
“You coach soccer?” There was something more than surprise in her tone.
“Yeah.”
“I remember you telling me you played soccer in high school and college, right?”
Everett was shocked she was willing to bring up that night. But he was also relieved. He’d been desperate to talk to her about their shared experience for months now. It was as if by not talking about it, it was fading, like it didn’t exist unless they acknowledged it.
“Yeah. It’s something I really love. My knees don’t love it, though. So I don’t play. Just coach. What about you, Maya? What do you do for fun?” He stood and took a step toward her.
“I paint. But you already knew that.” As if she was embarrassed she looked down and said, “Everyone knows that.”
“What else?” Another step and now he was so close to her he could touch her, but he didn’t.
“Mica and I go to the dollar movies every Tuesday night.”
“I love movies. I’m a bit of a buff myself.” He leaned in so their lips were just inches away. His voice was low.
“What’s your bag?” she asked softly.
“Pretty much anything from the seventies or eighties. Especially cheesy action flicks and sci-fi. Love me some Blaxploitation as well.”
“Me and Mica. We like eighties and nineties rom coms. But we’ll watch pretty much anything.”
“We should watch movies together.” His right hand found its way to her hip. His other hand wound into her hair.
Maya’s hands rested themselves on Everett’s chest. “Would you watch rom coms with me?”
“I would literally do anything for you,” he whispered.
He was definitely on his way to kissing her. But his movement was glacially slow, giving her the chance to back away. Maya had other ideas. She pushed up on her toes and closed the distance between them.
When her lips met his, all the time, space, anger, and pain between them seemed to melt away. He pulled her body against his, and she sighed. Everett took advantage of her open lips and dipped his tongue inside. Maya met his with her own and the kiss turned harder, more frantic. They both made whimpering sounds as they devoured one another. Her hands smoothed over his chest and drifted down. His hand on her hip moved to her back and he pressed her into him while the palm on the back of her head drifted down to cup her neck.
The moment stretched on. The heat between them burned hotter. Then suddenly, Maya pulled away. She launched herself off his chest and wound up a few feet away, her eyes wide, her hands in front her as if warding him off.
“I’m sorry.” Everett’s tone was firm. He tried not to sound angry, but he was. He was angry at himself for moving too fast. He knew the only way to gain Maya’s trust was one step at a time, and here he’d rushed it. It was so stupid.
Maya ran a hand through her dark, thick hair. “No. It was my fault. I started it, and I shouldn’t have.”
He wanted to step toward her, but he stopped himself. “And why shouldn’t you have done it?”
She stepped away from him in the dark of the night. He couldn’t see her as well. He wanted to look into those evergreen eyes and glean what was hidden there.
Maya let out a loud sigh. “Because, as much as I…I find you attractive, I haven’t forgiven you, Everett.” There was a pause, loud with its silence. “I haven’t forgiven you,” she repeated.
Before Everett could make his jaw work to respond, she turned on her heel and moved away in the darkness. “Mom! Dad! Mica! Where are you?” she shouted.
Everett followed her, staying close enough not to lose her in the inky night, but far enough to stay out of her way. He remained silent as they walked over the hill and rejoined with their families. He didn’t speak another word until they reached the McDonald house and he packed his mother and her cat into the car for the journey back to her house.
He managed to get through the goodbyes and thank yous. He chatted with his mom during the short ride to her house about how nice the holiday had been. But once he had her tucked away in her room, he walked out onto her porch with a beer in hand and finally fell apart.
Everett was certain there was nothing he wanted more than Maya. Tonight she’d made it clear that would never happen.