Eight Christmas Eves (12 page)

They looked
like they belonged together, she realized without warning.

She brushed the
stray thought away, since there was no good reason for thinking it. But she could
feel Cyrus’s warm fingers brushing the sensitive skin of her neck, and it sent
strange shivers down her spine.

She lowered her
eyes, reminding herself that this was Cyrus. He was like family, like her best
friend. And the one time they’d been more than that, he’d immediately rebuffed
her, making it clear it wasn’t at all what he wanted.

When he got the
necklace undone, he put it down softly on the surface of the dresser.

“Thanks,” she
said, trying to sound casual as she turned around. Her blood was racing,
though, and she was breathing in fast little pants.

He was standing
closer than she’d expected, and his big, strong form trapped her against the
dresser. She reached up instinctively, closing her fists around the fabric of
his sweater in a desperate attempt to cling to anything.

When she looked
up at him, she saw he was gazing down at her with an expression that was deep,
intense, intimate.

Her whole body
throbbed with excitement. “Cyrus?” she breathed, stretching up toward him
because every instinct in her body told her to.

She was the one
who moved, who pressed against him and reach up for his lips. But he responded.
He inclined his head. Then one of his hands flew up to cup the back of her
head, tangling his fingers in her hair and holding her head in place as the
kiss grew more urgent.

At first, their
lips and tongues just teased—testing, questioning, learning each other. But as
the throbs and shivers of pleasure intensified in Helen’s body, she moaned into
the kiss, her arms twining around his neck possessively as she opened her mouth
to his.

He accepted the
invitation, his tongue making a passionate advance as his other hand slid down
her back to palm her bottom over the fabric of her skirt. He traced the fully
curved line of her ass, fitting her pelvis more snugly against his.

Helen’s whole
being hummed with excitement, with pleasure, with feeling, with primitive
satisfaction. This was what she wanted. This was what she’d always wanted. This
was so exactly right.

She’d started
to claw at his shoulders as an urgent pressure tightened between her legs when
he suddenly jerked away from her.

She stumbled
back into the dresser, surprised and disoriented. “What?” she gasped. “What?”

Cyrus looked
just as dazed as she did, and his body was coiled as tight as a pistol. His
face was damp from perspiration, and he’d taken several hurried steps back,
away from her.

“We can’t do
that,” he rasped, rubbing a hand over his face. “We said we would never do
that.”

“Oh.” Her mind
was starting to work, and she felt a familiar sense of rejection. It was just
like two years ago, when she’d kissed him in the library in front of the fire.
She’d been sure it was right, but he’d been sure it wasn’t. And she was left
crushed and unwanted.

“I’m sorry,” he
said, turning away from her, which just seemed to make it worse. “I don’t know
what happened.”

“I…I…” She
couldn’t seem to say anything but the truth. “I thought it was…it was good.”

“We can’t,”
Cyrus said, rubbing his head as if he were trying to claw something out of his
brain. “I’m sorry, kid. I’ll wait down in the car.”

Then he just
left. He walked out of her bedroom. Out of her apartment.

Helen stared at
the door he’d walked out of. After a moment, she realized that it wasn't as bad
as it felt. It wasn't as bad as last time.

She knew better
now. She'd lived through enough to know that she didn’t want to stop kissing
him. She didn’t think it was wrong.

It was right.
It was
right
. So she just needed to make Cyrus see it too.

***

The first hour of the drive to
Clarksburg was unusually quiet.

Cyrus was often
silent and reflective, but Helen was a talker, and the time they spent together
was rarely quiet unless they were both reading or working.

He drove,
focusing on the road and occasionally making an idle comment, and Helen sat in
the passenger seat wondering what she should say.

She was tempted
to just demand that Cyrus tell her what his problem was—why he thought a
relationship with her was so completely outside the bounds of acceptable.

It could be his
hang-ups were irrational and thus easy to overcome, but it could be he just
didn’t want her. And she wasn’t prepared to face such a brutal reality quite so
bluntly.

She’d grown up
getting her fair share of male attention, but most of the time she was convinced
her appeal was more about the things associated with her than it was about
herself. Thinking back on it now, she wondered if her perceptions were really
accurate. Certainly, she’d had more than a normal number of disappointing
experiences where a boy she liked revealed that he was with her primarily for
the privileges of her association with the Owens or because of her inheritance.
Some guys had probably liked her for real, though, and she’d assumed they
hadn’t.

Cyrus had
always been the one she could depend on to care about her for nothing but
herself. And, when she’d been eighteen and he’d made it clear that he didn’t
want her as anything but a kid-friend, she’d been hurt and insecure and had
wanted to prove that she didn't need him. This had made her particularly
susceptible to Ethan.

Her
relationship with Ethan had just cemented in her mind that trusting men was a
dangerous risk. Except Cyrus. She had always trusted him, and he’d never let
her down.

Even now, as
they were awkwardly silent on the drive to Clarksburg, she saw him shooting
worried glances over at her and sometimes looking as if he were trying to say
something.

Eventually, her
need to know got the better of her, so she summoned her courage. “I didn’t
think kissing you was so bad.”

Cyrus blinked.
He opened his mouth but couldn’t seem to speak.

She continued,
“If you didn’t like the kiss, I’d understand. But you seemed to like it well
enough. And I don’t know why it’s so off the table.”

“Helen, for
God’s sake, you
know
why it’s off the table. I’ve known you since you
were ten. You’re like—“

“Don’t you dare
say I’m like a sister to you. I don’t believe it. We’ve never been like brother
and sister.”

“No, not
exactly like siblings. But like family.”

“So? What’s
your point? Romance often turns into family, doesn’t it? Maybe we’d just do it
in reverse.” She was pleased she sounded blithe and casual, since she didn’t
feel it at all. Her hands were shaking a little. Now that they were actually in
the conversation, however, it didn’t seem like it was likely to completely
devastate her.

“It doesn’t
work that way, Helen. I can’t. It just feels wrong to me.” His face was tense
and his eyes guarded—not surprising, considering what they were discussing.

“Maybe it feels
wrong because you’ve never thought about it before. So the best thing to do is
just to
start
thinking about it.” She gave him a little smile.

A faint smile
reflected in his eyes, but didn’t follow through to his lips. “I don’t think
so.”

She gave an
exasperated sigh. “I think you’re being unreasonable. We’re not related. It’s
never felt like we were related. You’re obviously not some perv who wanted to
make a move on me when I was a kid. I’m not a kid anymore, Cyrus, and I just
don't think it should be that big a deal.”

“
Of course
it would be a big deal,” he gritted out, suddenly urgent. “What if it didn’t
work? Then what would happen? Are you saying you’re willing to risk our
relationship on such a thing?” When she opened her mouth to respond, he spoke
over her, “And anyway, it doesn’t matter. The kiss was just a random thing. To
tell you the truth, I just don’t think about you that way.”

Helen’s stomach
dropped. Her heart dropped. “Oh.”

There was a
long stretch of silence as she processed his words. It hurt—a lot. And it felt
final. If he didn’t think about her that way, then he didn’t, and there was
nothing either of them could do about it.

“I didn’t want
to hurt your feelings,” he said eventually, sounding rather strained. “I’m
sorry.”

“Don’t be
sorry,” she said with a casual shrug she didn’t feel.  “It was just a
thought.”

She didn’t talk
much the rest of the drive. She tried not to think about it too much. If she
did, it would hurt too much, and she didn’t want to ruin her whole Christmas.

Her life was
quite happy and satisfying in almost every way now.

She didn’t have
to have everything.

*
* *

She was on her way down to
dinner when Cyrus stopped her on the landing of the stairs.

“Helen, wait,”
he said, his voice a little thick.

She looked up at
him—heartbreakingly handsome in all black. His blue eyes were strangely urgent.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course,”
she said with a smile that was only slightly forced. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t lie to
me, Helen. I know you’re upset. But I don’t think you’ve thought it through
enough. I think, once you do, you’ll see I’m right.”

“It doesn’t
matter,” she said with another smile, “If you don’t want me that way, then you
just don’t. You’re not the first man to not want me.”

“Don’t say it
like that. I just can’t—“

“Seriously,
Cyrus,” she said, “I’m a little disappointed, since I was starting to think…but
it’s no big deal really. I’ll get over it.”

He peered at
her so closely she thought he might see into her soul, but he didn’t say
anything. Just reached out and stroked her hair gently before she turned and
started walking back down the stairs.

*
* *

After dinner, she went up to
change into something more comfortable—which happened to be a soft purple
lounge set Cyrus had bought her for her last birthday.

She went to
find him in the media room.

Dinner had been
surprisingly good. Drake had been in fine form, telling stories from Greek
history and demanding they all go and view the new historic weaponry he’d added
to his collection in the last year. If he’d noticed something rather tense in
the air between his son and Helen, he didn’t mention it.

Helen wasn’t
about to miss out on her and Cyrus’s tradition this Christmas Eve, even if she
was a little embarrassed and a lot disappointed.

He would still
be her best friend, her family, the one person she could always rely on. He was
trying to do what was best for her, even as he let her down easy.

Cyrus was
already in the media room when she arrived, sitting on one end of the couch.

“Hey,” she
said, going over and sitting next to him.

He smiled at
her. “Hi. Someone is bringing cider and sugar cookies in a few minutes.”

Helen smiled
back, her chest feeling suddenly warm and soft. “Good.”

“Are you all
right?” He was peering at her closely again.

“I’m fine.
Although, if you keep asking me that, I might throw something at you.”

“As long as
it’s not the hot cider.”

She
laughed—sincerely. She felt better. Whatever the reason for Cyrus’s hesitation,
it wasn’t because he didn’t care about her. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to
be with her. She could see all of that clearly in the soft, fond look in his
eyes as he chuckled too.

“Start the
movie,” she said, snuggling up at his side.

He hesitated
for a moment, but then he wrapped an arm around her. She sighed in relief. If
he’d rebuffed the snuggling, she might have felt rejected again.

After they’d
eaten the cookies and cider, Helen readjusted to get more comfortable, ending
up lying on the couch with her head in Cyrus’s lap.

She’d lain that
way last Christmas Eve, when she’d admitted to herself—and to Cyrus—that she
would have to give up on her relationship with Ethan. And she’d lain that way
on other nights too. When a friend of hers had been killed in a car accident.
When she’d had a horrible headache that wouldn’t go away.

She felt safe
in this position. Comforted. Loved.

She made it
through most of the movie, but she eventually fell asleep. She had no idea how
long she’d been sleeping when consciousness started to press through the drowsy
haze. Her eyes were still closed, but she could feel Cyrus’s thighs beneath her
head. And she felt him gently stroking her hair.

She opened her
eyes and caught for just a moment a look on his face that took her breath away.

She couldn’t
process the expression immediately, and his face shifted into a teasing smile.
“Didn’t we have a bet one year about whether you could stay awake for the
movie?”

“I
won
that bet,” she said, adjusting so she was looking up at him fully without
actually lifting her head from her lap. “You had to wear your sweater. But
there was no bet for this year, or I would have made more of an effort to stay
awake.”

He gave a
breathy laugh. “I have no doubt about that.”

She sat up,
mostly because her neck was getting stiff. She stretched a little, raising her
arms above her head.

She noticed,
out of the corner of her eye, that Cyrus’s eyes dropped to her chest and
lingered there. A quick glance down revealed that her top had slipped from
sleeping and then stretching, and the neckline was displaying far more cleavage
than was entirely appropriate.

When she turned
to look at Cyrus, to verify his stare, he turned his head rather abruptly.
Because she was looking for it, she noticed a very brief flicker of
something
on his face.

Guilt, she
realized. Guilt and something like fear.