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  “Want a glass?”

  “No, it’s fine.” She inched her way across the kitchen to the entrance to the family room. “Why don’t we go sit again?”

  “Great idea.” Lincoln walked over to her as quickly as possible and they went into the family room.

  “What was that?” She muttered to him. There were other people in the family room so she didn’t want to talk too loudly about something that might be personal.

  “It’s a long story,” Lincoln muttered back. “But the short version is I think there’s something going on between Jared and Henry. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong but they’re always acting really weird at family events.”

  “Oh.” She thought back to what she had seen in the kitchen. “Are they gay?”

  Lincoln shrugged. “Neither of them have come out as far as I’m aware. Whatever’s going on, I feel bad. Jared’s been really tense whenever he’s around the family and there’s nothing any of us have been able to do to fix it.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Hopefully it will work out soon.” They sat down on the couch. “Anyway, are you actually having a good time or were you just saying to please my mom?”

  “Um…”

  “Enough said,” he grinned.

  “No! No, I’m not having a terrible time or anything. It’s just a bit strange to be at a party where I only know one person.”

  “Right. That’s fair. I hope you didn’t feel like you had to say yes when Ellie invited you.”

  “I mean, there wasn’t really much room to say no. But it’s fine, I’m glad I came.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Greta walked into the family room and made a beeline for Lincoln and Ryleigh.

  “Hi, sorry to interrupt,” she said. She looked at Ryleigh. “I don’t think we’ve met yet, I’m Greta. Parker’s wife.”

  “Oh, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Ryleigh.”

  Greta smiled. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Listen, we’re about to head home but Millie and Ollie insisted that they had to see Santa’s elf again before we left. Do you mind?”

  “No, of course not!” She started to stand up. “Where are they?”

  “You don’t need to get up!” Greta insisted. “I’ll bring them in here. Thank you so much.”

  Ryleigh settled back in while Greta ran off to get the kids. Lincoln smiled at Ryleigh.

  “They like you,” he said. Her face flushed red.

  “Of course, they like me, they think I work for Santa,” she muttered.

  “I don’t think that’s the only reason,” he said. She smiled lightly. Parker and Greta returned with the twins.

  “Ryleigh!” Millie exclaimed. She came running and jumped onto Ryleigh’s lap, knocking her breath away.

  “Hi Millie,” she wheezed. Ollie was shyer than Millie. Unlike her sister, she didn’t run straight to Ryleigh. Instead, she hung back by her parents. Ryleigh smiled at her. “Hi Ollie. How are you?”

  Ollie shrugged and hid behind her mother’s legs. Millie threw her arms around Ryleigh’s neck.

  “I’m great,” she said. “Did you know there’s only more week until Christmas?”

  “Wow,” Ryleigh said. “You know, we’re working extra hard at the North Pole to get all the presents ready in time.”

  “Do you know what presents we’re getting?” Millie asked excitedly.

  “Of course, I do,” Ryleigh said. “But I’m not allowed to say. You have to be surprised on Christmas morning.”

  “Not even one present?” Ollie whispered. Ryleigh’s heart melted.

  “I’m sorry, girls, but it’s the rules. Don’t worry, you’ll both find out soon.”

  “We have to head home now,” Parker said. “Say goodbye to Ryleigh.”

  “Bye Ryleigh!” Millie said. She hugged her neck tightly again then planted a kiss on Ryleigh’s cheek.

  “Oh.” Greta covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry, Ryleigh. She doesn’t really understand boundaries.”

  Ryleigh laughed. “It’s totally fine.”

  Millie jumped off the couch and ran to Parker.

  “Ollie, do you want to say goodbye?” Greta asked. Ollie looked at her mom, who smiled encouragingly, then at Ryleigh. She slowly tiptoed over. Ryleigh moved so she was kneeling on the ground at Ollie’s level. Ollie slowly gave her a hug.

  “Bye Ryleigh,” she whispered then she ran back to her mom.

  “Bye girls!” Ryleigh said. “Merry Christmas!”

  “That was adorable,” Lincoln said, once the family had left and Ryleigh was sitting on the couch again.

  “They’re so cute,” Ryleigh said. “They’re your only nieces, right?”

  Lincoln nodded. “Yeah. Parker’s the oldest, plus he and Greta met in high school and got married straight out of college, so it makes sense they were the first to have kids too. I have no idea who’s going to be next.”

  “Ellie doesn’t have a boyfriend?”

  “Surprisingly, no. She’s just never seemed interested in dating.”

  “Too focused on school?”

  Lincoln shrugged. “I don’t know, she never told me. Remind me, do you have work tomorrow? I don’t want to keep you here if you want to go to bed early.”

  “I am working tomorrow but not until the afternoon, so I don’t mind staying for a bit longer. Unless you’re trying to get rid of me?”

  “No, no, I’m not. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t secretly want to go home but didn’t know how to tell me.”

  “I promise I’ll tell you when I want to leave.”

  “Okay, great.”

  They continued to sit and talk about random subjects for the next couple of hours. The earlier issue of the Crestwood Confessions page was nearly forgotten. Around ten o’clock, Lincoln yawned and looked around.

  “Looks like most of the party has cleared out,” he said. Ryleigh looked around as well. She had been so engrossed in talking to Lincoln that she hadn’t noticed how much emptier the house had gotten. There were certainly still some other guests there, but she was among the last of them.

  “Guess I should get going,” she said regretfully.

  “I’ll give you a ride home,” Lincoln offered.

  “I can walk. It’s only twenty minutes or so.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Ellie ran up to them, sliding on the hardwood floor in her socks.

  “Before you go!” She said. “I have a surprise for you. Follow me.”

  She walked down the hallway, back the way she’d come. Ryleigh and Lincoln were both visibly confused but they followed her anyway.

  “Where are we going?” Ryleigh whispered to Lincoln.

  “I have no idea,” Lincoln whispered back. “But I find it easier not to argue with her.”

  Ellie stopped them when they reached the open doorway between the front hallway and the dining room. Lincoln and Ryleigh looked at each other in confusion.

  “I’m going to get your presents,” Ellie said.

  “Ellie, we don’t need presents—”

  “Shut up, I already bought them. Now in the meantime, look up.”

  She shot off as quick as a flash. Lincoln and Ryleigh were facing each other. Neither of them looked up.

  “Why do I feel like this is a prank?” Ryleigh asked.

  “Probably because that’s the kind of thing Ellie would do,” Lincoln said. “But she would be more likely to prank me than you.”

  “Are you sure?” Ryleigh asked doubtfully.

  “To be fair, I did say it was more likely, not that it was guaranteed she wouldn’t prank you.”

  “We could just… not look up,” Ryleigh suggested. “Walk away.”

  “And incur the wrath of Eleanor Claire Wilson? No thank you.”

  “She’s not even here!”

  “She is definitely hiding somewhere in this room and she will kill us if we don’t do what she wants.”

  Ryleigh narrowed her eyes. “You’re sc
ared of her, aren’t you?”

  “Everyone is scared of her! She’s terrifying!”

  Ryleigh laughed. “She seems nice.”

  “That’s only because you’ve barely gotten to know her. And also because you didn’t have to grow up in the same house as her.”

  Ryleigh shook her head, still laughing.

  “Okay, fair enough,” she said. “But I guess that means we’re stuck. Want to look?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “So what, we’re just going to stand here the rest of the night?”

  “Yeah, that sounds fun.”

  “We have to look, Lincoln!”

  “Well, I don’t want to be the one to do it.”

  “I don’t either but one of us is going to have to!”

  “Rock, paper, scissors?” He suggested.

  “Sure.” They both held one hand out. “Wait, do we go on scissors or shoot?”

  “On shoot.”

  “Okay, I’ll count. Rock, paper scissors, shoot!”

  Lincoln held out paper and Ryleigh held out rock.

  “Ha!” Lincoln said. He covered her hand with his. “I win.”

  Ryleigh groaned. “Best two out of three?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Fine.” She took a deep breath and looked up. “Mistletoe,” she breathed.

  Lincoln looked up as well.

  “Right under it,” he said. He looked around. “I’m going to go ahead and assume there are no presents.”

  Ryleigh shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

  They stared at each other for another few moments. Lincoln was itching to just kiss her, and not just because he knew they wouldn’t be able to get out from under the mistletoe without it, but he didn’t want to make Ryleigh uncomfortable.

  “I can’t believe Ellie orchestrated this whole thing,” he said.

  “Let’s be honest, she’s been orchestrating the whole thing since she showed up at the mall last week,” Ryleigh said.

  “You think she’s the one who told Crestwood Confessions?”

  Ryleigh shrugged. “She’s your sister, you would know better than me. But to be fair, there were a lot of people there. Any one of them could have been someone we know.”

  “Guess we’ll never know. Doesn’t really seem like something she would do, though, to be honest.”

  “Every possibility it was just a coincidence that she decided to take advantage of.”

  “That seems more like her.” Lincoln looked around. The room seemed empty, but he was certain Ellie, and possibly Parker, were hiding in there somewhere. “We’re not getting out of this.”

  “I know.”

  He smiled lightly. “Well, you know what that means.”

  “Crestwood Confessions was right?” She asked innocently.

  “Do you want it to be?”

  She threw her hands up in exasperation.

  “We’ve been over this, Lincoln, I hate decisions!”

  “Fine,” he said. He took a step closer to her. “So you won’t mind if I…”

  “I wouldn’t mind at all,” she whispered. He grinned and pressed his lips against hers. After a couple of moments, he started to laugh.

  “What?” She asked in a hurt voice. “Am I so terrible?”

  “No! No, sorry. I was just thinking that I managed to go all of high school without being featured on, or even looking at, the Crestwood Confessions page… and now I’m kissing you because of them. I don’t know, it just seems kind of ironic, don’t you think?”

  Ryleigh looked down and grinned lightly.

  “I suppose so,” she said. She looked at him through her eyelashes. “Though, some may argue it’s fate.”

  HOW TO STEAL YOUR BROTHER’S GIRL

  Year: 2017

  Kennedy and Jared sat across from each other at the small table in the coffee shop. Kennedy was crossing her arms and staring at Jared with narrowed eyes.

  “Please Kennedy!” Jared begged. “I will do anything. Absolutely anything. Name your price.”

  “Forget it, Jared! I’m not going to pretend to be your girlfriend just so you can get your family off your back.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, maybe the fact that we’re both gay! Not to mention, you’ve had a boyfriend for the past five years.”

  “For reasons I don’t want to get into, I can’t introduce Henry to my family as my boyfriend. And it will be perfect. There is absolutely no chance of something going wrong and one of us falling for the other.”

  Kennedy stared at him. “Do your parents not know you’re gay?”

  “Well, they kind of do, I guess…”

  “What does that mean? They either know or they don’t.”

  “Look, I’ve been approaching the subject—”

  “And you think bringing home a girlfriend will help them figure it out, do you?”

  “I’ll tell them in the new year.”

  “If you’re just going to tell them in a month, why not tell them now?”

  “I don’t want to deal with the hassle of it right before Christmas. And they keep nagging about when I’m going to bring somebody home, and that won’t change just because I come out. So, this seems like the only logical solution.”

  “Alternatively, and hear me out, you have three other options: you can come out now and ask your boyfriend to meet your family, or if you really don’t want him to meet your family, ask one of your guy friends to pretend to be your boyfriend so you don’t end up with confused parents asking how you are gay when you just had a girlfriend a couple of months ago. Or you just come out to them and make them accept that you will bring a boyfriend home whenever you want to.”

  “Plenty of people have girlfriends before they realize or accept that they’re gay.”

  “The difference here is that you already know that you’re gay. I mean, what are you going to tell them when they start questioning you? That we broke up because you realized you’re gay and I’m a lesbian? And then you immediately found a boyfriend?”

  “Yes, exactly. I’ll explain that the relationship was both us just testing the waters and it turned out we both landed on the side of not being attracted to each other. Maybe that we broke up because I realized I was in love with my best friend Henry all along.”

  “You’re absolutely crazy, you know that?”

  “You’ve mentioned it a couple times, yes.”

  She huffed. “You owe me big time for this.”

  He grinned. “Is that a yes?”

  “I know I’m going to regret saying this but yes, I will pretend to be your fake girlfriend. But only for the month!”

  “Agreed! Thank you so much, Kennedy!” He paused. “You don’t mind if we make a few tweaks to your wardrobe, right?”

  “What? What’s wrong with my wardrobe?”

  “There’s just a lot of… flannel. And cuffed jeans. Converse. You know.”

  “You’re stereotyping.”

  “Oh absolutely. But my family will too, so can you just dial it back a little? Just for December.”

  “There’s no way for me to not dress gay.”

  “Please Kennedy? I would really appreciate it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Everyone, this is my girlfriend, Kennedy,” Jared introduced. The whole family was gathered in the living room. “Kennedy, this is my family. My parents, Adrienne and Brandon, my brother Lincoln, and my sister Ellie. Oh and like I mentioned before, they’re not here but I do also have a brother, Parker, a sister-in-law Greta, and two nieces, Millie and Olive.”

  “It’s nice to meet you all,” Kennedy said. “Jared has told me so much about you.”

  “All good things, I hope,” Adrienne said.

  “Oh, of course,” Kennedy said.

  “It’s great to meet you, Kennedy,” Brandon said. “How long have you and Jared been together?”

  “Oh, a couple months now,” she said. She glanced at Jared. The other day, they had gone throug
h and planned out their whole supposed relationship history. Jared had warned her that his parents were likely to ask a lot of questions and she had done her best to memorize their answers. The key was that if she got mixed up and said something wrong that he either corrected her in a realistic way or he learned the new answer, so their story stayed consistent.

  “What day is your anniversary?” Adrienne asked. Kennedy’s mind suddenly went blank.

  “It’s, uh…” She looked at Jared and an idea popped into her mind. “Why don’t you tell them, honey? I’m curious if you remember.”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Honestly, I don’t.”

  Kennedy shook her head and said, “Men.”

  Adrienne smiled sympathetically. “I understand completely. Sometimes I feel like if I didn’t put my birthday on the calendar, he wouldn’t remember it!”

  Brandon smiled bashfully.

  “I’ve never been great with dates,” he explained. “But you have to admit, I get good presents!”

  “Yes, that is true,” Adrienne agreed. “But anyway, back to you two! What’s your anniversary? I’ll be sure to remind Jared when the time comes so he can get you a good present.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that, mom,” Jared said in a pained voice. “Kennedy’s not big on gifts, anyway.”

  “All girls like to be appreciated, Jared,” Adrienne said. “Now what’s the date?”

  “September 15,” Kennedy blurted out at random. She faked a smile and patted Jared’s leg. “That was the day he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes.”

  “That’s darling!” Adrienne said. “What did you do for your first date?”

  “Just the classic dinner and a movie,” Kennedy said.

  “What movie?” Lincoln asked. Kennedy had to hold in the urge to scream.

  “Why does it matter?” She asked as politely as she could manage.

  Lincoln shrugged. “Just curious.”

  “Do you want another drink, Kennedy?” Jared asked suddenly.

  “Sure,” Kennedy said.

  “Great, I’ll grab it from the kitchen. Come with me?”

  “Sure.”

  They both got up and walked into the kitchen. Jared grabbed two cans of pop and poured them into glasses for them. He handed one glass to Kennedy and they clinked glasses in cheers.