Now that I was home and could gather my thoughts about her as I watched her stiffly greet her mom with a face devoid of any expression, I puzzled over this mystery. The change in appearance, the use of drugs, though presumably, if Heath’s assessment was to be trusted, not the abuse of drugs. Her avoidance of her mother. Her distance from her other friends. Her strange and sometimes erratic behavior toward me.

And then this whole med school question. She wasn’t going now? She’d said it was on hold. It made my brain hurt. From where I stood, it looked like her entire life was crumbling before my eyes and I was like that child on the bus, sniveling, helpless to change any of it.

Every other time I’d tried to find out, I fucked it up because I’d gone about it in the wrong way. So now I had to take a more direct approach. An honest approach. Honest but not pushy. Could I even manage that?

Christmas dinner was greatly improved by the addition of Kim to the cooking team of Peter and my cousin Britt. Liam was still annoyed with me, but actually hung around with us in the living room as we sat and talked and opened gifts. He sat next to Emilia and they talked and joked.

Surrounded by my family—which had grown now—I felt more alone than ever. Emilia sat just feet from me, but she might as well have been on another planet for all I could speak to her, hold her, find out what the fuck was going on inside that bleached-blond head of hers.

She studiously avoided my gaze. Even when I said something directed at her, her eyes never went higher than my chest and she never answered me directly. I sat back, frustrated. Fuck. We were now in a worse place than we had been before the Con.

It was like Vegas had never happened. It was like nothing had ever happened between us. And like before, I was getting sick as shit of the waiting.

The family was setting up a card game at the dinner table when Emilia disappeared. I presumed it was to go back and talk to Liam. But when I excused myself to go down the hall to the bathroom, I turned and ducked my head into Liam’s room see what he was up to. Liam was in there alone, detailing some D&D figurines.

“Hey guy,” I said, knowing I was sure to get the brush-off.

Liam turned his head, but didn’t look at me. “Mia told me it wasn’t your fault.”

I shifted in the doorway, leaning up against the doorjamb. “Um, what?”

“She said I shouldn’t be mad at you anymore. She wants us to be friends again.”

“That’s good. I want that, too.”

“I told her she should practice what she preaches—that’s how the saying goes, right? That she should be friends with you.”

I smiled. “Yeah. You got it right.”

“Yeah, that’s what I told her. Then she got upset and went into the bathroom.”

I stiffened against the doorjamb. “She was crying?”

Liam shrugged.

I excused myself and went farther down the hall to park myself next to the bathroom door. She’d been in there awhile. Was she shooting up in there? I still hadn’t put all my suspicions to rest.

Finally after almost half an hour, I heard the door rattle and I straightened, ready for her. She opened the door, stepped into the hallway and, seeing me, she froze.

She glanced away, avoiding my gaze. “I’m sorry. Were you waiting…?”

That seemed kind of silly since there were two other bathrooms in the house. “Yeah,” I said.

“Oh. Sorry,” she repeated awkwardly and stepped to pass me in the narrow hallway, but I shot an arm out to bar her way.

She glared at me. “What?”

I pointed above us. There was a big bunch of mistletoe suspended from the ceiling. I’d planned it that way.

“Gotta kiss me,” I said.

She looked up and then, to my shock, her face split into the first smile I’d seen from her all day.

She stepped up and attempted to land a kiss on my cheek without actually touching me. But since she was shorter than me and she wasn’t using me to balance when she went on tiptoes, all I had to do was take a step backward and catch her as she lost her balance. I crushed her against me and then turned, landing a bedazzling kiss on her mouth. To my surprise, she kissed back and her hands fisted into my shirt. I stepped forward, moving us toward the wall where I could leverage more pressure with my body against hers. It felt good, so good.

She was breathing heavily when she pulled her mouth away, shooting a glance down the hallway. “Someone might see.”

“I don’t care if they do.”

She turned back to me. “I do.”

I leaned forward to catch her mouth in another kiss. I’d kiss the sense into her if nothing else would work. If talking to her, if trying to do nice things for her, if nothing else worked, this still worked between us. Why not use it to my advantage? I could still overwhelm her with a passionate kiss, an embrace.