A Very Badd Christmas (The Badd Brothers #19)

3. Emerson

CHAPTER 3

emerson

I shifted my luggage around for the fourth time as the ferry approached Ketchikan from the airport. I had too much shit for a simple Christmas vacation, but one whole suitcase was just gifts. When your unofficially adopted family has something like seventy-some people, gift-giving is a whole thing. Mama Livvie and Mama Dru especially are truly incredible gift givers, and I'm closest to them of all the adults, so I have to get them great presents. Obviously, I have to get Delia something. Daddy Bast (or, as I like to call him, Big Daddy Bast). Papa Lucas. Liv. Duncan and Dane, my adopted brothers. I can't afford to get everyone something, and no one expects that of anyone. Generally, you buy for the people in your immediate family, and then when the whole clan gathers, you do a white elephant for under a hundred dollars.

I suppose a quick historical context explainer is in order.

Delia Badd is my best friend. We met in kindergarten. The first day, we were at the same table together. She was loud and confident and sassy and had a killer pink backpack and cool light-up shoes, and her lunch had all this amazing food in it—a big sandwich with lots of salami, cheese sticks that you peel apart, Oreos, goldfish, an apple, and a banana.

I only later found out that she had packed her own lunch (sandwich excepted), and her parents had just rolled with it.

I, meanwhile, had a single piece of bread folded in half with the skinniest spread of peanut butter and jelly you'd ever seen. That was it. Because that's all there was. Mom had been to the casino that weekend and gambled our food and rent money away (I knew this already, even then). Delia, being herself, had looked at my lunch, and then hers, and then mine again, and had loudly and firmly announced, "That simply won't do."

She gave me half her lunch.

The next day, she brought extra again and gave it to me. I was embarrassed, and part of me didn't want to accept it, but I was too hungry. Beggars—in this case, literally—couldn't be choosers.

That's how it started. She played with me on the playground and helped me with my reading (I have mild dyslexia). She insisted on coming over to play with me after school one day, and nothing I said could dissuade her, so she came over. The girl was game, that’s for damn sure. She never batted an eye at our dirty, cluttered little trailer with the crumbling cinderblock steps, sagging, leaking roof, and peeling Formica counters. She didn’t ask for a snack because she knew better. She played with my shitty, one-arm, one-leg, frizzy-haired Barbie—the only one I had. She ignored the mouse droppings and the roaches in the corners.

She also never came back. But instead, she brought me over to her house. God, what a wonderland that was. They have a huge house on the Inside Passage with floor-to-ceiling windows, a leather sectional bigger than my whole trailer, big shiny appliances, and a pantry. Good lord, the pantry…it’s a whole room.

Let me repeat— a whole room full of food.

I stood there for probably a full minute, staring, jaw dropped.

After that, I went to Delia's house after school every day. I didn't want to go home.

Bast and Dru never asked me if I needed to call my mom to stay the night. They never made a big deal about anything. They just took me in, fed me, clothed me, talked to me like a person. They bought me school supplies. They put a whole bureau in Delia's room for me and filled it with brand-new clothing.

God, I'm gonna get all weepy just thinking about it.

I went home once a week at most for the first year. Mom didn't usually notice, and if she did, she was fine with it. I told her I was at Delia’s, and her only response was to remind me not to break anything expensive.

Mom wasn't a drug addict or even really an alcoholic—she drank a lot, sure, but that wasn't her problem. Her problem was gambling. Dad, too, but Dad only showed up a few times a year—he worked on oil rigs…and was a professional gambler. Just not a good one.

By middle school, I'd all but stopped going to Mom's house and referred to Delia's as "home."

I still remember my first Christmas with the Badds.

I had no clue what I was in for.

Around noon Christmas Eve day, Mama Livvie and Papa Lucas—as they insisted I call them that very day—came over. Mama Livvie is Olivia Badd, and Papa Lucas is Lucas Badd.

I should draw a chart or something because it’s a big, complicated family.

Delia's parents are Sebastian and Dru Badd; Sebastian goes by Bast, and he's the oldest of the Badds. He has seven brothers and three cousins—identical triplets. They're all married with a billion kids.

The Badd Clan, then, is: Bast and Dru, Zane and Mara, Brock and Claire, Baxter and Eva, Canaan and Corin—identical twins—and their wives, identical twins Aerie and Tate; Lucian and Joss, Xavier and Harlow Grace (yes, that Harlow Grace); the triplets are Roman, Remington, and Ramsey with their wives Kitty, Juneau, and Izzy, respectively. And then the triplets' father, Lucas, the uncle of the eight brothers, met a woman named Olivia Goode, she moved to Alaska, and they got married. Olivia, Mama Livvie to one and all, has five daughters who all got married and ended up in Ketchikan—mostly. The Goode girls—although they all legally took their various husbands' names, everyone refers to them collectively as the Goode Girls—are: Cassie and Ink, Charlie and Crow, Lexie and Myles (as in North, and yes, that Myles North), Torie and Rhys, and Poppy and Errol.

They all have bajillion kids, like thirty-six between them, which are known as collective as "The Cousins.” I know all of them, having grown up with them. But with there being literally thirty-six of them, no one ever bothers trying to introduce them all to anyone at once. You just have to jump in and figure it out.

Anyway, my first Badd Christmas.

Mama Livvie and Papa Lucas came over around noon, apparently because Bast and Dru's house was the default place to gather when the whole clan was expected. They only had three kids—Bax and Eva had five, and Rome and Kitty had six—but their house is huge and designed for entertaining, with a huge open-concept living room, kitchen and dining room, a large den/TV room, and a mammoth basement, so there was plenty of space for the whole family to gather.

My prior experience with Christmas, for context, was me and Mom, and sometimes Dad. Both of my parents were estranged from their families and were before I ever came along, so I never had any extended family. If I got a present at all, it was probably from Dollar General.

Mama Livvie and Dru started baking cookies and pies while Bast and Papa Lucas split firewood, and Delia, Duncan, Dane, and I watched The Grinch in the den and had hot chocolate and as many snacks as we could stuff into our bellies—pretzels, cheese puffs, potato chips and dip, corn chips and salsa, a meat tray, a cheese tray, a cracker tray…I couldn't believe the amount of food I was seeing. When I asked Delia why there was so much food, she just laughed as if she didn't understand the question. I guess, looking back, she didn't.

Before the first tray of cookies and the pies were done baking, people were streaming in—Bax and Eva and Claire and Brock and their kids. And suddenly there were four more kids in the house.

Bax and Eva only had three at that point—Anya, Ella, and Kieran; Brock and Claire had just adopted a two-year-old girl named Nina. I'd never been around so many kids outside school before. I didn't know how to play with them, but that didn't seem to matter. They just dragged me around with them and included me like I'd always been part of the gang.

We played tag in the basement, and then air hockey, and then we rolled the billiard balls around the table—Kieran got his fingers bashed a dozen times because he couldn't stop trying to grab them while they were flying around, even though Anya, the oldest, kept trying to get him to stop.

And then Rome and Kitty showed up with their brood—also three at that point: Donovan, Dillon, and Riley. So then there were eleven kids. And then more, and then more.

There was always a handful of adults down in the basement with us, playing pool or just sitting at the bar sipping and chatting and watching. When a kid fell and got hurt, they got picked up and hugged and kissed, regardless of whose kid it was, and if it was serious, the appropriate parent was summoned. Squabbles over toys were squashed with firm fairness. No one got yelled at. I watched, played, and marveled at the spectacle of twenty-some kids all playing together, getting along, and having fun.

I wandered upstairs and just watched the adults. For a while, I was so quiet and unobtrusive that no one noticed me sitting alone at the kitchen island, wide-eyed, watching the thirty-some adults all being cool with each other.

And then Bast noticed me and swaggered over. Leaned on the counter opposite me. "Loud in here, huh, munchkin?"

I nodded.

"Wanna get some air?"

I just stared at him, not understanding and too shy to say so.

"Go outside. Sit on the dock. Look at the stars."

I nodded.

He grabbed a huge, thick, brown-and-white cow-print fur blanket and came over to me. "Can I pick you up?"

No one ever picked me up, so I wasn't sure how to feel about it, but I liked that he asked, so I nodded. He had scooped me up in the blanket, wrapped it around me in a tight, warm little bundle, and carried me out into the frigid Alaskan winter night. It was a clear one, the kind of bitter clarity that you only get once in a while. The stars were…well, if you've ever been to Alaska on a clear winter night, you know. If not, I can't describe it.

He carried me out to the dock and sat down, put me on his lap, and wrapped the blanket around us. Leaned back and looked up.

Scared and confused at first, I had sat stiff and still. He didn't say or do anything. Just waited until I relaxed.

And then he spoke. "I know things at your house ain't good, Emerson. You don't have to tell me. I asked around, so I know. And I just want you to hear this from me, okay? You're a good kid. Even with how things are for you, you're polite and all that. Delia thinks the world of you."

Under the blanket, he was in nothing but a T-shirt, and his massive body radiated heat. I remember his tattoos and being fascinated by them. By his sheer size. How deep and rough his voice was, but how gentle his words were.

"So, Emerson. We are your family now. This is your home. You come and go as you please. You eat food when you're hungry. You ask for things you want. You can call me whatever you want—Bast is fine. I ain't your dad, but if you ever want to, you can call me that. We adopt people in this crew—it's just what we do. And we've decided you're ours for as long as you wanna belong to us." He had touched my chin with a big, callused, gentle finger, so I looked at him. “You understand what I'm tellin' you, darlin'?"

I nodded. Paused and thought. Then shook my head no.

"Okay. What don't you understand?"

"Why?"

"Because we can. We’ve been blessed. We got so much of everything, you don't even know. Especially love."

I'd thought about it and then looked up at him. "What if I'm bad?"

He'd chuckled. "I don't believe there's such a thing as a bad kid, only bad parents. What it means for you is we know you ain't gonna be perfect. Something happens, we deal with it. No one gets hit or screamed at or any of that bullshit. We talk about it and work on making better choices next time."

My eyes had burned and my stomach felt funny. "So…" It was the hardest thing, then, to speak my deepest fear. "Will you ever make me go away? Back to…where Mom is? I don't like it there. There's no food. She leaves me alone and I get scared. I know she wants to be better, but she just can't. And I…I don't wanna go back."

He'd cleared his throat and tipped his head back. " Fuck ." This had been under his breath; I had very little understanding of adults in general and men in particular at that stage of my life, so it didn't occur to me until many years later that he'd been on the verge of tears at what I'd said. "No, Emerson. You don't ever have to go back if you don't want to. Your home is with us, now. You’re safe."

You’re safe.

To this day, those words are seared into my soul.

Every day after that, Bast and Dru proved to be as good as their word. They took care of me in every way and loved me as if I were one of their own children. Mom never really…did anything. She was content to let me be taken care of by someone else, I guess. Looking back, it's odd, if nothing else, that she never even made sure I was telling the truth, or that the Badds were good people, or established any kind of legal custody.

I usually saw her whenever I was back home, a quick visit full of awkward pleasantries; she was more like a distant relative or vague acquaintance.

Now, standing with my luggage as the ferry docks with all this going through my head, I thought about the gift I have for my adopted parents, and I got choked up. It's long past time. I talked to Delia about it before I pulled the trigger to make sure she felt they'd be okay with it.

The dock workers tied the ferry off and got the gangway in place, and I hiked my backpack higher and my duffel onto my shoulder and picked up my two roller suitcases. I hadn’t been sure when I'd arrive, so I didn't tell anyone when I was coming, which meant I wasn't expecting anyone to meet me at the dock.

I was surprised, therefore, to find Jax waiting for me in the parking lot, leaning back against his truck—it was his baby, a vintage Chevy Li'l Red Express. He'd bought it himself and restored it with help from his dad, Zane, and some of his many uncles.

I suppressed a groan—Jax was great. Aside from being tall and ripped, he was just a good dude, cool, funny, and always the first to volunteer to help. He had his mom's blond hair and his dad's big brown eyes. Objectively speaking, Jax Badd was hot as fuck. Uncle Zane’s and Aunt Mara’s oldest son, he was a carbon copy of his father, but with his mother’s fair hair. Sharp, angular features, muscular and athletic and funny and effortlessly cool, he was, in every sense, the perfect catch…but he's my best friend's cousin, and the cousins are all as close as siblings, which makes him my sibling; as has been covered previously, he's nursed a major crush on me since we were little kids. I've shot him down literally hundreds of times—nicely, sweetly, sadly, brutally, bitchily, publicly, privately.

"Hey, Sunni." He pushed off his truck and grabbed my suitcases, tossed them in the bed of his truck, and then took my duffel and tossed it in as well. I kept my purse and backpack.

"How'd you know I was coming in? I didn't even tell Dee."

He shrugged. "I have my ways."

I snorted. "Meaning you hacked something."

He's his uncle Xavier's protege. A wizard with computers and electronics, he grew up idolizing his uncle Xavier—the world's foremost expert in robotics and electronics. Xavier's inventions have been used by NASA and are currently roaming Mars, and another is on the way to Venus, on top of being in just about every home in one form or another, be it appliances, toys, or gadgets.

He grinned. "Caught me."

"Well, I wasn't looking forward to carrying all this to the house, so I guess I’m grateful, even if it is a bit stalkerish."

Jax just laughed. "I'm not a stalker, I’m just…" he trailed off and looked at me. "Wait, are you actually creeped out?"

"Honestly, no. But I know you. I grew up with you. I was there when you hacked into whatever it was and got in all that trouble. But when you go to Caltech, don’t try that shit, okay? Girls who don't know you will be creeped out."

"Emmy…"

God, the look. The big brown eyes.

"Jax." I made my voice firm. "No. Nothing has changed. Nothing ever will change. I think of you like a brother, okay? I love you, truly—as a brother . So just…don't, okay? Please ?"

He sighed. “Actually, I met a girl when I did my tour and commitment at Caltech. Jessie. A physics major. She’s won a whole bunch of awards."

I grinned at him. "She hot?"

His eyes went wide. "So hot she left me tongue-tied." He turned onto the narrow dirt road that led to Bast and Dru's house. "What I was gonna say was thank you."

I frowned at him. "Thank you? For what?"

“Being so cool about my stupid crush for all these years." He winced as if embarrassed. "You never made me feel bad about it."

I patted his forearm where his hand rested on the gear shifter between us. "Jax, honestly, if I hadn’t grown up with you, it would have been different. But all of you cousins are family to me. And I just…I couldn't go there. I can’t go there.”

"Not sure if that makes me feel better or worse," he said, chuckling. "So you guys won nationals, huh?"

I grinned. "Fuck yeah, we did."

"How's it feel?"

“Amazing. I mean, it was my last shot. Regionals were a little dicey because our captain was dealing with some shit, but she got her act together for states, and we kicked ass at nationals. So yeah, it feels good. Especially after last year. God, that was rough."

Last year, we were heavily favored to win, only to lose in a shootout. I made some good saves, but McKenna missed her shot, the game-winner. She went into a deep depression after that and only recently started pulling out of it after therapy and medication and, honestly, just some good old-fashioned winning games.

"So now what?" Jax asked.

"Not sure. Finish my degree. They’re sending out invitations to the US Women's National Team tryouts early next year, and I’m hoping I get one. I still want my degree, but I'm really hoping to make the national team. It's a long shot because it's competitive as fuck, but I figure I have a decent chance."

“You've got it in the bag, Em. You're, like, one of the best goalies in the country."

“Yeah, one of . And everyone else who’s just as good as me will be there, too.” I shrugged. “All I can do is put in the work and see what happens."

We pulled up to the house then, and my heart lifted as I saw what will always be home. It didn’t look as big as it was from the driveway. It looked like a decent-sized ranch until you went in and saw how far back it went and how expansive and open it was.

Featuring a wide, deep front porch framed by thick square wooden pillars soaring ten feet overhead, with a pair of heavy French doors with thick-paned glass, it extended to the left in a four-car garage and to the right in a private owner’s suite, with the other bedrooms facing the Inside Passage along the rear of the house off the open-concept kitchen, dining room, and living room. The house’s eaves, ridgelines, and peaks were lined with warm white Christmas lights, and a huge, handmade wreath bedecked with holly, mistletoe, and twinkling white lights adorned the front door.

Jax already had my luggage and was pushing inside, so I grabbed my bag and purse and followed him. I heard him greet Dru and Bast, and then he gave me a quick side hug. “Gotta get home—Dad wants me to split wood for tonight. See you round, Emmy!”

I called my goodbye to him, waving as he drove off.

Inside, Christmas had exploded. A twelve-foot-tall natural tree stood in the corner of the living room by the floor-to-ceiling windows, wreathed in white twinkle lights and strung with faux cranberry garland and hung with ornaments ranging from expensive crystal figurines to laminated drawings made by Delia, Duncan, Dane, and me. A six-foot tall nutcracker guarded the foyer, one hand holding a spear and the other a bowl full of freshly baked sugar cookies. I grabbed a cookie as I set my duffel by the front door, marveling at Dru's decorative magic. The huge mantel over the fireplace—a live-edge log a foot thick and six feet wide, squared off on top, was draped with more white twinkle lights and faux-fir garland, and heavy iron sculptures in the shape of reindeer pranced along the mantel, each one holding a stocking with our names on them.

Mine said "Sunni,” which is what most of the Badd clan call me, thanks to Delia. It's sort of an inside joke: my name is Emerson Day, and most people shorten my name, naturally enough, to Em or Emmy. But Delia loves to be different, so she decided she needed her own private nickname for me; she tried Mercy, as in Eh-MERS-son, Mercy, but that didn't stick. Then she tried Sun, as in Emer-SON. Sunni. And also, Sunni Day? Haha. But it stuck, and now the whole Badd clan calls me Sunni as much as they do Emerson or Em—they’re interchangeable.

The stockings were handmade by Mama Livvie out of flannel material with leather bottoms, and each person's name was hand-stitched across the top. She spent an entire year making them for everyone in the family. When she gave me mine that Christmas, I sobbed like a baby. Being accepted as part of the family is one thing, but having my own stocking with my name on it?

It's not something I ever, ever take for granted.

Even the kitchen was decorated. Elves and gnomes and reindeer pranced along the tops of the upper cabinets, and the salt and pepper shakers were Mr. and Mrs. Claus. The white tea towel hanging from the oven handle said "Merry & Bright" in red stitching. The artwork on the walls was Christmas-themed. Coasters had snowmen on them. Throw pillows featured snowflakes. Throw blankets were buffalo plaid.

A fire roared in the fireplace, crackling and spitting occasionally, and I heard an axe thunking steadily outside, punctuated by the raucous laughter of Dunc and Dane—who probably spent as much time goofing off as they did splitting wood.

Mama Dru was in the kitchen, dressed in dark jeans and a white V-neck sweater, a buffalo plaid apron around her neck and waist, Ugg slippers on her feet, her hair—a few shades darker red than mine, leading most people who see us together to assume I'm naturally hers—tied up in a loose chignon. A glass of white wine was on the counter nearby, red lipstick staining the rim. Big Daddy Bast had her up against the counter, his huge body framing hers, and he was kissing her so intensely that I had to look away.

“Bast, honey," Dru murmured against his mouth, gently pushing him backward. "Look who's here."

He turned his head, saw me, and lit up as bright as the Christmas tree. "Sunni!"

I did what I always do when I come home for holidays: drop my purse and take a running leap. He caught me as easily as ever, spinning me around. He smelled like woodsmoke, whiskey, and cologne. His beard, now as much gray as brown, was scratchy as he kissed my cheek.

"Here's the national champ herself," he said in his growly voice. "Saw the game, sweetheart. Some kick-ass saves. Sorry we couldn't make it out in person."

I just hugged him tighter. “All good. I knew you were watching—I could feel it."

"We put the game on all the TVs in every bar. Anyone rooting for the other team got kicked out." He set me down and tugged on my braid. "Missed you, Sunni-girl."

"Missed you too."

He wasn’t kidding, either—when Nina, Brock's and Claire's daughter, made the state finals in basketball, they did the same thing. Put the game on all the TVs in every Badd's Bar establishment in Alaska, and if you got caught rooting for the other team, you were booted. The Badds do not fuck around.

Dru glided over to me and enveloped me in her soft, warm presence. "Do we get you through New Year this year?"

“Yeah. I'll have to hit the gym and get some drills in, but I don't have to go back to Seattle until the semester starts. My college soccer career is officially over."

She hugged me again. "So, so good to have you home, honey."

Maybe it was my gift to them making me emotional, but I was feeling all weepy at the welcome. I mean, it's how they always welcomed me—with hugs and kisses and warmth and so much love it almost hurt.

"Where's Dee?" I asked, looking around.

Bast answered, pouring me a glass of wine. "At the Kitty, wrapping up some paperwork. Should be here any minute.”

"Anyone else coming today?" I took my glass into the kitchen and hopped up on the island.

Dru shook her head. "No, just us today. There's a thing at Bax and Eva's tomorrow night, something at Mama Livvie and Papa Lucas's the next night." She whirled her hand vaguely. "I've got a schedule written down somewhere—we spent a week planning all the parties so none interfered with the others.”

I just laughed because that's how it was this time of year around here—there was a party at someone's house every night between the first of December and New Year's Eve. If you were smart, you spent the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break cutting calories and saving your liver because Christmas break with the Badds meant eating until you could hork and drinking all day.

The volume in the house suddenly went from zero to a million as Dunc and Dane entered, each of them coated in the snow falling outside, carrying armloads of firewood.

"Oh fuck off, Fortnite is not the best game ever," Duncan said, stomping his feet.

"It's the most played game in history. It's not even close." Dane came in next, stomping his feet too.

Their argument continued as the boys—Irish twins a little under a year apart—brought the wood inside and stacked it in the rack by the fireplace.

"You boys better wipe that snowmelt off my floor," Dru yelled from the kitchen. "I just cleaned up in here."

"We will," they yelled back in unison.

Duncan was the older, three years Delia's junior. Dane was the youngest, a little less than four and a half years her junior, making them nineteen and almost eighteen to Delia's twenty-two.

They didn't even notice me until after they'd cleaned up and discarded their coats.

Dunc saw me first and came over for a hug, shaking his snow-wet hair at me.

Both boys strongly resembled their dad—towering and muscular with brown hair blessed with a touch of red from Dru and the family-characteristic brown eyes. Dunc was taller and leaner, while Dane was a few inches shorter but more solidly built. They were both firecrackers like their mom: loud, boisterous, hysterical, and often in trouble. Never bad or violent trouble, just the kind of trouble that half-wild boys with more energy than sense tend to get into.

Dane joined the hug, and suddenly the two boys were carrying me around the house on their shoulders, singing "We Will Rock You" at the top of their lungs until I had to kick and shout to get them to put me down, laughing so hard I was almost crying.

By the time I collected myself, Delia was walking in, juggling four big paper sacks full of carryout from Badd Kitty while kicking the door closed with her foot.

The bags covered her face, so when I went to take them from her, she didn't know it was me at first.

“Thanks, bro," she murmured, kicking her boots off.

"No problem, bro," I said, waiting for the shriek.

" SUNNI !” Yep. There it was—the Delia special, an ear-piercing shriek of absolute joy, whether she saw me the day before or two months before. She leaned in and hugged me, crumpling the paper bags between us. "When did you get in?"

"Just a minute ago," I said, carrying the sacks to the kitchen. "What's all this? Smells good."

"Lunch," she answered. "There was a bachelorette party and they barely touched the food, so I brought it home."

Delia—the spitting image of her mother, with the same dark red hair, blue eyes, and killer curves—is Bast's protege. The only career she ever wanted was to run the Badd's Bar empire after Bast retired. She started as a hostess at fourteen—officially, that is, having spent her whole life up until then filling in on the weekends and after school in the kitchen and office. Bast made her earn it every step of the way, putting her advancement in the hands of the managers. She started waitressing at sixteen, bartending at eighteen, and was an assistant manager of the original Badd's Bar and Grille at twenty. Now twenty-two, she was the general manager of Badd Kitty. The next step was upper management, helping Bast oversee the running of the rest of the franchises. The whole operation included the original Badd's Bar and Grille, as well as Badd Kitty, Badd Night—a music venue—and Badd's Bar Anchorage. They've talked about expanding into Juneau, but so far, nothing has come of it. I'm proud of her, even though not everyone gets it. She's gotten a lot of shit from a lot of people for skipping college to work at her family's business, but she’s always known what she wanted, and what she wanted was to be CEO of the Badd's Bar company. And she was well on her way to that goal.

We unboxed all the food together—chicken fingers, fries, mozzarella sticks, potato skins, deep-fried pickles, Bavarian pretzels…deep-fried carb-heavy goodness I forgo most of the year.

As we were unloading, she leaned close. "Did you do the thing?”

"The thing?”

"For Christmas. For Mom and Dad?"

"Oh! Yeah. I did." I glanced at her, worried. "Why? Should I not have? I thought you said they'd be happy about it."

She just grinned at me, her Aegean-blue eyes, so much like her mother's, twinkling. "This is gonna be the best Christmas ever."

"Why?"

She put her lips to my cheek as if to kiss me but gave me a raspberry instead. "Oh, no reason. It just will be."

The mischievous look in her eyes told me she knew something more, but I knew better than to pry. Mainly because I love surprises, and no one does big gestures like this family.

The boys came swooping in with paper plates, long arms doing their best Hungry Hungry Hippo impressions as they reached over us for food while Dru and Bast watched, grinning, happy to have all their kids under one roof again.

Delia's enthusiasm was infectious, or maybe it was my excitement for another holiday season with this crazy crew, but happiness and joy bubbled up in my heart as I took my place at the long table next to Delia.

It felt like maybe it was going to be the best Christmas ever.