A Very Badd Christmas (The Badd Brothers #19)

16. Hayden

CHAPTER 16

hayden

A ll eyes turned to us. Mom studiously focused on her coffee. Duncan and Dane were visibly suppressing laughter. Dru and Bast were trying to act normal, but they too were clearly trying not to laugh. Delia had her back to the kitchen, stirring creamer into her coffee…but her shoulders were shaking.

Emerson ran her gaze around the kitchen. "All right, get it out of your system, the lot of you.” She fixed her stare on her brothers. "Come on, you two. Hit us with the jokes."

Dru cleared her throat. "No one is going to make jokes, my love. You and Hayden were not exactly…discreet. We can all acknowledge that without resorting to crass and juvenile humor." She pinned her son with a hard look. "Right, boys?"

“Mmm-hmm. Yup, got it, Mom." Duncan avoided his mother's stare.

" Moi? Crass and juvenile?" Dane said, clapping a hand to his chest, faking outrage. "Why, I never."

"I'm not gonna feel safe until someone makes a joke," Emerson said.

"Sounds like someone had a very merry fucking Christmas," Delia said, turning around, mug held against her chest. "Ohhhhh Christmas dick, ohhhh Christmas dick, how lovely is your Christmas dick," she sang. "Ho ho ho, sounds like you've been a very Badd girl, Emerson." She paused to take a sip. "You want more? I got more. I can keep going."

Emerson pursed her lips in what seemed like an attempt to keep from laughing. "Nope. That's good. Thanks, Dee. I feel much better now.”

"I live but to serve," Delia said. "And from what I heard… three times …so does Hayden." She winked at me. "Didn't think you were getting out of this unscathed, did you, buddy?”

"Delia." Bast's voice was quiet but firm. "That's enough."

Delia blew a kiss at us. "Just helping out."

"This is excellent coffee, Dru," Mom said, a little too loudly. "What brand is it?"

For some reason, Mom's attempt to force normality into the situation forced a snort out of me—it was just so…perfectly timed. My snort turned into a choked laugh, and then when Mom glanced at me, confused, I utterly lost it. Emerson stared at me for a moment, and then she was laughing too, and within seconds, everyone was.

"What's so funny?" Mom demanded. "It was an honest question."

I went to her and hugged her from behind. "I know, Mom. That's why it was funny. It's okay to acknowledge the situation, you know."

She sniffed imperiously. "That's just not my style, Hayden Reginald. I didn't hear a thing." She took a sip of coffee. Eyed me, a strange expression on her face. "Incidentally, Hayden, your father was blessed with an extraordinarily short refractory period as well. I remember the three-times-in-one-morning years." A pause. "Quite fondly, too."

I stared at her, stunned. " MOM !"

The whole room lost it again.

She just shrugged, looking at me with big innocent eyes. "What? When in Rome, right?"

I covered my face. "I need coffee. Or a hot spoon with which to dig my brain out of my ears."

"Oh hush, you," Mom snapped. "We all had to listen to you two going at it like horny rabbits. You can darned well take a few jokes." She pointed at me. “What I said wasn't a joke, mind you. In his prime, your father could take me around the world three or four times in a morning.”

"Jesus crickets, Mom," I groaned. “ Please stop. I'm begging you to stop."

"Not what you were saying a few minutes ago," Delia quipped. "Sounded more like 'yes, yes, yes, yes’ to me."

Dru snorted, clapping a hand over her mouth. "Delia!"

Bast cleared his throat. "Are we done?"

"I dunno," Duncan said. "I think that's up to Hayden and Emerson. You need a minute? One more round before we open presents?"

Emerson looked up at me. "I'm sorry for my family, Hayden."

I just grinned. "Funny, I'm not."

She leaned against me, and I wrapped my arms around her waist. "Okay, we can move on now,” she said.

Delia set two mugs of coffee on the counter in front of us. "Here. Caffeinate yourselves. There's a pile of presents with my name on it over there. Literally."

“Wait.” I sniffed the air. "Why do I smell cinnamon rolls?"

Dru nudged Delia away from the oven with a hip. "Because…" she tugged on oven mitts and pulled out two trays lined with rows of cinnamon rolls dripping with frosting. "I made cinnamon rolls. Christmas Day tradition."

"You all have some amazing traditions," Mom said as Dru slid a roll from the tray onto a plate and set it in front of her. "I haven't had one of these in years. It looks delicious, Dru, thank you."

"Oh, it's store-bought. I just popped 'em in the oven." Dru served me one and then herself. "The rest of ya'll can get your own."

There was a comical rush for the rolls, then, as Delia, Emerson, Duncan, and Dane all tried to get one at the same time, a process that featured a lot of playful pushing, pulling, wrestling, cursing, and laughing.

Bast waited until the chaos had settled before grabbing one for himself. "We raised a bunch of wolves, Dru."

"No kidding," she answered, around a bite. "I blame you."

"You married me," he said, shrugging. "And kept letting me put kids in you."

"I let you put kids in me?" She smirked at him. "I seem to remember it differently. You wanted to wait the whole six weeks after Dunc was born. I'm the one who jumped your bones before a month had gone by."

"It's a miracle we don’t have six, like Rome and Kit-Kat," Bast said.

“Not really. You getting snipped may have had something to do with it."

"Why are we talking about this?" Dane asked. "Because I don't need to know this."

"Your father has very potent baby gravy," Dru said, popping a bite into her mouth. "Something to remember. Always use a condom, boys. Babies are forever."

Both boys groaned, covering their faces.

"CAN WE STOP TALKING ABOUT SEX?" Duncan shouted. "My virgin ears are burning."

“Virgin ears?" Dane said, cackling. "If you're a virgin, then I'm the pope. You and Kendall weren't exactly leaving room for the Holy Spirit in the back of Kendall’s Yukon after prom."

"Dane," Duncan growled. "I'm gonna kill you.”

Bast just laughed. "You think we don’t know? If you thought you were bein’ sneaky about it, son, you've got another thing coming."

"The condoms randomly appearing in your suit coat pocket didn't give you a clue that we knew?" Dru said.

Duncan was blushing furiously. "I thought that was Dane trying to be funny."

"If I was trying to be funny about you popping your cherry with Kendall, putting condoms in your suit coat wouldn't be my move. A twelve-inch black dildo, maybe."

"Dane Andrew Badd," Dru snapped. " Cherry popping is a vulgar and offensive phrase."

"Sorry, Ma," Dane mumbled.

"I must admit, this is the strangest conversation I've ever had, let alone on Christmas Day," Mom murmured into her mug.

Dru just laughed. “Oh, Kaye, hang around this crew long enough, you'll soon find out that this is actually pretty tame."

"Oh…oh my." Kaye shook her head. "Maybe you all need to go to church more, in that case."

"MOM!" I shot her a horrified look.

Bast just snickered. "Good one, Kaye."

Mom shot me a snooty look back. "See? I can be funny."

I palmed my forehead, shaking my head with a sigh. “So I'm discovering."

As if upon some unspoken cue, everyone migrated to the living room. Dru and Bast took the loveseat nearest the tree, Delia took one corner of the couch, Emerson and I took the other, and the boys took the middle, with Mom in between Delia and the boys.

“Okay, Kaye and Hayden, we usually do this is one at a time from youngest to oldest. We don't go in for all-at-once chaos like those heathens in Bax and Eva’s house."

Dru smacked his shoulder. "Don't be a dick, honey. They have their way, we have ours."

"Their way means a pile of wrapping paper taller than me. Everyone yelling and shouting at once. I think Liam and Lennox actually got into a fistfight one year."

"Yeah, but that was over a girl," Duncan said, "not the presents."

"Oh." Bast shuffled through the pile of gifts, found one, and tossed it to Dane. "For you, the baby of the family."

"Oh boy!" Dane said with over-the-top enthusiasm. "I hope it's My Little Pony!"

“Still too soon,” Delia sniped. "I was crushed that year."

Dru threw her head back and groaned. "My god , not this again! They were sold out ! I went to every store within a hundred miles and spent three days trolling every toy-selling website on the internet. I tried , okay? I'm sorry! Do you need therapy?"

“Yeah, but not for that." Delia blew her mom a kiss. "You made up for it anyway."

One by one, the Badd kids opened their gifts: gift cards to favorite stores, a new wireless mic-headphone gaming headset, an expensive, imported lotion only available from one store in Paris…

When the kids had all gone, Dru and Bast exchanged theirs with each other. Next, Dru fished through the pile and came up with a gift bag which she handed to Mom.

"Oh, goodness," Mom exclaimed. "You didn’t!”

"Of course we did," Dru said. "And it's not like I didn't see the gifts you brought."

Mom gestured at the bags we'd brought. "Well, go on! We can open them together."

Mom got a cashmere sweater, lilac, V-neck, thin and delicate and beautiful. She'd gotten Dru a jar of hand cream she claimed had done wonders for her hands. Dru immediately put it on, oohing and ahhing over the scent and how her skin just drank it up. Dru and Bast flipped through the photo book, remarking on how different everything looked.

Around it went again, this time the kids all giving each other gifts, and of course Dru and Bast hadn't stopped at just one, so it went around again. Emerson got a smart wool scarf, a coffee mug with her college logo on one side and the date of her soccer team's nationals win on the other, and a Coach wallet clutch.

When it seemed like pretty much everyone had gone, I gave Emerson the small gift bag containing my present to her.

She shot me a soft smile and then tugged the tissue paper free. Within was a small white box containing the necklace. She lifted the box free, opened it, and her eyes went wide.

"Hayden!" she gasped, looking at me with wonder. "It's incredible."

"It reminded me of you—your nickname, Sunni."

She rested the pendant on her palm, staring at it. It was almost as big as her palm, the rays long and pointy and serpentine, the central opal bigger than my thumb and gleaming iridescent in the early morning sun shining through the bay windows.

“Put it on me?" She breathed, handing it to me and turning her back to me.

I slid her profusion of curls aside and rested the pendant on her chest as I hooked the ends together at her neck.

She looked down at it, eyes shimmering. "It's gorgeous, Hayden. Thank you so much. I love it. I'll never take it off." She leaned in and kissed me. "I hope you didn't spend a fortune on it."

"Oh, don't worry about that," Mom said. "Hayden is very good with money. He rarely spends anything and makes a ton."

"Mom," I muttered. "Come on ."

"What? It's true!" She rolled her eyes. "It's good to see you being generous again. I was worried that greedy, ungrateful bitch had ruined you. It seems Miss Emerson, here, is pretty much the opposite."

I gaped at my mother. "Seriously? Language!"

Mom gaped back at me. "Oh, what, you can drop F-bombs all day long, but I call that awful, selfish, greedy girl the B-word one time and you're calling me out?"

Emerson cackled. "He told me about her, Kaye, and I agree with you. She was a seriously ungrateful bitch, by all accounts."

Mom sniffed at me. "See? She agrees."

"So do I! That's not the point."

Emerson knelt at the tree and retrieved a small package, which she handed to me. I tore the wrapping open, revealing a small wooden box. Opening it, my heart stopped.

Within was a plain brass key on a cushion of red velvet. It was on a keyring with a small handmade leather heart.

I looked at her for an explanation.

She bit her lip. "Um, the cutesy explanation is that it's the key to my heart."

Everyone awwwed except Dane, who faked a retch, earning him a no-look middle finger from Emerson. "The other, more practical explanation is that's the key to my apartment in Seattle. I live with four other girls from my team, so it's loud and wildly estrogenic, but…um, yeah."

"For real?" I lifted the key out, running my thumb over the teeth. "The key to your apartment?"

"I want you to visit me." She dropped her eyes. “I know we haven't talked about things, and this isn’t the time or place for it, but yeah, it's the key to my apartment."

I pulled her close. "I'll do more than just visit, Em," I whispered.

"I was worried it was too soon," she whispered back.

"It's not."

We turned our attention back to Bast and Dru, who seemed to be waiting for something, even though all the presents had been passed out.

"We have one more thing," Dru said. "For Emmy."

Emerson frowned. "For me?" She blinked, chewed on her lower lip. “Okay, well, actually, I have one more thing for the two of you.”

Delia seemed about ready to wiggle right out of her seat, her blue eyes shining with secrets and joy.

Emerson eyed her. "You know something.”

"I know a lot of things," Delia answered. "Em, I think you should go first."

"Open first or give first?" Emerson asked.

"Give first."

Emerson nodded. "Okay." She let out a breath and went into her room, emerging a moment later with a thin flat rectangle wrapped in red-and-white penguin-themed paper, adorned with a huge golden bow. She stood in front of Dru and Bast, hesitating, running her thumb along a taped seam.

"I, um." She swallowed hard, looked back at me as if for courage, and then at them again with a heavy sigh. "Here. Just open it." She sat on the edge of the couch, knee bouncing, hands wringing.

I took her hand, and she seized mine in a crushing grip.

"Fuck, I’m so nervous," she whispered to me, burying her face in my arm.

She rolled her face on my arm and watched past the edge of my bicep as Bast and Dru tore the paper together. Within was an 8x11 manila envelope tied with red string. Bast opened the flap and pulled out a thin sheaf of paperwork.

He frowned, then leaned across Dru and snagged a pair of reading glasses from a side table. He pointed at his boys without looking. "Not a word about the readers, you two."

They both held up their hands without a word.

"What…" he murmured. "What is this?"

Dru was already weeping. "It's name change paperwork, honey."

Bast shook his head. "I…yeah, so I see.” He looked at Emerson. "Is this real?"

She nodded, hands pressed together, fingers steepled in front of her mouth and nose. "It's long overdue."

"Will someone please explain?" Dane asked after a moment of silence.

Emerson looked at him with surprising tenderness. "I changed my last name."

He looked at me, then at her. "You guys got married already?"

Emerson laughed, snorting. "No! God, no. I changed my last name to Badd. I am officially and forever Emerson Grace Badd."

"What if you get married?" he pressed.

She shrugged. "I'm not changing it. I may hyphenate, but I’ve been a Badd since I was six years old. It's long past time I became one officially."

"What about your mother?” Dru asked, her voice a whisper.

Emerson shook her head. "She didn't even know me the last time I was here. Early onset dementia. She’s been showing signs of it for years, but recently, she’s gotten way worse.” She shrugged. "She hasn't been my mother…well, ever. You have."

Dru pulled her hand inside her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. "On that note…Bast, honey?"

Bast reached down the side of the couch, producing a similar package that had been stuffed between the side of the couch and the tree. He looked shaken, emotional. Swallowing hard, he handed the package to Emerson. "Here, babe. Best to just open it and talk after."

Emerson held the package for a moment, eyes welling. "No." As if she knew what was inside without looking.

"Open it, honey," Dru whispered.

Beside me, Duncan and Dane were quiet, serious, even a little teary-eyed. Delia was barely holding back tears of her own.

Emerson ran a finger under a taped-down flap of wrapping paper and slid the manila envelope out, a match to the one she'd given them. This, too, contained a sheaf of papers, official court documents.

Emerson just shook her head. Looked up at them. Tried to speak but couldn't.

Bast produced a pen from somewhere. "All you gotta do is sign, honey."

Emerson flipped through the adoption paperwork and signed in the necessary spots. She set the pen aside and held the papers, gazing down at them as tears slid down her cheeks.

"Like you said, it's long past due," Bast said, his voice thick. "You've been a member of this family since you were six years old, Emerson. Now it's official." He held up the name-change documents. "In every way there is."

Emerson wept, leaning against me, staring at the papers as if she couldn’t believe it.

"Go hug them," I whispered.

She set the papers on my lap and rushed across the room, throwing herself at Bast and Dru.

They pulled her onto the loveseat with them, both of them wrapping their arms around her.

When her crying subsided several moments later, she sank to sit on the floor in front of them, wiping at her eyes.

"Mom…Dad." She breathed. "You've been my parents my whole life. You're the only parents I've ever known. I was always so scared it would just…go away somehow. I couldn’t bring myself to call you Mom and Dad."

Dru grabbed her hand. "We know, Emmy. We've always known. We never wanted to take away from your connection to your past. It never mattered to us whether it was official—you're our daughter.”

"But then Delia let it slip after your summer break that you wished it was official," Bast said. "So we decided to make it official."

Emerson looked at Delia. "Snitch," she whispered, crawling over to her, where the two women embraced, both crying. "I love you."

Delia laughed, sniffling. "Love you too, sister."

"What are we, chopped liver?" Duncan asked.

“You knew too?" Emerson asked.

"It was a group decision," Bast said. "There obviously wasn’t any question, but we felt it was only fair that they get a say."

Emerson slid between the two boys and hugged them both. Then she went back to Dru and Bast. "I'm so thankful to you. More than I can ever say. You took me in and showed me love. You gave me a family. A whole life I'd never have gotten otherwise.” She hugged Dru first. "I love you, Mom.” Bast, then. "I love you, Dad.”

Bast tipped his head back, sniffing hard and groaning like a bear. "Shit." he pulled Emerson against his chest. "My girl. Love you so fuckin' much, Sunni-girl. Been waiting for you to call me Dad since that day on the dock sixteen years ago."

"I think this must be the merriest Christmas I’ve seen in a long, long time," Mom said, dabbing at her eyes. "God is good indeed."

Dru looked at her. "It's a wonder that you can say that after your loss."

Mom shrugged. "I had fifty amazing, wonderful years with my husband. I mourn him. I will always mourn him. But I know my husband. He would want me to live my life. To move on as best I can. I'm still figuring out what it will look like, of course, and it will certainly take some time. But I…I can hear him, almost." She dropped her voice into a startlingly good impression of Dad. "'You'd better not be moping around, Kaye McCaffrey. I may be gone, but you're not.'"

I choked. "That's exactly what Dad would say."

“Of course it is.” Mom reached over to me and squeezed my hand. "I miss him, Hayden. I miss him so bad, sometimes I think it'll kill me. But it doesn't, and it won't. And I will not be paralyzed by grief. It's not what your father would have wanted. And so, I carry on. And I find the joy in the places where it can be found." She gestured around the room. "I've found an absolute ocean of joy in meeting you all. In watching this huge, crazy, hysterical, and wildly inappropriate family love each other. You've brought so, so much joy to this old, tired, grieving heart, all of you." She turned a look on Emerson next. "And you, my dear. Seeing how you care for my Hayden? That brings me more joy and hope than I can even express. I know, I know—it’s new, and you're still figuring it out. I won't put any undue pressure on you. I'm just glad I made Hayden go out by himself that day."

She took Mom's hand and kissed the back of it. "Me too, Kaye. Me too."