Should’ve Known It’s You (Not You Again #7)

Chapter 66

CHAPTER 66

KENNEDY

O n Christmas morning, I blinked my eyes open to see snow gently drifting down from the heavens above. The world outside wore a white blanket, the branches of the trees in the distance heavy with the fresh powder and the ground completely covered.

Inside the loft, the remnants of last night’s fire were still going, a couple of new logs lying on top to provide more fuel. As I woke, my eyes lingered on the glowing embers and the smoke licking around the sides of the unlit logs.

All was tranquil and quiet—until I became conscious enough that I heard the cows mooing in the barn. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect scene to wake up to on Christmas Day.

I smiled and brought my gaze to the window, staring out at the snowflakes as they floated lazily past the window. Rolling over to face Austin, I blinked hard when I realized he wasn’t on the pull-out sofa with me anymore.

I popped my head up, yawning and stretching my arms out above my head as I looked around. Spotting him in the kitchenette making some coffee, I let my gaze run over him in nothing but his boxers, his broad back and tight ass a sight equally as perfect as the view outside. As I checked him out, I whistled, a grin on my lips.

“Merry Christmas to me,” I teased, playfully pumping my eyebrows.

He glanced at me over his shoulder, sliding the water cartridge into the coffeemaker before he turned to come back to bed.

“Are you coming onto me?” he asked innocently, those dark eyes locked on mine as he climbed onto the mattress.

“What if I am?”

He chuckled and crawled over to me until his bare chest was pressed against mine. “I was hoping you would say that.”

Sliding a hand into my hair, he brought my face to his and smothered me with kisses, his lips soft and hungry on my own. I moaned as I lay back on the sofa, only too happy to receive his attention while the coffee brewed.

Austin’s skin was cool and I kicked the covers that had been tangled between us to lift them over him as well. He smiled against my lips and made himself comfortable at my side. We sat together, his arms around me and his head resting on top of mine as the scent of coffee started filling the air.

“How did you sleep?” he murmured against my hair, the faint scent of him tempting me to lick him as I leaned into his embrace. “You were snoring like a freight train, so I assume you were out cold.”

Right. No licking him, then . Instead, I lifted my head and smirked as I looked into his eyes. “Not as out or as cold as you’re going to be if I kick you out into the snow for telling those lies.”

He chuckled, bringing his forehead to lightly touch mine. “Fine. I might’ve been the one who was snoring, but I always sleep so much deeper here.”

“Same.” I settled back into him, watching flames skittering around the new logs as they finally caught fire. “Gosh, waking up here on Christmas is like being in a movie. I definitely didn’t appreciate it enough as a kid.”

“No one ever appreciates anything enough as a kid,” he joked. “I took it for granted myself until the first holidays I didn’t come home. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Christmas in New York. It was new and exciting, but it’s just not the same.”

I glanced at the window again, looking at the vast, snow-covered fields outside and the white-topped mountains just barely visible in the distance. Combined with the soft soundtrack of cows mooing and the slight crackling of the fire, I had to agree.

“If you have kids,” I said quietly, bringing my gaze back to the dancing flames as I rested my head against his chest. “Would you bring them here every Christmas?”

The jury was still out on whether his kids would also be mine, but I felt like we were at a point where I could at least partially assume they would be. I felt his lungs expand on a deep breath before he nodded against the top of my head.

“I would like to,” he murmured and stroked his fingers through my hair. “It wouldn’t have to happen every year, though. I suppose it would depend on whether Winrey and Benji’s Christmas traditions grow to include us as well, or whether they keep preferring to fly solo.”

My heart skipped several beats. My cheeks warmed along with my chest. “Keep saying things like that, and I might just chain you to this bed until there’s a baby in me.”

“I wouldn’t object to that.” He held out his wrists and grinned. “I’ve had some experience with handcuffs recently. Did you bring any? I won’t even put up a fight.”

I laughed and smacked his hands away playfully. Coffee started filling the pot, and the scent of it was the only thing that could have pulled me out of bed right then. Turning to press a kiss to his bare shoulder, I kept my lips against his skin for another second before I pulled away and slipped into my robe. “Two coffees, coming right up.”

“I’ll get them,” he offered, but I shook my head.

“You stay put. We wouldn’t even have coffee if it wasn’t for you, so the least I can do is to fix it.” Ambling over to the kitchenette, I made quick work of our drinks, then carried the steaming mugs back to the sofa where I settled down with him again.

Our early morning was quiet and intimate, just the two of us hanging out in the loft, watching the fire and the snow, and idly dreaming about the future. Eventually, though, I checked my watch. “Nine thirty. I guess we should make ourselves presentable.”

Austin nodded. “Mom said they’d have breakfast ready around ten.”

“Let me chug this coffee then.” I was suddenly wishing we could’ve spent all day by ourselves, but I knew that as soon as we got together with his family, I would be singing a whole different tune.

We made it to the big house, and Jess hugged me good morning, immediately confirming that I’d been right. The joy in the kitchen was infectious. My dirty thoughts about Austin could wait until later.

I smiled as I hugged her back. “Merry Christmas, Jess, and to you too, Peanut.”

Jess chuckled. “Peanut was so excited for Christmas that they started kickboxing my bladder at four a.m. Such fun.”

“Welcome to motherhood,” Jeannie said playfully. She wrapped me in a tight hug as soon as Jess let me go. “Kids tend to wake their parents up well before the crack of dawn on Christmas Day. You might as well start getting used to it now.”

Laughing with them, I followed Jeannie to the living room while Jess went to refill her hot cocoa. The Merricks were so warm and welcoming that they made me feel like part of the family, and there was nothing like it. Especially not today.

Austin and Slate came into the living room with Doug, and Austin handed me a cup of coffee, then took my hand and pulled me onto the sofa with him. “Dad hands out the gifts, so we just have to sit here like good little kids until we get ours.”

I chuckled. “That sounds easy enough.”

Doug chuckled and sat down on an armchair while Jess and Jeannie brought in breakfast platters. Austin and I had stopped at a deli on our way out of the city, and we’d bought croissants, cold cuts, and a variety of different cheeses.

Jeannie had added some scrambled eggs, sausages, and freshly baked cookies to the mix. I sat up a little straighter as they walked in. “Is there anything I can help with?”

Jess shook her head, setting down some cutlery and crockery on the coffee table. “The only thing we need your help with is eating all this stuff. You guys bought way too much.”

“Christmas around here is a pretty low-key, minimal affair. This will be it for breakfast and we’ll have some snacks, but we’ll only really eat at dinner,” Austin explained. “I’m surprised they’ve even showered, if I’m being honest. There have been some Christmases that we’ve all spent the day in our pajamas.”

Jess grinned. “Well, we thought about it, but we wanted to seem classy for Kenny’s first Christmas here. That won’t keep me from kicking her butt at Go-Fish later, but at least I’ll be dressed while I do it.”

Doug waited until everyone had made themselves a plate of food before he started handing out the gifts. It didn’t take me long to realize that in this house, the gifts weren’t what Christmas was about. None of the presents were lavish or expensive, but rather small, meaningful tokens with a couple of gag gifts slotted in between.

Jess laughed when Austin opened a toy police set, complete with a set of flimsy plastic handcuffs and a tiny baton. She winked at him. “I figured if you had these at your place, you’d be less likely to go out looking for the real thing.”

He groaned but got up to give her a hug. “Thanks. In case you missed it though, the real thing I went looking for was on the other side. I could keep the cuffs, but you’re missing the convict uniform.”

She burst out laughing, and I marveled at how easy and light their Christmas morning was. This was all such a stark contrast to how I’d grown up. As a young child, sure, my family Christmases had been more like this, but that had stopped abruptly when Dad had won the lottery.

After that, he had always been expected to bury my mother in expensive jewelry, designer bags and shoes, and new luggage every year for their world travels. Winrey and I had often been gifted tons of our mom’s hand-me-downs, but neither of us had ever had the nerve to wear any of it to school for fear of being labeled, judged, or misrepresented as materialistic when, at heart, we’d both just been small-town farm girls.

In the years since, my parents’ gifts had only become more extravagant. Meanwhile, this year in the Merrick house, Doug had handmade a new birdfeeder for Jeannie and she was ecstatic. I smiled as I watched them open their gifts, surprised when Doug picked up the last gift from under the tree and held it out to me.

“This one is yours, Kenny,” he said. “It’s from all of us.”

Caught off guard, my cheeks burned. Jeannie took the gift from her husband and placed it in my hands. It was large, flat, and felt like a wrapped piece of cardboard. I swallowed hard, trying to fight tears of gratitude as I stared at it.

“For me? You really shouldn’t have.”

“Why not?” Slate asked. “You got us all something, but so far, you’ve only opened Austin’s gift to you. It’s only right we give you something, too.”

All eyes were on me and they were all sharing knowing smiles. Jess finally turned big, exasperated eyes on me. “Go on. Open it already.”

“It’s not keys to a Ferrari,” Slate warned jokingly. “So don’t get your hopes up.”

I glanced at Austin, but he immediately lifted his hands to show me his palms. “Don’t look at me. I know nothing about this.”

I believed that. I had a feeling his family had decided on whatever this was without consulting him. His gift to me had been a small, custom star map. It was a sweet framed printout I would treasure forever of the night sky over Firefly Grove on the night of Jess’s wedding.

“Just open it,” Jess encouraged as I kept staring at their gift. She was leaning forward in her chair as if she was even more excited about this than I was, but I doubted that was true.

My face was still hot as I slid my finger carefully into the first corner and lifted it, doing my best not to tear the plain red wrapping paper. Once I got it open, I found myself staring at a picture pressed between two pieces of cardboard.

It was a gorgeous photograph of Austin and me at Jess’s wedding. We were on the dance floor. My head was thrown back with laughter and Austin was looking at me like he’d fallen in love right on the spot.

And maybe he had.

Maybe we both had.

Finally unable to keep fighting the tears, I wiped them from my eyes and lifted my gaze back to the Merricks. “Thank you. All of you. This is so special.”

Jess got up to give me a hug. “That was the moment we all knew. We just had to wait for you dummies to catch on.”

Everyone laughed. Then Doug and Slate got up to grab some more food, Jeannie disappeared to the kitchen to put on more coffee, and Jess helped to clean up all the wrapping paper. Austin slid an arm around my shoulders and took a moment with me to stare at the picture I’d gone back to gawking at.

I couldn’t believe a moment like that had been captured at all, but I would be eternally grateful that it had. As he and I sat there looking at it together, I was filled with a sense of belonging, and home, and family, and I turned my head to rest it on his shoulder.

Between the night this picture had been taken and now, he had come to mean everything to me, and I was determined to make sure he knew every day how blessed I felt to have him in my life. Which would hopefully be every day for the rest of mine.