Wrapped Up in Holly (Hart Brothers)

2. Holly

Holly

I tugged at my hair, tossing it away from the collar of my coat. It was a hand-me-down. Not that my clothes usually weren’t, but this coat was big and ugly, and I felt like an idiot standing out here in the cold, next to a giant plastic snowman, trying to psych myself up to ring the doorbell. My aunt had already left. Dropped me off with barely a wave. So, I didn’t have many choices.

Either walk all the way home or find the guts to walk in the house, where music and laughter rang out. My stomach fluttered with butterflies.

Last year, I had moved here to Akron, Ohio right in the middle of the year, and the teacher had sat me next to Evan. He was nice and mostly quiet, chubby with dark hair and a nice smile. He didn’t seem to care what other people thought about him. Something I wished I could do, but when you were the tallest girl in class, it was hard not to stick out.

I hadn’t talked to anyone. I still didn’t. Except Evan. All because that one day he had started telling me about his family, the farm they lived on, and the pig they had as a pet. Ever since then, we were friends.

Best friends.

I’d been here at his house before, but this was the first time I was so nervous. Because I was going to tell him I liked him.

Liked liked him.

With a pat to my pocket, to make sure his gift was still there, I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

Mrs. Hart answered with her usual big smile and held her arm out to me. “Holly!” She peered behind me. “Is your aunt or uncle here?” When I shook my head, her smile dropped only momentarily before her eyes brightened. “Well, come on in. You’re probably freezing.”

She ushered me inside, and I saw Evan standing not too far behind her. He grinned, in his usual black T-shirt and jeans. I always teased him about his “uniform,” and he always teased me about my obsession with fashion. Not that I was able to be very fashionable here. I wore whatever was given to me by my aunt. Before, my mom had always made my clothes. We’d used to spend hours shopping for fabric and looking at patterns. Then she would have me walk the length of the kitchen and living room in our apartment, and I’d pose for polaroids that she’d hang up all over. I loved it. Hearing her laugh. Wearing the clothing she’d made for me. Being with her.

Here, there wasn’t anyone to set up a mini fashion show. No one to share my appreciation of outfits, but at least I had Evan’s sister, who often shared her magazines with me.

“Holly!” Rosie shouted. The telltale clomping of her crutches sounded before she rounded the corner. Rosie had Spina Bifida and needed help to walk, but she also loved reading Teen Vogue and Cosmo , so even though she was two years younger than me and Evan, I spent a lot of time with her. Rosie grinned at me, the same smile as Mrs. Hart’s. The same one as Evan’s. “I saw this new way to paint our nails to make it look like tie dye. We gotta try it.”

Evan huffed. “No, Ro, Mom said we could have the TV.”

“Mommy!” someone shouted from the kitchen. I think it was Julie. “The twins spilled the sprinkles!”

Mrs. Hart pointed to the coat rack with too many coats hanging on it already as she smiled at me. “You know where everything goes.” Then she spun around, calling out, “Piglet! Come eat the sprinkles!”

I took off my coat and attempted to hang it up, but it slid off. Rosie snickered as Evan grabbed it from the floor and tossed it to the top of the rack. Then he nodded toward the back of the house. “I made popcorn.”

“But I want to show you how to do the nail polish,” Rosie whined as I started to follow Evan.

Looking between the siblings, I said, “How about we paint our nails while we watch TV?”

I caught Evan’s eye roll, but Rosie seemed satisfied. “Okay! I’ll be right there.”

She made her way to the staircase and sat in her electric chair, which would take her upstairs, where I supposed she’d get her magazines and nail polish.

“Now she’ll never leave us alone,” Evan grumbled, and I tried not to be too excited about why he might want to be alone with me.

Those butterflies from before were feeling more like dragons now.

He tipped his head for me to follow him into the chaotic kitchen. Evan was the oldest of seven kids, and, at first, I’d had a hard time keeping everyone straight, but now that I knew them, it was easy. Julie was at the table, studiously decorating sugar cookies, while the two-year-old twins, Ryan and Tristan, made a mess. Piglet, the pig, was snorting around the floor for crumbs.

“Holly!” Julie screeched. “You want to decorate with me?”

“Not right now,” I said as Evan stole one of the cookies.

“But we will eat them.”

Julie fumed at him with clenched teeth. “That was my favorite!”

Ryan imitated her with a screech, and Evan patted her head, avoiding her swinging fist.

“Don’t instigate, Ev,” Mrs. Hart said. “Get out of here before you start any more trouble.”

He smiled over his shoulder at me while slipping me another stolen cookie. There was a sliding door in the hall, where Mr. Hart waved to us from his spot outside, a tangle of lights in his other hand. Aiden, the third youngest at five-years-old, sat at his feet, toying with the strand, though it appeared like he was knotting it up more than helping.

The living room was at the back of the house, where Claire was laid out on the floor, flipping through a book that seemed a bit advanced for a first grader.

Evan stepped over her to the couch. “Move it, Pikachu. We’re going to watch a movie.”

The red-headed girl barely acknowledged us. Merely tucked her book under her arm and called the golden retriever to follow her out. “Let’s go, Winnie.”

Once we were alone, Evan pulled me down next to him on the couch. “I got that movie you said you liked from Blockbuster.”

I lit up. “ Love Actually ?”

He showed me the DVD case. “My dad had to rent it ’cause it’s rated R. He gave me so much shit over it.”

I laughed. Mr. and Mrs. Hart were so cool. They let their kids curse and watch rated R movies. Not that Evan and his brothers and sisters didn’t get in trouble, but they treated the kids as equals. Like my mom used to do with me. She asked for my opinion on things and considered what I wanted to do, instead of telling me what to do. Not like my aunt and uncle. They always had something to say about me, like if I looked sad or “in a mood.” My uncle and my cousins were fond of asking if I was on my period if I “copped an attitude.” One time, I cursed in front of my aunt and uncle, and they didn’t let me watch TV or go on the computer for the rest of the weekend because I was “disrespecting” them.

But they never did anything about what my cousins said to me, always picking on me. Laughing at me with their friends at school. They were assholes, and I’d love to say it to their faces.

It was one of the reasons I tried to come to the Hart Farm as often as I could.

“I’m here!” Rosie sang out, carrying a bag of stuff over her shoulder as she made her way into the living room. She worked her upper arms free of her crutches and dropped them haphazardly down to the floor as she plopped on the couch, right between Evan and me.

“Oh, my god, did you see?” she asked, tearing through her bag. “Joe Jonas cut his hair off.”

Evan huffed. “Ro! Come on!”

“What?” She paid him no mind, handing me magazines and nail polishes. “Here. Here it is.” She flipped through the Teen People and pointed to the page with Joe’s new haircut displayed.

“I like it,” I said, ignoring how Evan looked like he wanted to ring his sister’s neck.

“I hate it,” she groused. “Now he looks so…”

“Cute?” I guessed, and Evan cut his gaze to me. His eyebrows pulled down, and I shrugged. “What? He is cute.”

Rosie leaned back against the cushion, getting more comfortable as she gabbed away, but I couldn’t take my attention off her brother. He folded his arms, pouting.

“Sorry,” I mouthed.

“No, you’re not,” he mouthed back.

I bit swallowed a laugh as I focused on Rosie showing me different things in the magazine before finding a page about doing nails. “Do you want to try it? It might get messy.”

I tipped my head to the side, considering it. We were supposed to add multiple colors of polish to a shallow bowl and dip the tips of our fingers into it to give it a tie-dye effect, and it didn’t sound like it would work. Although Rosie really wanted to do it.

“I…”

“Rosie,” Mrs. Hart said, saving me from having to answer, as she stood in the hall, “if you don’t get in here, your brothers and sister are going to eat all the cookies.”

“Awe!” she whined, and Mrs. Hart shook her head.

“You know Ryan’s a vacuum. He eats everything.”

Rosie huffed then turned to me. “You coming?”

“No. That’s okay.”

As Rosie fiddled with her crutches, Mrs. Hart slanted her eyes to me and winked. As soon as Rosie and her mom disappeared down the hall, Evan blew out a breath.

“God. She’s so annoying.”

I lifted my shoulder. “I don’t know. I like her. Your whole family.”

He stared at me, probably checking to make sure I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t. Not when I was with him. Especially when he was looking at me. His eyes were a pretty mix of green and brown, far too pretty for a boy like Evan to have.

“You know I can kick their asses,” he offered after a while, and I snorted a laugh, batting at his arm.

“There are two of them,” I said, referring to my cousins, Jeremy and Jared. It was their life’s mission to make my life hell. It was bad enough I had to hear the whispers from other kids at school, calling me “stick” or “bug,” but at home, they never left me any hot water and ate all of my favorite snacks before I got any. That’s besides relentlessly teasing me about my looks.

My aunt and uncle called them Irish twins because they were so close in age to each other. I called them idiots. Big idiots, too. And they were in the same grade as me and Evan.

While I appreciated Evan’s offer to beat them up, I doubted he could. He was an inch or two shorter than me, and even though he played sports, I didn’t think he could take on Jeremy and Jared. Besides, even if he did, my aunt and uncle would probably never let me come over if anything like that ever happened, and that would be the worst possibility.

“I would,” Evan told me seriously. “I’d beat them up for you. I don’t want you to be upset anymore.”

I shrugged. “That’s why I come here so much. Because I…” I ducked my head to hide the blush I felt crawling up my cheeks as I picked at the knit afghan. “I feel safe here.”

He shifted closer to me, placing his fingers over mine so I’d stop scratching at the blanket. But he didn’t say anything for a long time, and I lifted my gaze to find him staring at me in a way he never had before. Like I was the best thing he’d ever seen.

“I’ll always protect you,” he told me, and goosebumps raced down my arms even as I went hot all over.

I managed half a smile. “You can’t.”

“Yes, I can. I…” He cleared his throat, his eyes darting away for a second. “I got you something.”

“You did?”

He nodded, and I patted my pocket. “That’s funny, ’cause I got you something, too. Or, I mean, I made it.”

“One sec,” he told me then ran out of the room, returning a minute later with a small clumsily wrapped box. “Here.”

I grinned and took it between my hands, rattling it softly. It felt a bit heavy. I removed the bow and stuck it to Evan’s cheek. He laughed as I tore into the paper. Inside the box was a photo album. When I looked at him, a little confused, he opened it, flipping through the blank pages. “I know you used to take a lot of pictures with your mom with clothes and stuff, and I thought, maybe, you might want to put them in here. Instead of in that shoebox.”

“Evan,” I breathed, my voice catching. “That’s…” I sniffed and threw myself at him, wringing my arms around his neck. This was the nicest thing someone had done for me since I moved here. “I love it. Thank you.”

A moment passed before he looped his arms around my waist.

“But hold on. I wanted to show you…” He gently nudged me away and positioned the photo album between us then turned to the very last page, where he’d placed a photo of us. One that his mom had taken in the fall while we’d stood in front of an apple tree. I had my arm around Evan’s shoulders, and he had a big red apple stuck between his teeth.

It was our first picture together. Hopefully, not the last.

“Thank you,” I said, and he smiled, giving me the courage to hand him my gift. “It’s not as good as yours. I’m sorry.”

Evan’s mouth twisted like it always did when he was unhappy as he accepted the small bag. “Whatever it is, I’ll love it.”

Then he untied the tiny string and turned the bag upside down to drop the bracelet into his palm. “It’s a friendship bracelet,” I explained. “I made it.”

“Friendship?” he repeated, and my heart fell to my stomach. He hated it.

I had spent a long time picking out the colors for the bracelet and hoped he would like the gray, blue, and navy. “If you don’t like it, that’s okay. It’s stupid, I know. I?—”

“It’s not stupid.” He held it between his thumb and index finger, but he kept his gaze down. “I… Thank you. I love it.”

I took it from him. “Then why do you sound like that?”

His eyes finally met mine. “Like what?”

“Like you hate it.”

“I don’t hate it.” He stuck his wrist out. “Here. Put it on me.”

“You swear you don’t hate it?”

He offered me his crooked half-smile, like I was so silly. I loved that smile. “I swear.”

“You won’t take it off? Ever?”

He shook his head. “I won’t ever take it off.”

I accepted his answer and tied it around his wrist. “There. Friends forever.”

He pursed his lips again, his eyebrows going all pinchy.

“ Evan .”

“What?”

“You hate it.” When I started to undo it, he clamped his hand over mine, flattening my fingers against the woven bracelet around his wrist.

“I don’t hate it. I just hate…” He turned away from me, his knee bouncing.

“What?”

“I…”

“What?” I wanted to scream it. “Tell me.”

He licked his lips and faced me. “I like you.”

My jaw dropped. My heart leapt out of my throat. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster.

But he’s face reddened when I didn’t answer immediately, and I started to shrink away. “It’s… I…” He blinked a few times, clearly embarrassed. “Sorry, I made it weird. Forget?—”

“Evan.”

He grimaced, not quite meeting my gaze.

“I like you too,” I said.

His expression changed, his frown flipping, his eyes brightening. “You do?”

I nodded. “I was afraid to tell you.”

“ I was afraid to tell you ,” he said, and we both laughed for a moment before abruptly stopping. Because we both noticed our hands were still tangled together.

We’d always hugged and high fived. Touching each other had been no big deal.

But now it was.

Because Evan Hart liked me.

And I liked him.

He released his right hand from on top of mine and rotated his left up on his thigh, so our palms were touching. Then he linked our fingers together. His skin was hot and a little sweaty, and it was the best thing ever. He was the first boy I’d ever held hands with.

And I smiled at him.

And he smiled at me.

“Merry Christmas, Holly.”

“Merry Christmas, Evan.”