CHRISTMAS MORNING.
My birthday.
I wake up slowly, not wanting to get out of bed and face the day. Not yet. I roll over and crack my eyes open to find the piece of art staring back at me, and I smile.
A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime. That’s what I want. I want someone to promise me a million kisses and more. Someone who will cherish me and love me and only want to see me happy.
And I think that someone is Crew.
I sit up in bed, brushing the hair out of my face as I reach for my phone to see I have a text from him.
Crew: Happy Birthday.
Crew: Merry Christmas.
Crew: I sent you something.
I actually gasp out loud. He needs to stop spending money on me.
I also love how he said happy birthday first.
Me: Thank you. Merry Christmas! Stop sending me gifts.
Crew: Stop telling me what to do.
So grouchy.
Crew: When are you coming over?
Me: I need to spend some of the morning with my mom.
I don’t want my mother to be alone on Christmas. How depressing. My dad? I don’t really care what he’s doing.
Okay fine, I care. I want to be callous and unfeeling, but that’s not my style. I’m still hurt by what he did with Crew’s gift to me. I think he came home late last night, long after I went to bed, and never actually spent Christmas Eve with us beyond the disastrous breakfast, which I know hurt Mom. She didn’t say anything to me about it, and we got dressed up and went out to dinner after Crew left, just the two of us, which was fun, but I know she had her suspicions on where Dad went.
And I think some of them have to do with Veronica, the assistant.
If he’s actually cheating on her, after everything they’ve struggled with lately, I know…
This will be the end of their marriage.
Crew: It’s a low-key day for us. There will be food and my asshole brothers. My parents. My dad is an asshole too, but he’ll be on his best behavior when he meets you.
I love how he calls all of the males in his family a-holes. Sometimes, he acts like one too, ha.
Me: I’ll text you when I’m ready to leave.
Crew: Want me to send a car?
Me: Tell me Peter has Christmas Day off. Please! He deserves it.
Crew: He does. It’ll be someone else driving.
Me: I can find my own way over there.
Crew: No. Let me send a car. I want to make sure you get here safely.
I smile. Why is it when my father does stuff like this, it feels controlling and belittling, yet with Crew, it feels like he’s only protecting me?
Maybe because he believes in me. Tells me I can do things no one else can. When he looks at me, I can see the respect in his gaze. The admiration.
I feel the same way about him.
Me: Okay. Send me a car then. I’ll text you when I’m ready.
Crew: Text me after you open your gift.
Me: I will. Or do you want me to wait? I can bring it over to your house.
Crew: No fucking way. You open it in front of my brothers? They will give me endless shit.
Hmmm. I wonder what it could be.
Crew: Go open it, Birdy. And when you can, text me. Or even better, FaceTime me. I want to see your pretty face.
Me: Okay. I lo—
I backtrack that last statement, deleting it hurriedly. I was about to tell him I loved him. What in the world?
Wait.
There’s no denying that I do love him. I’m in love with Crew Lancaster, and I need to tell him how I feel. Does he feel the same way?
I hope so.
Me: Okay. Give me a few.
I send the text, my heart racing from my realization.
I climb out of bed and put my slippers on before I leave my bedroom. I head for the living room, where I hear Christmas music playing softly. The sound of my mother talking to someone—she must be on the phone. Maybe calling her sister. My aunt lives in Florida and I wish I could see her more, but I’m always away at school when Mom goes to visit her.
Which lately has been often.
When I enter the living room, the Christmas tree is lit with twinkling white lights, an array of presents lying beneath, all wrapped in cream and dark green wrapping paper. There’s one gift that stands out though.
The stark white box that is signature Crew.
“Oh, she’s awake. I should go. Yes, I’ll talk to you later. Merry Christmas!” Mom ends the calls and smiles at me. “Happy Birthday, darling. Your aunt says Happy Birthday too.”
“Thank you. I should call her later.” I settle on the floor, staring at the presents.
At one in particular.
“Oh, she’d like that. We can call her back.” Mom smiles, reaching out to brush my hair away from my face.
“Where’s Daddy?”
Her expression hardens. “He’s not here.”
My mouth falls open. “Where is he?”
She shrugs. “He never came home.”
“Oh, Mama.” My heart breaks for her. I rise up and scoot over to her chair on my knees, wrapping her up in a hug. We cling to each other for a moment, and I close my eyes, disappointed in my father. That he would abandon her—us—so completely. On Christmas Day.
On my birthday.
“It’s okay, sweetie. It’s been bad between us for a while. I was trying to keep it together through the rest of the year like your father asked, but I am definitely filing for divorce in January. I can’t pretend any longer.” She pulls away slightly so she can look at me. “We haven’t been in a good place for at least a year. Maybe longer.”
I frown. “He told me you were trying to work it out after all.”
Her frown matches my own. “When did he tell you that?”
“After your divorce announcement. He called me and said he had good news. That you two were going to counseling and wanted to make it work,” I explain.
A sigh leaves her, and she shakes her head. “We never had that conversation. It was always going to end in divorce. He knew that. He asked if we could be civil to each other for the rest of the year. Specifically, when you were home. I agreed only because he seemed so concerned for your wellbeing.”
“More like was saving face in front of me,” I mutter.
“Or trying to convince himself that things would eventually be okay. It’s hard to face your problems, especially when you’re the one creating the majority of them.” Her smile is faint, tinged with sadness. “Let’s forget about him and focus on your birthday. And Christmas.”
I force her to open her present from me first—the little carved wooden bird I found at that store in Vermont.
“Is it a wren?” she asks as she studies it. “It looks like one.”
“Maybe? Crew found it. Said it reminded him of me,” I admit.
Her expression softens when her gaze meets mine. “I think he really likes you.”
Such an understatement.
“I think so too,” I admit.
“It’s not every day someone buys a very expensive piece of art for someone else, just because they’re friends,” she continues.
“I know. He said he just wanted to make me happy.” I’m feeling misty-eyed just thinking about it.
“Is he kind to you? Honest with you? Does he make you laugh?”
Yes. Yes. Yes.
“He is the very last person I ever imagined myself with,” I say, blinking back the tears. What is with me and crying the last couple of days? I’m so emotional. “But now I can’t imagine my life without him.”
“Ah, darling, I’m so happy for you. And I love my gift.” She smiles down at the wooden bird. It looks so rustic now that it’s in our showcase of an apartment, but hopefully, she really does like it.
“I have more for you.” I hand over a small box with a pair of earrings I found here in the city, and she loves those too.
I open the presents from my parents. Some clothes. A Louis Vuitton scarf with lip prints scattered all over it—I sense a theme here. A couple of gift cards to my favorite stores. A necklace I admired a long time ago that I forgot all about it, which makes it extra special since she remembered and bought it for me.
I’ve unwrapped everything for me except the box from Crew, and I stare at it, letting the anticipation curl through me.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Mom asks.
My heart starts to thump extra hard when she hands it over. “I almost don’t want to know.”
“Of course you want to know. Don’t be silly.” She waves a hand at me, clearly impatient. She’s enjoyed this week and my gifts almost as much as I have. “Open it.”
I pull the lid off to find another black and white box almost the same size, wrapped with the signature white ribbon and camellia flower that indicates it’s from Chanel.
Oh God, I think I might know what it is.
I pull the lid off. Push back the tissue paper to see a black protective bag surrounded by boxes of lipstick. I pull out the bag, the lipsticks falling to the bottom of the box, and open the drawstring.
“He got you a bag? Oh, he is so, so clever. I love this boy. I do,” Mom says, making me laugh.
I pull the bag out to see it’s the pink one I admired in the store only a couple of days ago. And when I undo the clasp and peek inside, there’s no paper stuffing filling it.
Just box after box of lipstick.
“Is there a note?” Mom asks.
I find it at the very bottom. A small white envelope, as usual. I open it, his familiar handwriting scrawled across the card.
Merry Christmas. I bought you every shade of lipstick Chanel carries, so you can create your own million kisses in your lifetime. Hopefully you’ll share some of those kisses with me.
Love,
Crew
“I’m keeping him,” I announce, making my mom laugh.
“You definitely should,” she says, her gaze on the pink bag sitting on my lap. “He chooses well.”
“I picked out the bag. I told him if I could have any Chanel bag, I wanted it to be pink,” I admit.
“You’ve always loved pink. And the lipsticks. That’s very romantic. He understands you, doesn’t he?”
“I guess he does.” For the first time, I feel understood.
Utterly and completely.
“I need to call him.”
“Go on, call your boyfriend,” Mom urges as I get up, the purse clutched in one hand and my phone in the other. “You’re going to see him today, correct?”
I stop and turn to face her, suddenly sad. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“Oh, darling, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Go be with him. Spend your birthday with him. I know that’s what you want. I’m grateful we had last night together. And this morning.” Her smile is sad. “I’ve wasted too much time being upset with you and your father when I should’ve inserted myself into your life more. I’m sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I tell her. “Not anymore.”
She shakes her head. Sits up straighter. “Go call him. I’m sure he’s waiting to hear from you.”
Smiling at her one last time, I dash off to my bedroom, closing the door for privacy. I FaceTime him and after a couple of rings, he picks up, his handsome face filling my screen. He’s a little more disheveled today compared to yesterday. His hair is rumpled and stubble lines his cheeks and jaw.
I hold the pink bag up in front of me, showing him.
“You got it.”
“I love it.” I drop the bag onto the bed beside me. “And all the lipsticks. You really bought every color Chanel makes?”
“All four hundred of them. Didn’t you notice how full of lipstick that box was?”
“There were lipsticks in the bag too.”
“That was a special request. They don’t normally put anything in the bag when you purchase it. I bought it from another salesperson by the way. A much kinder, older woman who helped me,” Crew explains.
“I love it.” I pause, the words heavy on my tongue, and he sends me a knowing look.
“Don’t say it, Birdy. Not now, when we’re FaceTiming each other.” His smile is smug. “Save it for when we’re actually together.”
I burst out laughing. “How did you know?”
“Because I feel the same way.”
