OKeefe - All I Want for Christmas Is You (Short Story)

All I Want for Christmas Is You is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Loveswept eBook Edition

All I Want for Christmas Is You copyright 2012 by Molly Fader

Excerpt from Crazy Thing Called Love by Molly OKeefe copyright 2012 by Molly Fader

All Rights Reserved.

Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-54244-1

www.ReadLoveSwept.com

Cover design: Susan Schultz

Cover phohtograph: Famke Backx/Getty Images

v3.1

Madelyn Baumgarten was freaking out. If she had any fingernails left, shed chew them down to the quick all over again. Walking through the snow toward Billys house, she was blind to the lights, the mechanical reindeer on the Simmons familys front lawn.

Tonight was Christmas Eve, and all the Christmas spirit in the world was not going to make her forget that her eighteenth birthday was in two days.

And so was her wedding day.

Just thinking it, it sounded ridiculous. Wedding day. Her parents were going to go apeshit.

Stop, she told herself, stepping through the snow onto Billys shoveled front walk. She had to be the cool onethe one who could explain to her parents all of the logical reasons for her to marry Billy Wilkins.

Because Billy was never the cool one. Ever.

One quick breath, which fogged in the cold winter air, and Maddy knocked on the front door of 12 Spruce and then, without waiting for anyone to answer, just walked into the cigarette and sadness-scented interior.

Make yourself at home, huh? Janice yelled over the back of the sagging yellow couch, where she sat wrapped in blankets. Jeopardy played on the TV on the far side of the room. Despite the fact that tomorrow was Christmas Day, there were no decorations. No lights. No tree.

Christmas didnt come to this house, and hadnt for a long time.

When have you ever answered the door? Maddys breath was visible inside the house. Either their heat had been turned off again, or Janice was being careful with the thermometer. There was a new space heater glowing in the corner, beating back the chill. Maddy unzipped her her tall high-heeled boots, ridiculous in this snow, but Billy loved when she wore them. She placed them neatly by the front door. The cold seeped through her thin socks. She should have worn tights, but they didnt work with the dress. And tonight tonight she just wanted everything to work.

Janice had been awful for months nowever since Billy had made the NHL draftand Maddy was torn between ignoring Billys older sister or picking a fight with her just to take the edge off. Well, dont think you own the place just because youre marrying him.

Right. Maddy laughed as she tugged off her gloves and unzipped her thick coat. Because this is a place I want to own.

That broke Janices connection to the television and she turned to stare at Maddy over the edge of the couch. She looked a decade older than her twenty-two years. Chain-smoking and letting guys like Aaron Schultz walk all over you would do that to a woman. Maddy used to feel bad for Janice, for the way the world seemed to throw all its shit on her. But now she sort of saw the way Janice asked for it. How she seemed to thrive on being everyones victim. It was her job. Filled up the hours between Jeopardy reruns.

Look at you. Janice came up on her knees to lean over the back of the couch; her eyes crawled all over the new purple dress Maddy had bought for the occasion. All dressed up.

Its Christmas Eve. Most of the world cares.

Were Jewish.

Maddy laughed; A joke? Sometimes Janice had the power to surprise her. They werent Jewish, they werent anything religious.

Keeping it festive, Janice said. She flicked her hand at the hanger of clothes Maddy was carrying. You gonna try to put a shine on Billy?

Its just a new shirt, Maddy said, suddenly embarrassed, because that had been her intention. Civilize him a little, just enough. A tie.

You think that will make your parents love him?

They already love him. Well, Mom did, thought Maddy. Dad, perhaps not so much.

Right. Janice smirked, and placed another cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She lit it, dragging the smoke in deep before blowing it out her nose. Gross. Honestly.

Enough. The stress relief of fighting with Janice wasnt worth watching the woman smoke. Maddy walked up the bottom three steps to the landing.

Its not going to work, you know, Janice said. Maddy paused, her hand on the banister, her foot on the step. Her heart lodged somewhere between her heart and her throat. The shirt, the tie, some fancy dinner at your parents place. Youre not going to change him.

I dont want to change him, she said. And she didnt. She loved Billy just the way he was.

Really? Janice laughed until she coughed. The guy is barely housebroken.

Maddy stomped toward the coach. Janice pushed up onto her fists, and Maddy remembered the last fight shed gotten into with Billys sister. Janice had torn out a chunk of Maddys hair before Billy had finally pulled them apart.

Its not that she wasnt scared of Janiceshe was, the girl was viciousbut someone had to stand up for Billy.

Ive known Billy most of my life, she said, getting so close to Janice that she could see each individual pore on her nose. I love him. Him. The way he is. And what would be awesome, Janice, is if you, his sister, would shut up and support him. For once.

Janice blinked, her faded green eyes the color of resignation. Of hope turning to despair. For just a moment, they revealed the truthher complicated heart, and the bitterness that covered a whole lot of sadness. But then those eyes narrowed and Janice went right back on the attack. Who do you think will be there for him when this marriage of yours falls apart? she asked. When you realize its fun to fuck a guy like Billy, but not so nice being married to him.

Dont wait, Janice, she said. Dont hold your breath waiting for your cash cow to come back and save you from this place.

Cash cow, listen to you. Just because he got drafted doesnt mean hes going to the NHL. Its been, what, six months and hes still playing in the minors. You guys are going to be living in a shitty apartment in Rochester. Probably for the rest of your life.

Man. Once again, Maddy was reminded of how brave Billy was to dream, to hope in this house, where every single person, where the walls themselves seemed dead set on crushing anything that even resembled happiness. At the end of June, Billy had been a second-round draft pick for the NHL, second-freaking-round, and Janice was still finding a way to make it sound like a failure. Janice, who spent her days on that couch with Alex Trebek and her nights under Aaron Schultz.

Billy had been planted in some seriously poisonous soil, but hed managed to bloom, anyway. And things were only going to get better for him. Once she got him out of this house. Once they made their own family, then hed see what it was like to be there for someone and have someone be there for him.