My Life as a Holiday Album (My Life as an Album #5)

  This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing people and locations, the events, names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  MY LIFE AS A HOLIDAY ALBUM Copyright © 2020 by LJ Evans

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored, in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

  Published by LJ Evans Books

  www.ljevansbooks.com

  Cover Design: © Designed with Grace

  Cover Images: © Deposit Photos | pressmaster and nanka-photo

  Copy Editor: Jenn Lockwood Editing Services

  Sensitivity Editors: Lovelace and Kelley

  Proofing: Karen Hrdlicka

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publications in process.

  ISBN: 979-8552801817

  ASIN: B085N4T7BG

  Printed in the United States

  Table of Contents

  Playlist

  Message from the Author

  Dedication

  Introduction and Family Tree

  STORY ONE: Edie + Garrett - The First Half

  Chapter One: Blue Christmas

  Chapter Two: Christmas Lights

  Chapter Three: I’ll Be Home For Christmas

  STORY TWO: Khiley + Stephen

  Chapter Four: Not This Year

  Chapter Five: Mistletoe

  Chapter Six: Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me

  Chapter Seven: A Christmas to Remember

  Chapter Eight: This Gift

  STORY THREE: Ty + Maleena

  Chapter Nine: All I Want For Christmas

  Chapter Ten: Merry Christmas, Darling

  Chapter Eleven: Finally Christmas

  Chapter Twelve: Merry Christmas, Baby

  Chapter Thirteen: Christmas Time

  Chapter Fourteen: Underneath the Tree

  STORY FOUR: Eliza + Brett

  Chapter Fifteen: When I Was a Little Girl

  Chapter Sixteen: Love is Christmas

  Chapter Seventeen: Christmas Eve

  Chapter Eighteen: That’s What I Want For Christmas

  Chapter Nineteen: All My Christmases

  Chapter Twenty: I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm

  STORY FIVE: Mayson + Grace

  Chapter Twenty-one: Miss You Most (At Christmas Time)

  Chapter Twenty-two: Last Christmas

  Chapter Twenty-three: I’d Like You For Christmas

  Chapter Twenty-four: Never Kissed Anyone With Blue Eyes Before You

  Chapter Twenty-five: Only You

  Chapter Twenty-six: The Greatest Gift of All

  Chapter Twenty-seven: You Make It Feel Like Christmas

  STORY SIX: Ginny + Cole

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Mr. Right

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Shake Up Christmas

  Chapter Thirty: My Only Wish (This Year)

  Chapter Thirty-one: What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

  Chapter Thirty-two: Winter Dreams

  Chapter Thirty-three: Present Without a Bow

  Chapter Thirty-four: Santa Tell Me

  Chapter Thirty-five: I Want You For Christmas

  Chapter Thirty-six: Love is Everything

  Chapter Thirty-seven: My Gift Is You

  STORY SEVEN: Edie + Garrett - The Second Half

  Chapter Thirty-eight: Please Come Home For Christmas

  Chapter Thirty-nine: Christmas Without You

  Chapter Forty: Every Christmas

  Chapter Forty-one: Greatest Time of Year

  My Life as an Album Series Box Set

  Anchor Novels

  Album Series Who’s Who

  Second Message from the Author

  About the Book

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Books by LJ

  On Spotify at: https://spoti.fi/36aMKCx

  Thank you for taking the time to read my book of short holiday stories inspired by Lady A’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” I’ve been wanting to write this story for two years now, but life happened, and it took me longer than I had planned. I thoroughly enjoyed writing all about the children from the original My Life as an Album series, and while you do not need to have read those stories to read these, I hope you eventually decide to check them out. These holiday short stories do not have to be read in order, but it was the way I planned it. The timeline in the book starts with the very first page and continues until the last, so if you decide to read them out of order, you might have missed events that happened and impact that short.

  Writing realistic characters and their path to their happily ever after is what writing is all about for me. And each of these characters is no exception. Their secrets, their hidden wounds, and the way they choose to live their lives resiliently and adventurously make my heart happy, and I hope they make yours feel the same way.

  I’m supposed to bombard you with my social media sites, places to leave reviews, and a laundry list of my other books at this point, but the truth is, I don’t want to give you those things…not yet.

  I’d rather you get to reading. I’d rather you fall in love with my characters, their world, and the love, laughter, and family that is held within these pages.

  I’ll touch base with you again AFTER you’ve read the story…

  Happy Reading!

  LJ EVANS

  ♫ where music & stories collide ♫

  Sigh…okay. Some of you want all that information now, so if you do, please feel free to click here for the Second Message from the Author.

  To my parents who are a role model of love and sacrifice in a world that needs it.

  To my readers who begged me for a Holiday Album story… may it be everything you were hoping for.

  To Jenn Lockwood who came along, swooped up my stories, and made them presentable to the world with her generosity of spirit and time.

  And, as always, to the man who gives me everything so I can live in a world of make believe. XO

  Y’all might remember, a while back, when there was this quick-as-lightning country girl who fell in love with the boy next door before she was even born. You might remember that she lost that boy to the heavens but found a new love who brought healing and laughter and joy back to her world. Her journey was the catalyst for bringing people together in a series of love stories that spoke of family, home, and resilience.

  That girl, her friends, and her family went on to have children of their own. Beautiful children who then had the audacity to grow up, make their way into the world, and try to find their own happily ever afters. To live their own adventures.

  This is the story of how, one holiday, all of those children’s hearts and lives were momentarily caught in a series of secrets they were afraid to share and how love saw them through.

  Still confused? Check out the “My Life as an Album Series Who’s Who.”

  Cover Images: © Deposit Photos | SolominViktor and iStock | Antonel

  Edie Brennan and Garrett Drummond

  Lonnie and Wynn’s story of new beginnings in My Life as a Mixtape may have been the last of the Album series, but the two characters showed just how resilient the entire crew could be. Lonnie survived the loss of his twin sister and inherited his niece, Edie,
absorbing her into his life with a fierce protectiveness that was breathtaking. Wynn may have had her entire world collapse around her with the loss of babies, marriage, and a job, but when she saw Lonnie struggling to pick up the mantle left for him, she stepped right in to help. The friendship they built while doing so was everything! It is only appropriate, then, to start this little series of stories with Edie, who was the very first child to come the family’s way. But as you’ll see, her story needs time to finish…and so, it bookends the novel. Here’s the beginning...while the end will have to wait till the very end.

  Still confused? Check out the “My Life as an Album Series Who’s Who.”

  Edie

  BLUE CHRISTMAS

  “I'll have a blue Christmas without you

  I'll be so blue just thinking about you.”

  Performed by Elvis Presley w/ Martina McBride

  Written by Hayes / Johnson

  My eyes flicked to my phone as it vibrated against the table again. I grabbed it quickly, hoping Mom hadn’t heard it. It was probably the hundredth time that day it had gone off. But I wasn’t answering it. Not for him. Not today. Maybe never again.

  My world had shifted off its axis and would never be the same.

  It made my heart hurt so badly I wanted to reach in, rip it out, and hand it to someone else. To not have a heart. Which only caused Miranda Lambert’s “Tin Man” to rattle through my brain, making me wish the lyrics could be true. It would be easier to not have a heart.

  But I was going to need my heart, and the reason for keeping it pressed a foot into my rib cage so hard that I could almost feel the shape of it through my layers of fabric and skin. I pushed gently, easing the pressure away from my bones, and wondered what it would be like to rub our baby’s foot for real in a few weeks. January 5th was merely days away, but I wasn’t anywhere near ready for the birth. I wasn’t even home.

  Home. That was the question that had caused Garrett to run and me to stay behind, wasn’t it? The argument, which I’d thought we resolved before we’d ever said, “I do,” had come back with a new ferocity, proving just how much we hadn’t resolved it.

  Now, I was at the kitchen table in the home I’d grown up in instead of our townhouse in Knoxville. But this home, my childhood home, had always been full of love and acceptance—something Garrett didn’t always understand because his life had always been full of demands to do better, be better, crush the competition.

  Mom looked up from a cake she was attempting to frost, her eagle eyes and ears noticing the incessant buzzing against the wood. I should have just turned it off.

  “Who’s bugging you?” she asked.

  I didn’t meet her eyes, because Mom always knew when I was lying, and I hadn’t told anyone about Garrett’s and my self-destruction. “Stephen. He’s going on about Khiley’s present.”

  Which was partially true. Some of the vibrating had been from my brother. He was doubting if Christmas Day was really the right time to give Khiley her gift. I’d helped him pick it out weeks ago, getting off early from the library and meeting him in downtown Knoxville. Stephen had swept into the store with his UTK sweatshirt and his heart-melting smile, and the two females behind the counter had been putty in his hands. Stephen was oblivious to it, as he’d been his entire life. There’d only been one woman he’d ever had eyes for.

  “I thought Stephen already had her present? Didn’t he ask me for wrapping paper the other day?” Mom asked, turning her eyes back to her lopsided cake.

  “He did. He’s just nervous about it,” I said.

  This caused Mom’s eagle eyes to bounce back to mine, directing her frown toward me instead of the cake. Mom didn’t know Stephen was proposing, because, as much as we all loved Mom, she wouldn’t have been able to keep a secret that big from Aunt Cam. Which meant Khiley would have known, and he wanted to be able to surprise her in a way he’d rarely been able to do growing up together.

  “Why? What is it?” Mom asked.

  To distract the hound from the scent, I did the one thing Dad and I had silently agreed we’d never do, which was to make fun of her baking. “Are you sure that isn’t going to fall over?”

  Mom’s eyes narrowed more, but she turned back to the cake, and I sighed with relief.

  I shot a text to Stephen.

  ME: You better get this over and done with on Christmas because Mom is getting suspicious.

  BRO: What did you do?

  ME: Nothing.

  BRO: If she’s suspicious, it’s because you said something, and you suck at lying.

  ME: So do you.

  BRO: I only suck at lying to Khiley. You suck at lying to everyone.

  ME: I’m leaving in a few for Grandma Marina’s. You on your way?

  BRO: Khi and I are just leaving her house now. Everyone else coming?

  ME: Not everyone. Eliza won’t even be home ‘til after Christmas.

  BRO: Really? Aunt Mia must have been pissed.

  Aunt Mia had probably been more hurt than angry. She liked having everyone close for the holidays, but our parents were going to have to understand that not all of us were going to stay close to home. That some of us might wander away to find our dreams. It was one of the reasons I’d wanted to do the surprise party this year. Who knew when we would all be together again?

  This thought made me think of Garrett…far away in Scotland. His grandmother had summoned him, and he’d gone. Right at this moment, she was probably shoving down his throat the importance of his being there to take over the reins of their company and carry on their family legacy.

  “You’re far away today,” Mom said, probably because I hadn’t joined her in the kitchen and taken the icing bag away from her before she did more damage than good to the poor cake.

  “Just got a lot on my brain with the baby due soon,” I answered. The baby kicked me again, as if telling me that it didn’t like me using it to lie.

  “I’m glad you came home so we can spoil you a little. You’ll be on your feet nonstop and run ragged once the little critter enters the world. You need to relax before that happens.”

  I may be run more ragged if I have to do it on my own without Garrett, I thought.

  The words he’d uttered the day he left while I’d begged him to stay still twisted like a knife in my heart. “You don’t really need me standing next to you. That place is already taken by all the people you call family.”

  I finally joined Mom at the counter, hugging her awkwardly with the baby belly I wasn’t used to. Our strawberry-blonde hair tangled together and reminded me of how much we were alike, even when we weren’t related by blood at all. In truth, Mom would understand exactly what I was going through if I told her. After all, she’d had a marriage that had ended well before she’d met Dad. I just wasn’t ready to say any of the words for fear they’d come true.

  I swiped a finger in the frosting bowl and then said, “I’m off to see Grandma Marina.”

  “What? She’s not baking with Mia this year?”

  Aunt Mia and Grandma Marina were, hands down, the best bakers of the entire family, and they always made more treats than even our big family could consume. Half of it ended up at the family’s dealership, causing a mad rush that had nothing to do with the cars being sold and everything to do with the delectable treats.

  “I think they’re starting later.” Which again was true, but we had surprise party details to discuss before that. The party was for Mom, Dad, Aunt Cam, and Uncle Derek. One giant birthday party because they were all turning fifty.

  “Well, give her a hug for me,” Mom said.

  “Will do,” I replied, stuffing my phone into my purse, hoping it wouldn’t buzz again. Then, I headed out the door with my baby rocking and rolling fiercely inside my belly as he or she continued to object to all of my omissions.

  Garrett

  CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

  “Christmas night, another fight

  Tears, we cried a flo
od.”

  Performed by Coldplay

  Written by Berryman / Buckland / Champion / Martin

  I looked down at the phone before tossing it, disgustedly, onto the desk, which sent a stack of papers soaring.

  “This is a fucking disaster,” I cursed under my breath, as I bent to pick up the papers at the same time my grandmother entered the room.

  “Language, Garrett, language,” she said. She sat down across from me in a wingback chair covered in the family’s tartan. You’d never guess she was seventy-five by looking at her. She looked closer to fifty than anything else. Like she could have been part of the group of people Edie was going to be celebrating on New Year’s Eve. Without me.

  “It is a disaster, though,” Margery continued in her calm, unruffled voice, brushing at her perfectly tailored gray slacks and peach button-down in the latest fashion.

  While I’d been talking about Edie and the fact that we’d left things in such a godawful state that she wouldn’t even pick up my calls, my grandmother was talking about the mess of invoices and undelivered shipments of whiskey. She patted her hair, which was expertly dyed the same toasty caramel as my own, and turned her knowing blue eyes toward my matching pair.

  “What are you going to do about it?” she asked. It was a test. Like every other test she’d given me over the years.

  If I couldn’t hold my marriage together for even a year, what was to say I could hold a multi-billion-dollar international whiskey distillery together? Nothing. Not even the decades of learning at Margery’s side since I was a preteen.

  There was no way in hell I was admitting it to her, though. Instead, I said, “Mitchell’s already on the shipment.”

  “The shipment is not the real problem, is it?” she asked, her voice certain.

  I scratched the back of my shoulder before I caught myself. She saw it, as she always did. I’d mostly broken myself of the habit, aiming for my grandmother’s expressionless stature, but damn if Edie didn’t bring out all my hidden flaws.