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

He pulled away and stared down into my eyes. He tucked my hair behind my ear, watching as a couple of random tears rolled down my cheeks. He brushed at them and groaned.

  “But if you’ve changed your mind,” he said. “If you think you shouldn’t have done it, then we can call it off now. It would tear every single vein from my body one by one, but I’d do it. For you.”

  God, those words hurt and healed all at the same time.

  “No!” I said vehemently. “I don’t ever want to let you go. Marrying you in that tiny clerk’s office was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

  His face broke into a huge smile, and relief filled me. He may have asked me to marry him; he may have gotten down on one knee in the middle of the museum and asked me to be his, but it had been me who’d suggested we do it before he left for flight school in Texas. It had been me pushing to go from getting engaged one day to married the next.

  Because the thought of spending even longer without Brett than I had while he was at Initial Flight Screening in Colorado had been unbearable. With him in pilot training, it would have been months before I saw him again instead of weeks. I hadn’t wanted that. He hadn’t wanted that. We belonged together. Nothing else mattered. Not missing the spring term of my sophomore year. Not having to changes schools. Nothing.

  Those were the thoughts that had stayed with me even after Brett had put the simple platinum band with a single glowing diamond on my finger. Long after, he’d kissed me, held my hand, and led me from the museum to his house where his parents had been waiting for us with dinner and champagne—the house near the UTK campus that they’d filled with balloons and confetti and flowers because they’d known I’d say yes.

  They’d known the truth: I was happy to call them my own.

  It wasn’t just his stunning mom and his charming dad. It was his powerful, frank aunts, uncles, and cousins, and the grandfather who had taught him how to fly. They were people who were mine even when I was the only white person among them.

  Before I’d even known she was Brett’s mother, I’d been stunned into awe by Chanel as my art history professor. But once he’d brought me home to meet his parents, she and I had fallen in love over shared interests. Art. Photography. Activism. His dad, Emmanuel, was equally lovable. An older version of Brett with a wide smile, dark eyes, and a charisma his son had inherited. As a professor of economics, he and I were not fated to cross paths academically, but we dueled it out as partners in spades. He’d been the only family member to take a chance on me in the almost deadly card competition, and I hadn’t let him down. We’d held our own.

  I felt slightly guilty over how well I fit into their lives when I hadn’t allowed Brett to become embedded in my family in the same way. Not only because mine lived hours away, but because I was enjoying every moment of this life that had nothing to do with my famous dad or my superstar brother.

  The day Brett had proposed, we’d drank champagne and eaten cake, and then, finally, we’d made it to his room where my reckless thought had rushed out of me.

  “Let’s get married before you go.”

  He’d laughed and then kissed me senseless, but when I’d pushed him away and told him how serious I was, he’d smiled, a glorious smile as if our world had just been enveloped in a golden halo, and I’d known I’d won.

  When we’d told his parents the next morning, they’d cautioned us about jumping in too fast. They’d asked me to talk about it with my parents first, but I’d already set my mind. I went into my very best Wednesday Addams mode with a fierceness I was known for, and they’d all gone with me.

  Brett’s hand soothing on my back brought me back to where we were at, on the side of the road, with all my fears coming to life, regardless of the fact that I’d already made him mine. Some of the tension had left his face at my passionate insistence that marrying him was what I wanted, but I needed to wash away the doubts that remained.

  “I love you,” I said. “It’s all that matters.”

  He nodded. “It should be all that matters, but we’ve had this discussion before…it may not be all that does.”

  He wasn’t as tall as my brother or my father. He was barely six feet on a good day, but when I was only five foot two, I still had to stretch to place a soft kiss on his lips. After, I stepped back, rubbing my thumb along his jaw as if I could swipe away his worries with just my fingers. I watched my pale skin coast along his dark depths, loving the contrast like I loved all the contrast in every photograph I’d ever taken.

  Uncle Lonnie said it was my specialty.

  Showing contrasts as beauty.

  “I’m sorry my not telling them will make this harder on you,” I said, which was the truth. I didn’t want to make his life―our life together―harder, but I already had.

  “I could have told you no,” he replied, leaning his cheek into my palm, grinning at me. “I could have demanded we wait. I probably should have.”

  I grinned back. “You, tell me no? In what alternate universe?” It was a tease, because I’d been the one to tell him no repeatedly when he’d first asked me out.

  He laughed.

  I loved his laugh as much as his smile. I put my lips on his again, and this time, he held me to him, kissing me slow and steady, drawing it out, not racing. Not pounding, not demanding. Instead, infusing me with peace. Calm. Kissing Brett was like meditating. Like finding my inner core and then slowly being touched with gentle waves that rocked me home.

  Being lost in Brett was the one place where the nonstop buzz in my skin seemed to disappear. The entire world stopped, and I could breathe without the need to fly.

  “Remind me,” he said softly, looking into my eyes and not letting me look away.

  I grinned. The first time Brett had said those words, I’d been puzzled, and I’d rolled my eyes as he prompted me through each memory as if they weren’t his memories, too. But now I loved that he used it as a way of grounding me in the most important thing―us. Because reliving our story, how we got here, made the rest of the issues in our life seem small. It settled my thoughts and slowed the ball of energy that drifted through me relentlessly.

  “The first time you saw me in the quad, you thought I was Chloë Grace Moretz, and when you asked me if I was related to her, I said I was often mistaken for Wednesday Addams. You stared, flabbergasted, but I just walked away.”

  “Upset. Not flabbergasted.”

  “Potato, potahto.”

  “I never knew she played the role of Wednesday, you know that. I just thought you were gorgeous, but don’t stop there. Keep going.”

  After a childhood of fitting in, I’d entered high school determined to stand out. To not be the “leftover” child from a long line of famous and successful people. The need to be different had ended up with me in my fair share of scrapes, starting political rallies in high school and painting mosaics on the side of buildings that some called graffiti. I’d purposefully magnified my dark hair, pale skin, and serious expression so that it was the opposite of the casual smiles and attitudes the majority of my siblings and cousins carried around with them. That was how I’d earned the nickname Wednesday Addams. It had been for good reasons. Way more reasons than just my looks.

  “Remind me,” he prompted again, placing a kiss on my temple, drawing me again from the emotions and twirling spirals of my brain to us.

  “The second time we met, at Ty’s after-party, you asked me out, and I told you that you’d be disappointed in Wednesday’s performance as Chloë, but you still brought me a Coke when you noticed mine was empty.”

  “And listened to you talk to Ginny about photography while you had your back to me. Don’t stop. We’re almost to the good part.”

  My lips tilted up at the corner ever so slightly. I’d been so rude. I’d put on my best Wednesday performance for him.

  “The third time you saw me, behind my camera at the Fall Festival, you asked me out again. You said you didn’t want Chloë or Wednesday but were very m
uch interested in getting to know Eliza Waters, which surprised me because I hadn’t told you my name.”

  “And you said if I let you photograph me, you’d consider it. Then, you dressed me like a flower and posted the picture all over the school.”

  I almost blushed. Almost. But I hadn’t thought he was genuine, especially after he’d known my name. Especially after he’d known who I was related to.

  “The fourth time you saw me, I was in the quad again. You handed me every one of the fliers I’d posted around campus. You’d scrawled a question on the back of each one with your phone number, but you walked away before I could answer it.”

  “It took me hours to do that.”

  “I never understood why you didn’t just run them through a copier.”

  “I wanted it to be personal. Me. To you.”

  His messy, boy writing had promised if I hated him after our first date, he’d never bother me again. The sweetness of it had slowly sliced into the shield I’d placed around my heart, and it had almost made me call him. Almost. But his knowing I was Ty’s sister and Derek’s daughter had stopped me.

  “Then, you saw me in my ROTC gear and couldn’t resist,” he said.

  Just the thought of it brought a full smile to my face. He returned it with the one that made every single sound in my head come to a complete and absolute stop. Just like that day he’d smiled at me in his uniform. Looking so incredibly handsome. So proud. So muscled. So perfectly perfect.

  “You jumped out of formation, which would have earned you a demerit if you hadn’t started singing that famous Top Gun song and all your fellow cadets hadn’t joined in.”

  “It’s called ‘You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling,’ and it’s by the Righteous Brothers, but I forgive you for not knowing, because it was that song and my amazing singing voice that swayed you,” Brett said, kissing me at the corner of the mouth, knowing I’d melt into him, and I did.

  “Not your voice. But your abandonment. I’d never had anyone abandon everything for me.”

  “I’d still abandon everything for you,” he said, kissing me with tenderness, the sweetness of it filling my heart with a sense of tranquility. He was my path. My whole world. My future. I was terrified the wall separating my two realities was going to crumble apart and cost me everything…cost me him…but I no longer had a choice.

  The walls had to come down.

  Brett

  LOVE IS CHRISTMAS

  “Why so scared that you’ll mess it up?

  When perfection keeps you haunted,

  All we need is your best my love.”

  Performed by Sara Bareilles

  Written by Sara Bareilles

  It scared me sometimes to think about how much I loved Eliza. Because my words to her were true. I’d abandon everything for her. My career goals. My determination to serve. Everything. The few short weeks I’d been at Initial Flight Screening in Colorado had proven that. Hell, I’d almost walked away from it mid-session because she’d gotten more and more distant with each call I’d made. Like she was protecting herself from the inevitable breakup. As if she were waiting for me to say a final goodbye.

  When I’d first seen Eliza at her brother’s football party, I’d been frozen into a stillness my roommate had laughed at me for. All I’d been able to do was stare at her red lips and dark hair, thinking she looked like Snow White, Audrey Hepburn, and yes, a dark-haired Chloë Grace Moretz. She was Eliza Doolittle, Holly Golightly, and so much more rolled into one.

  I was a sucker for classic movies. I was a sucker for her.

  It was why I’d agreed to marry her the day after I’d proposed. The arguments she’d posed had made complete sense. Why should we have waited? Why should we have been apart? Of course, my parents had listed a whole score of reasons why―the fact that I hadn’t even met her parents being at the top of the list.

  We may have been dating for a year, and I may have met her siblings and a couple of cousins, but fate had plotted against us when it came to her parents or the rest of her family. I’d never been able to go home with her, and when her parents had been in Knoxville, something had always come up. It was ridiculous but true.

  Now, I was meeting them for the first time when they’d become my in-laws.

  When I’d married their daughter without even telling them.

  My stomach rolled, and I swallowed hard as I drove down the highway. ‘Z’s restlessness next to me only added to my own. We’d made a decision, and now we had to face the consequences, but in truth, I’d do it all over again. The fact that I got to call this glorious woman my wife made me the luckiest man on the planet.

  When we pulled up to the security gates tucked into a huge stone wall at the entrance to their drive, the tension in my jaw reached an all-time high, clamping my teeth together painfully. I tried to work it free with a hand, and Eliza’s hand joined mine, reassuringly.

  “I love you,” she said, and it almost made the tension disappear. “They’re going to love you, too.”

  I was pretty sure her brother already didn’t love me. He’d scowled and growled and shed dirty looks in my direction the few times we’d met. I wanted to believe it was just because he was being protective, but I could never truly be sure. When I’d gone to pick Eliza up for our second date, he’d been waiting for me at her and her sister, Ginny’s, apartment. He’d taken me to the side and promised me the wrath of the entire football team if I hurt her.

  It hadn’t changed anything in how I’d courted her, though. I’d already been moving at a slow crawl with our relationship because I’d known the moment I’d seen her across the crowded party that she was special. I hadn’t wanted to screw it up. I’d wanted to place every foot just right.

  Until now. Until I’d up and married her without any of her family being there.

  As we drove up to the house, a woman, who looked nothing like Eliza except for her height, came running down the porch steps. Eliza was out of the car and in her arms before I could open the door.

  “Mama,” Eliza said, hugging her tightly.

  As much as my ‘Z said she was ready to be away from her family, this moment made me realize she didn’t even know, herself, how much she needed them. It made the doubts resurface. Doubts about taking her away from not only everything she knew and loved, but from her classes and the future she was making for herself.

  I’d forced my dream to become hers.

  As I approached, ‘Z turned to me with that same glorious smile that had caused the room to swirl when I’d first seen it.

  “Mama, this is Brett!”

  “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Waters,” I said, sticking out my hand.

  I waited for the reaction I’d dreaded might happen, but it didn’t come. Instead, she greeted me with a warm smile, shaking my hand, which only made the guilt pull at me even harder.

  “It’s Mia, please, and it’s a pleasure to meet you. You’ve made our Eliza very happy,” she said, and I let the sincerity settle in my chest. Eliza was happy. I was happy. It really was all that mattered.

  Her mama wrapped her arms around her and pulled her toward the door, and I followed. There were a handful of other people in the great room of the house, including Ginny who greeted me with a friendly hug.

  After a brief round of introductions, Mia said, “Eliza says you’re joining the Air Force.”

  I looked at ‘Z in surprise. How little did her family actually know about me?

  I nodded. “Already joined. Finished IFS―Initial Flight School―and now I’m going to Flight Training in Texas.”

  Her mama didn’t have a chance to respond, because Eliza was jumping past me in order to throw her arms around the man who’d entered the room.

  “Daddy!” Eliza exclaimed. Her hug was returned in force by Derek Waters, lead singer of Watery Reflection. While I’d known she was his daughter, seeing them together was like a splash of cold water going down my back as the reality set
in.

  What would this man think of me marrying his daughter without him knowing? Would he think I was using her for their fortune and fame? My stomach churned, and my jaw locked up again. By the time she’d released him and turned to me, my face was probably a wall of tension instead of the smile I normally wore and had been determined to keep on, no matter what happened this week. I was already failing.

  “Daddy, this is Brett,” she said.

  I stuck out my hand, and he took it, smiling with an open and honest expression on his face. Joy at meeting someone his daughter brought home. I hated, again, the fact that we hadn’t told them the truth. That we’d lied through omission.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Waters.”

  “It’s Derek, and the pleasure is mine.”

  I looked to Eliza, but she shook her head, and I frowned at her. How long did she intend to go before we told them? The longer we waited, the worse it would be.

  But the moment passed as her brother, Ty, sauntered in with his friend, Maleena, whom I’d met on occasion. Everyone was greeting each other all over again, a well of affection and camaraderie filling the room. Family. A family that was now mine, but that I didn’t truly feel a part of yet, which made my stomach clench.

  After the greetings had passed, I squeezed Eliza’s hand and looked down into her face, willing her to start the conversation, but ‘Z just shook her head again. It was causing the sister and brother to wonder. I could see it in their eyes and their shared glances. They knew something was up.

  Just when I was about to spill the beans, whether Eliza wanted me to or not, Ty dropped a bombshell about dropping out of college to enter the pro football draft. I sighed and bit my tongue. Our surprise would have to wait, but not for much longer.

  The group at the house grew larger, the noise and laughter growing with it.

  ‘Z had already explained to me the family tradition we’d be walking into. One where they journeyed from one house to the next to help take down holiday decorations and eat Christmas leftovers. It was the most unique way to spend the day after Christmas I’d ever heard of, but I appreciated it for what it was. A way to keep them all together for a few moments longer.