Max’s father remained on the couch beside Nicole. Alexander Batista ran a hand through his white, thin hair. “Merry Christmas, Max,” he said in a low voice.
Max ignored him. He stared at his mother, his eyes feeling as if they were encased in ice. “What is Nikki doing here?” he repeated.
His mother’s lips moved into a smile. “She’s here to celebrate Jesus’s birth with us, Max,” she said, as if he had asked why his brothers were there.
Swallowing hard, Max forced himself to continue looking into his mother’s eyes. “She’s not supposed to be around Chloe,” he said.
His mother laughed, waving her free hand dismissively. “According to the courts, she can have visitation as it’s worked out between the two of you. It’s not like you have a restraining order on her, Max.”
“She hasn’t seen her
daughter
since she was born,” Max said, gritting his teeth. “What is she doing here?”
“I told you this was a bad idea, Mom,” Levi said from beside his girlfriend Brianna. He shot Max a sympathetic look.
Max’s mother put her wine glass down and put her hands on her hips. “Why is it so wrong to bring a family together on the most important day of the year?”
“Because,” Max said, feeling heat fly across his cheeks and the back of his neck, “we’re
not
a family.” He returned his gaze to his ex-girlfriend, who sat very still on the couch, her fingers gripping her glass of eggnog. “I want her out of here.”
Chloe ran into the living room. Max’s nieces Aubrey and Layla trailed after her. The girls shrieked with laughter, darted around Max and his mother, then headed back toward the dining room. Chloe hesitated, her eyes falling on Nicole. Her tiny eyebrows furrowed, and she watched Nicole.
“Hi, pretty girl,” Nicole said, putting down her glass of eggnog. She held out her arms. “Come see your mama.”
Chloe whipped her head toward Max, her eyes wide. She cocked her head at him, then dashed behind his legs. Her chubby arms wrapped around his calves, and she pressed her face into his knees.
Max crossed his arms. “Stop it, Nikki.”
“I’m going to go check on the roast,” Max’s mother said, taking a step back.
“What, the pre-cooked one you picked up at Costco?” Max said, wheeling on her. Behind him, Chloe stumbled. He reached down and picked her up, clutching her to his chest.
His nieces tiptoed back into the living room, their faces tilted toward the adults.
“That’s enough,” Alexander said, standing from the couch. His jaw hardened and he glared at Max. “Apologize to your mother.”
Max snorted. “She should apologize to
me
! You guys know the situation. You were there when Chloe was born.”
His sisters-in-law marched into the living room. Crystal plucked Chloe from his arms, her large brown eyes sympathetic. Heather herded the other girls out of the room, and Crystal followed. Levi’s girlfriend Brianna stood and followed all of them, her lips pressed together.
“I’m going to go check on dinner,” Max’s mother said, and left the room. His father tossed him another dirty look, then followed her. Only Max, his brothers, and Nicole remained.
Max remained standing, his arms crossed so tightly that his muscles began to ache. He glared at his brothers.
Levi held his hands up. “I I had nothing to do with this.”
“We’ve been at the office
all
week,” Isaiah said. Tristan nodded in agreement.
Max looked at his last brother, the one who was closest in age to him. He narrowed his eyes. “Eggs?”
Xavier shrugged until his shoulders touched his ears. “Mom may have mentioned something.”
“Eggs!” Max said, starting toward him. His other brothers jumped up, creating a human wall between them. Levi grabbed his arms and Isaiah placed a hand on his chest. “Come on!” Max swore, but backed off.
“Nothing changes, huh?” Nicole said.
Max glanced at her. She still sat on the couch, one leg crossed over the other. Tension stiffened her shoulders, though, and she chewed on the inside of her cheeks. He rolled his eyes. He was
not
going to feel bad for her. She had caused more heartache in his life than she would probably ever know. He couldn’t believe that she had the nerve to show up, even if his mother had invited her. She should have stayed away. She had done Chloe no other favors. His fists curled. He would never hit her, but he wanted to hit
something
. “How about you just stay out of this?” he spat at her.
She said nothing.
“Look, dude,” Xavier said, holding up his hands. “She’s your daughter’s mother. You should hear her out.”
“Oh, I heard her, loud and clear, when she first told me that she was pregnant and wanted an abortion,” Max said through gritted teeth. “Like I didn’t even get a say!” Tears burned behind his eyes, and he blinked them away. Shaking, he sank into a chair. There hadn’t been time, all of those years ago, to worry about how he felt. He had just needed to make sure that his daughter got a fair chance at life. Dismay and anguish burned through him, as if someone had ripped a Band-Aid off a raw scrape.
“You know how my parents were, Max,” Nicole said, looking down at the floor. “How do you think I felt?”
“How do you think Chloe feels,” Max snapped, “not having a mom?” He thought of the time when Chloe was a little less than a year old and Nicole had promised to pick her up and visit with her for a little while. When, hours later, she still hadn’t showed up, Chloe remained standing at the door, tears rolling down her cheeks as she cried for her mother. Max swallowed the lump in his throat, shoving the memory away. It seared at his heart. He blinked away more tears.
“Nikki is in nursing school,” Xavier said. “I ran into her at the hospital.”
“Stay out of this, Eggs,” Max warned, his blood pounding in his ears. The thought of his brother talking with his ex-girlfriend at work made his blood boil. He imagined them eating lunch together, trading gross medical stories and talking about him behind his back. His brothers were supposed to be on his side—especially Xavier, who Max had covered for his entire life. Being the youngest was starting to feel like a huge ripoff.
“I never got a chance,” Nicole continued. She lifted her chin, bright blue eyes meeting Max’s. Those eyes brought him back to the nights in his Taurus, parked behind Crosby High School underneath a burned out street light, the windows steaming from the hot air inside meeting the cold fall air outside. “I just want to know her,” she said, ripping Max from his trance.
The memories swirled away. Max sighed, his shoulders deflating.
“I got her a present,” Nicole said. She jumped to her feet and walked to the large tree in the corner of the room. White lights twinkled, reflecting off clear glass ball ornaments. His mother had always disliked mismatched Christmas trees. A pile of gifts buried the bottom of the tree. Nicole plucked one from the top. Striding back to Max, she held it out to him. “Just give it to her for me,” she said. “You don’t even have to tell her who I am.” She thrust it into his hands.
“You’re leaving?” Xavier asked. Nicole nodded. “Let me walk you out.” He extended his arm toward the foyer.
Max scowled. His thoughts roiled through his head. The hurt from the past remained, etched on his heart, but it was also Christmas. Inhaling through his nose, he held up a hand. He exhaled. “Wait,” he said.
Both Nicole and Xavier looked at him. Hope danced in her eyes.
“You can give it to her yourself after dinner,” Max said. Shaking his head, he retreated toward the foyer, his swimming thoughts in desperate need of fresh air.
“Thank you,” Nicole called out to him. He kept moving, hoping he wouldn’t regret letting her stay.
* * * * *
Max groaned, leaning back in his seat. He clutched his belly with one hand and balanced Chloe on his lap with the other. Yawning, she snuggled against his chest. “Oh no, kid,” he said, shifting her. “If I don’t get to take a nap, you don’t, either.” Even though his mother never cooked anything from scratch the way that Savannah did, holiday dinners were always good. As usual, Max had eaten so much, he could barely move. He was glad that they all migrated from the dining room back to the comfortable living room.
“You’re so mean to her,” one of his brothers’ wives or girlfriends said. When they spoke, he could never tell any of them apart. They all thought they knew better about everything. They probably did, considering they were all older than him, but still. Max was sick of having so many older siblings telling him what to do.
Leaning back into his side of the couch, he stroked Chloe’s hair. “I’m kidding,” he said. “But if she falls asleep, she’s going to miss opening all of her presents.”
Chloe shot up in his arms. Her eyes wide, her chin tilted up and alert, she climbed down from his lap and ran over to the tree.
Next to him, Nicole laughed. She sat in the middle of the couch, her thigh nearly brushing against his. Max rolled his eyes. He should have sat in the recliner. It was too late to move, though. His father had the old chair leaning so far back, it looked like it might tip over. Soft snores rumbled from Alexander’s nose.
“I guess we’ll do gifts now, huh?” Max’s mother asked from the doorway. She held up a finger. “Let me go get my camera.
Don’t
move,” she instructed the children swarming the tree. She disappeared from view and bounded up the stairs.
Max watched her, amazed.
“I’ve never seen your mom move that fast,” Nicole said.
“Me either,” he said, still avoiding looking at her. The sooner he got dinner over with, the sooner he could go home and get away from his past.
“So your mom told me that you’re going to be a teacher,” she said, twisting to face him. Her knee grazed his thigh, and his eyebrows knotted.
Slowly, he sat up straight in his seat. Metal groaned beneath him, vibrating through the couch. Max pulled his leg away from her, forcing his eyes to watch his daughter as Chloe explored the pile of gifts. “Yeah,” he said, keeping his voice as non-conversational as possible.
“I’m in nursing school,” Nicole said. “That’s where I ran into Eggs.”
Max flicked a glare at her for using the old nickname. “So?”
Her shoulders sagged. She reached a hand out to him. “I’m really trying here, Max.” She scooted closer still. “Can’t you just hear me out?”
Eyebrows hooding his face, Max felt his entire body stiffen. Her leg felt warm against his. Disgust twisted through him. “What are you trying to do, here?”
She swatted at his shoulder. “In front of everyone?” Nicole smiled. “Seriously, though, Max. We were together for three years.”
“Two,” he corrected.
“Whatever.” She put a hand on his thigh. “We have a daughter.”
He turned his head, looking her fully in the eyes. “No,
I
have a daughter. You just have a track record of not bothering.”
She huffed. “You’re impossible. I’m really trying to get my life together, babe.”
He flinched at the endearment. “Don’t start,” he said, glaring at her.
Nicole held out a hand toward Chloe, who toddled toward them with a wrapped box cradled in her tiny arms. “Look at her. Doesn’t she deserve both her parents?” She plucked the present from Chloe’s arms, balanced it on one knee, and lifted Chloe from the floor. She plopped the little girl down between her and Max. Leaning forward to read the name tag on the gift, her blonde hair curtained her face. For a moment, Max thought he read regret in her eyes.
Maybe he was being too hard on her. The exhaustion of the last couple of years was probably getting to him, hardening him. “Maybe we can set up some kind of visitation,” he said, glancing down at his daughter. Chloe watched Nicole with wide eyes full of curiosity and worship.
“Look, baby,” Nicole crooned to her. “This one’s yours.” She slid it onto Chloe’s lap. Before Max or anyone else could stop her, Chloe tore a section of wrapping paper off of it.
“Mom wanted pictures,” Max said, groaning.
Nicole bumped shoulders with him. “Sorry. I forgot.” She smiled.
“It’s all right,” his mother said from the doorway. She lowered her camera from her face. “I got it.”
“Can you send me a copy of that?” Nicole said, perking up even more.
Max glanced from one woman to the other, wondering since when his mother and his ex-girlfriend had gotten so close. Unease rippled through him, raising the little hairs on the back of his neck and the hair on his arms. He swallowed hard and tried to focus his attention on Chloe. She had unwrapped a plastic tea seat, painted with Disney princesses. She held it up for him to open.
“We’ve got more coming, baby,” Nicole said, plucking the box from Chloe’s grasp. The toddler’s mouth started to open, a long wail threatening to barrel out from the hidden recesses where she kept her screams. Max’s mother plopped another gift down in its place. Chloe blinked, her hands in midair, fingers splayed. Then she dove in. Wrapping paper flew onto the carpet. A grin spread across her lips as she revealed a Disney princess nightgown.
Max knew he should be thanking his mother and making a big deal over the presents, adding to his daughter’s excitement. The things happening around him felt like they were in someone else’s life, though, and dread scraped against the bottom of his stomach.
“I’ll send them all to you on Facebook,” his mother said to Nicole, and the gift unwrapping commenced in full swing. Next to him, Nicole opened her own gifts. Max barely had a second to let that one sink in. His mother had known that his ex was coming ahead of time. Then someone handed him a gift bag. With numb hands, he clutched the bag, the frantic beating of his heart drowning out all of the other noise in the room. He could feel the couch beneath his body and see his brothers and their wives and their children all unwrapping gifts, too, but he felt more like a ghost witnessing a murder, completely unable to stop it from happening.
His fingers plucked at tissue paper, pulling it out of the bag on autopilot. His thoughts beat against each other. Without his consent, Chloe’s mother was suddenly in their lives again. He pulled a pair of jeans out of the gift bag with numb fingers, holding them up.
“Is that the right size?” his mother asked. He nodded automatically. “Good,” she said, snapping another picture.
A flurry of wrapping paper swirled around him, burying the living room. His oldest brother, Tristan, circled around the room half stooped over, scooping the discarded paper into a huge black garbage bag. Max glanced over at Chloe to see what else she was opening, but someone plopped another gift into his lap.
“That’s from Nikki,” his mother said, dancing away to snap photos of her grandchildren on the floor.
Max’s heart slammed in his chest. He wondered when he had boarded a rocket ship and blasted off to a whole new planet. Nicole nudged his shoulder with hers, her long blonde hair swatting his face. The scent of her shampoo enveloped his nostrils, the same honey and vanilla that she had been using since high school. Memories swarmed him, rendering him immobile. He no longer felt the couch beneath him or heard the chaos around him. He saw only Nicole in the back seat of his Taurus, her hands on his shoulders. His hands cupped her breasts. Not a shred of clothing remained between them. Nicole practically sat in his lap, her blue eyes burning into his.
“Come on, baby,” the seventeen-year-old Nicole said.
“Open it,” the twenty-year-old Nicole said from next to him. Red lipstick painted her lips, and on top of the old shampoo, he smelled a cool, feminine perfume, probably Calvin Klein.
His fingers twitched and he blinked away the memories. High school was long ago and far away.