He was aware that he looked good—it was hard to ignore that sort of thing when you’d built your career off of it—but right now he didn’t look his best. His hair wasn’t done—it was flat as shit from being stuffed under a knit hat—and his outfit was whatever he’d thrown on before leaving his mother’s house this morning, Christ, he barely even remembered, but he just hoped his fucking socks matched, and—

And nothing. He took a breath and wiped a hand over his face and reminded himself to calm the fuck down. He wasn’t eighteen anymore, and he didn’t need to be a self-conscious nervous wreck. He was a grown man who’d learned his strengths and weaknesses the hard way, and most importantly, he was a man with a plan. Sure, the plan might have holes, but he’d figure it out as he went, and—

“Aren’t you going to help Abbie with her luggage?” Ms Tricia asked lightly.

“Shit,” Will said, and rushed out of the kitchen.

Ready or not, the moment was here, and he would take it. For the very first time, he would take it.

Because all he wanted this Christmas was one Abigail Farrell.

Christmas made Abbie uncomfortable.

She understood its popularity, of course. For one thing, there was the whole, er, Christ aspect, which she imagined some people found very affirming. Then there was the food-and-presents part, which she was hugely in favour of. Life in general could do with more food and more presents, as far as Abbie was concerned.

Really, the only thing she disliked about Christmas was the vile and inhumane level of cheer. The constant noise, the never-ending lights, the incessant colour. All of it said, Hey, you, you miserable cow! You should be happy and earnest and spiritually at one with your fellow man!

Well, Abbie’s baseline emotional status was mild irritation; being earnest appealed to her about as much as the idea of sending nudes to her headmaster, and as for the whole “forced intimacy” aspect of Christmas, she’d been raised in a two-bedroom house with three older brothers. Abbie had lived as close with her fellow man as it was humanly possible to get, and she had found it a loud, messy, BO-scented experience where vulnerability would get you ruthlessly pranked.

Speaking of… She pulled up outside Grandma’s big old house, grabbed her handbag from the passenger seat, and made sure her emergency can of Silly String was safely stashed within. When her brothers arrived, she would need an appropriate weapon to stop them messing with her hair or leaving worms in her bed. (Yes, Abbie’s brothers were all—allegedly—adult men. Not that they seemed to know it.)