Friendsgiving was probably one of Oliver’s top five favorite days of the year. While he enjoyed doing Thanksgiving with his entire family, there was something about spending time with his cousins and close friends—all twenty- and thirty-somethings—that appealed to him just a little bit more. Probably because they were freer with the booze, the cussing, the drinking games—he’d just ruled at flip cup—as well as the risqué jokes and stories. Plus, with fewer family members in the room, he got to talk to everyone more. Not a day went by when Oliver wasn’t grateful to be a part of this crazy, fun family.
“Hey, normally you’re the one hogging the whiskey. It’s not my fault you went and got knocked up,” Oliver teased. Sunnie had shocked them all at Thanksgiving dinner when she said she was thankful for generous maternity leave. The next great-grandchild was coming in May, and Oliver couldn’t be more thrilled for Sunnie and her husband, Landon.
Landon took another chug of Jameson and grinned when Sunnie narrowed her eyes at him. Landon was already three sheets to the wind, something that was pretty unusual for the straight-laced cop.
“What?” Landon said, giving his wife an innocent look that missed the mark by a mile. “I’m drinking for two now.”
Sunnie laughed loudly and grabbed another ornament, muttering, “asshole,” before returning to the tree.
Oliver gave up on taking ornaments from the pile and instead started shifting some of the lower ones higher. He turned and caught sight of Gavin kicked back in the recliner, enjoying the show. “Thanks for the help, bro,” he said sarcastically.
Gavin raised one eyebrow. “You all look like a bunch of ants scurrying around a sugar cube. I’m not even attempting to break into that mess.”
Erin, Oliver’s girlfriend, came out of the kitchen with a tray full of mugs of homemade eggnog. Oliver quickly walked over to grab one before the vultures descended and there was none left. Erin made killer eggnog, using, as she said, “fresh-from-the-chicken’s-butt eggs” from Leo’s family’s farm.
Oliver and Erin had been dating just over a year, his first truly serious girlfriend, and the more time that passed, the more convinced he was that she was the one.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one he wanted.
Gavin, who wouldn’t budge for the tree decorating, stood quickly to help himself to one of the mugs of eggnog before relieving her of the heavy tray.
“Thanks,” Erin said, before pointing at Gavin’s glass. “By the way, that’s your third one.”
“You’re keeping count?” Gavin asked. “You can’t keep your eyes off me, can you?”
Erin rolled her eyes at his joke. “Don’t you wish.”
“Actually, I’m afraid you’re lacking…” Gavin said, slowly shaking his head as he gestured toward his crotch with his mug hand, while trying to hold steady the eggnog tray with the other.
“Oh, that’s right. I don’t have a penis,” Erin said. And then, because she and Gavin were professionals when it came to teasing each other, she added, “Phew. Dodged that bullet.”
Gavin chuckled and gave her the win, placing the tray on the coffee table before resuming his seat in the recliner.
“Sunnie,” Erin said, lifting up one of the mugs. “I made an alcohol-free one for you.”
Sunnie’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Although I’m going to pretend it has rum in it. Between Landon and my dad, I don’t know how I’m going to make it six more months without alcohol. I swear they’ve found a way to double-down on their overprotectiveness. Something I seriously didn’t think was possible. To make matters worse, Dad actually called me this morning and spent twenty minutes lecturing me on the importance of prenatal vitamins. I had to put my foot down when he started to launch into the pros and cons of natural childbirth, reminding him he was a cop and not a doctor.”
Erin laughed. “I think it’s great your dad is so excited.”
“That’s because you’re watching it from afar,” Layla said. “You just wait until we start having babies. The Morettis are going to be just as insanely annoying.”
Layla, Erin’s cousin, was dating Oliver’s cousin, Finn. Gavin constantly joked that the blending of the two families was unavoidable, considering half the East Coast seemed to be related to either the Collinses of Baltimore or the Morettis of Philadelphia. As such, Gavin had determined their dating pools were seriously limited, and overlapping was bound to occur.
“I didn’t say they wouldn’t be annoying,” Erin said, “but the fact that they live in Philly might help mitigate some of that.”
Miguel—Layla and Finn’s third—snorted, then pretend-sneezed the word, “Bullshit.”
Finn slapped his boyfriend on the shoulder. “Amen to that. The Moretti brothers might live in another state, but they still find ways to make their presence known.”
Layla rolled her eyes. “My brothers are fine…now.”
“Now being the operative word,” Miguel added.
Layla was the youngest and only girl in a family of five, and her older brothers had taken some time warming up to the fact their kid sister was shacking up with not one but two men. However, it had been two years now, and the Moretti brothers had not only accepted the relationship, but they’d welcomed Finn and Miguel into their fold…and joined the Collins clan at the same time.
Erin handed out the rest of the eggnog, Colm and Kelli each grabbing a glass. Most of the cousins—the ones with kids—had headed home after dessert, but more than a few of them had opted to hang out longer to help decorate the Christmas tree.
Oliver missed the days when there were a lot of cousins living in the apartment that Aunt Riley had dubbed the Collins Dorm. As the youngest of the cousins, Oliver had waited impatiently for years to be old enough to finally move in. Of course, by the time he’d gotten there, most of the others had fallen in love and moved out. Right now, it was only he and Gavin sharing the too-big space that had once been the home Pop Pop shared with Grandma Sunday and their seven kids. Oliver
