Page 1 of Unwrapped

One

DECEMBER 18

Sophie

The windshield wipers can’t compete with the snow. They thump across the window in an exhausted, geriatric rhythm, barely clearing enough to see. I’m hunched over the steering wheel, as close as I can get to the glass, and the road ahead is a pale white ribbon vanishing into more white.

Vince would kill me if he knew how bad these conditions are. When I get home, I’m definitely going to downplay it.

At least there’s barely anyone else out on the road. It’s December in New Hampshire, and the tourists are gone. The only people dumb enough to be out here are the ones who live here.

Although I can barely see a thing, I know exactly where I am. The exit’s coming up in a second on my right, just past a clearing where you can see the lake—on a clear, sunny day, anyway. This part of the highway always twigs my memory.

Two years ago I was in the back seat of Elena’s convertible, boxes and suitcases crowding me against the door, as my mother drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on her phone, texting someone while the GPS told her to take the off ramp. She’d just married Vince, a man she’d met only three months before, and whom I’d never met at all, and we were moving to his house. In Vince, Elena had found everything she’d been looking for: A rich man, a lake house, and a reset button.

Six months later, she was gone. Julian, a personal trainer ten years her junior, had slid into her DMs, and six weeks after that, she was packing for Boston. I remember standing in the doorway of her bedroom while she zipped a suitcase and said, “You understand, right? This isn’t about you.”

Maybe her new feelings for Julian the personal trainer weren’t about me, but the whole situation affected me quite a bit, thank you very much, Elena, as my mother left me behind with the man she’d met in a bar only nine months prior—Vince.

But I lucked out. After a lifetime of chaos and disruption as Elena’s child, she’d finally left me somewhere calm and stable. Vince was everything I’d never known before. Safety, security, and steady, unconditional love. He could have said that I wasn’t his problem, that Elena needed to take responsibility for the seventeen-year-old child she’d brought with her into this marriage. But he didn’t. He did what I’d always had to do in the wake of Elena’s chaos: he adapted. For two years, he’s raised me and looked after me and been the stable father figure I never had.

I take the exit, my car plowing through the drifting snow on the curve. My tires skid for one terrifying moment before finding traction again. About ten minutes later I’m turning onto Vince’s street. My street.

The house comes into view at the end of the quiet cul de sac, severe and modern with its glass walls and sharp right angles, long and low against the lake. Home. The snow’s coming down even heavier now, burying the wide deck that wraps around the front, and covering the colored lights that have been strung around the banister, so that the snow just glows in splotches of yellow and green and red along the edge of the deck.

I wrestle the Civic into the cleared space beside his Range Rover and kill the engine, taking a moment to exhale a breath of relief now that the driving is done. I made it—against the odds, frankly. I grab my duffel bag and climb out into the cold, trudging through the snow toward the porch steps. When I get to the door, I knock and then pull out my keys. He knows I’m coming, but I didn’t give him an exact time, didn’t even confirm today that I was heading out, and I know he’s going to give me a lecture about it.

I’m just about to put the key in the lock when the door opens, and my stepfather is standing there, intimidating at six foot three, and built so thickly that his plaid shirt clings to his shoulders. His arms are crossed, one eyebrow cocked in a way that says everything about what he thinks about me not telling him what time I was coming in at and driving in these conditions, but with the hint of a smile on his face that he can’t hide.

“I’m here,” I announce in a sing-song voice, holding out my arms like I’m expecting applause, and he shakes his head, holding open the screen door and motioning me inside. I drop my bag and let him wrap his arms around me, pressing the side of my face into the soft cotton of his shirt, and inhaling his warm, familiar smell. His arms are so big, I could practically hide out in this hug—take refuge from the whole world and never be found. I could stay this way forever, but eventually he releases me and pulls back and gives me his sternest look.

“You better have snow tires on that car,” he says.

I shrug. “Nice to see you, too, Vincey.”

“Jesus.” He rolls his eyes, taking my coat from me and hanging it up while I untie my boots.

I pick up my duffel bag and follow him down the hallway to the main living area.

“It’s extremely dangerous out there,” he continues. “They say we could get as much as forty inches. And you were driving in the dark.”

“Okay, okay,” I say to his back.

He really is so built. I feel like I’m noticing it for the first time. Noticing him for the first time, objectively, after the four months I’ve spent away from him at school.

Vince is very attractive. I always knew that. Even when I was just seventeen, I could see it. He’s tall and built, with thick dark hair going silver at the temples, a strong jaw, and deep-set gray eyes. When we pulled up to his house that first time, I assumed Elena married him for money. Then when I met him, I saw that she’d gotten the whole package, money and looks—although it still wasn’t enough in the end. She wanted whatever Julian the personal trainer offered her more.

But Vince . . . yeah. I follow him to the kitchen, where he turns and places two giant hands on the island and looks at me across from it and, Jesus. He is attractive. And the uncomfortable thought makes a rush of heat pass over my face.

“Have you eaten?” he asks.

“Yeah.” My gaze skips over his shoulder, down the bulk of his arm to his hand, and I look away, behind him, to the boxes piled in the living area. “I grabbed something on the road. What’s all that, Vince? You moving out on me?”

He follows my gaze, looking back over his shoulder. “No, that’s the Christmas stuff. Figured you could help me put up the tree.”

“Oh, cute. Of course.”

In the end, I let him make me a hot chocolate, and carry my bag up to my room, and then we move to the living room to tackle the tree.