"Tell me again why we're freezing to death out here, in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people we don't know, trying not to get crushed or trampled, instead of... oh, sitting at home watching this from a nice, comfortable, warm couch?"

I opened my mouth to answer Justin, but Alex beat me to it. Of course, I should have known she would. Sometimes, it seemed like Alex's main entertainment was giving snarky answers to his rhetorical questions.

"Because first, we don't have a couch at home. Number two -"

"You mean second," Justin interrupted. Alex rolled her eyes. I did too, actually. Justin's a great guy, but he really needs to get over the whole correcting people thing. Though to tell the truth, I think Alex does these things deliberately, just to goad him.

"Number two," she repeated, "if we were sitting on Mom and Dad's couch, we wouldn't be warm, since Dad's so cheap about heat. And 'c'," she said with a little smirk, practically daring Justin to correct her again, "it's really pathetic that we've lived our whole lives here and never actually seen the ball drop in person."

Justin didn't say anything about the 'c', though, but just glared at Alex for a moment, then shook his head. The mini-tiff seemed to be over, though, so I looked away, scanning the crowd around us. There'd be another one in a few minutes, probably followed by an extended bout of snuggling. It's about enough to make me want to retch, I thought, my mouth twisting in a scowl.

All right, I was being unfair. Sure, I've never known another couple that would fight one minute and then be all lovey-dovey the next the way they would, but then, I'd never really known another couple like them. Considering their circumstances, their relationship is really incredibly healthy.

And that in itself was enough to make me mad at them, right then. I mean, here they were, a freaking brother and sister who had secretly married each other and were into all kinds of kinky sex games with each other... Look, it's not like I'm a prude or anything. I've had a few escapades that I could have written up and sent in to the Penthouse Forum... but the two of them make me look totally vanilla. And I know this in excruciating detail, because while Alex may be choosy about who her friends are, once she decides you're her friend, she'll tell you just about anything.

Anyway, though, to get back to that night... Alex had asked me to come along to Times Square to watch the ball drop with them, and I'd been desperate enough not to spend the evening alone that I'd actually accepted. Normally, the alternating bickering and love would've been kind of funny, but I'd just broken up with Edward (yeah, he insisted on being called Edward, ever since someone had lent him a copy of Twilight) after discovering that he was gay and using me as his beard.

I sure can pick 'em. That was actually one of my better relationships, which ought to tell you something. Another one of my better relationships had been with Justin, a few years before when we were both in high school. And that was exactly what I was thinking about then - how I'd broken up with him, and whether that had been a dumb move on my part, given the way my other relationships had turned out. Which in turn led to guilty feelings on my part, since Alex was a really good friend now, and I shouldn't be thinking about her boyfriend that way, and...

Miranda Hampson, I thought to myself, quit it with the pity-party already. While I'd been doing that, Alex and Justin had been going on with their little by-play, which I returned my attention to.

"Every year we just watch Dick Cavett -"

"Clark," Justin corrected automatically, but it didn't really sound like his heart was in it. Instead, he was staring up at the big ball.

"- and Ryan Reynolds on TV." She paused then and frowned at Justin, since he hadn't produced the expected correction of 'Seacrest'. He was still looking up, and she moved like she was trying to get a view of it as well... and managed to put her elbow into his side.

"Oof!" Justin blinked and looked down at her, and Alex smiled sweetly.

"Oh, did I get you in the side with my elbow there? I'm sorry, I don't know how that could have happened." The two of them looked at each other for a long moment, and then Justin looked away, back up at the ball.

"Yes, it's still there," Alex said, her tone sulky. "Ya know, you don't have to keep checking. There'll be this whole big counting thing before they drop it. It's kind of hard to miss."

Ignoring that, Justin stamped his feet, then rubbed his hands against his arms the same way Alex had earlier - and with equal effectiveness. "Aren't you two cold?" he asked. I made a negative noise, and he looked to Alex. "Alex? Usually you complain about it being cold before I do."

"Well... yeah," she said, then shrugged. "But I want to be here. And -"

Justin rolled his eyes. "Then you should have said something." He moved sideways, unzipping his coat as he did, then put his arms around her, one at her shoulders, the other at her belly, and pulled her in close against him.

Closing her eyes and smiling, Alex relaxed into him and put her right arm over his lower arm, the one that was across her belly. "Mmm... you're nice and warm," she said after a moment.

"Yeah, well... you'd be warm too, if you'd worn a heavier coat like I suggested back at the apartment." Justin sighed and shook his head a little, while Alex looked over to her right at me, and shot me a quick grin and wink.

Does he really not get that this was her plan all along, or is he just playing along? As I pondered that, an elderly woman on the other side of them looked at the pair of them and smiled, wrinkles on her dark brown skin crinkling around her eyes as she did. "You two remind me of my husband and me," she said, "when we used to come here together." She paused a moment, still smiling, then said, "I hope I'm not intruding. I'm Marjorie. I've been coming here for more than thirty years now."

Justin removed a hand from Alex and held it out to her for a handshake. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Justin, and this is my wife Alex, and our friend Miranda." Alex practically preened at the 'wife' part, smiling broadly and turning her head to kiss Justin on the cheek. Well, the cheek was what she was trying for - it wound up being more on his jawbone. She then took the glove off her left hand and held it out to the woman, tugging Justin's left glove off as well.

"We just got married," she told the woman, holding out their rings for inspection." I had to smile at that. It'd been over a year since they'd gotten married (and how that happened is a long story that I'm not going to go into right now). Most new wives wouldn't have still been going on about it the way Alex did by that point, but I guess she had reason to. They'd spent a lot of time hiding their relationship, and while Alex had never said anything about it, I think the thought that they'd never be able to get married had weighed on her a lot.

"Well, the two of you certainly make a cute couple," the woman was saying, and Alex opened her mouth to say more, then turned as the crowd began to chant.

"Ten!" she called out, a moment late, grinning, and she took Justin's bare left hand with hers and squeezed.

"Nine!" she called out with the crowd, Justin joining in now as well. Of course, I did too.

"Eight! Seven! Six!" Alex looked around as we called out those numbers, but I had no idea what she was looking for.

"Five! Four!" Whatever she was looking for, Alex seemed to have found it, since she'd stopped looking around, and now was grinning the way she did when she had something planned.

"Three! Two! One!" As she called out 'one', Alex turned around in Justin's arms, then reached up and put her arms around his neck and kissed him solidly. He returned the kiss with enthusiasm, lifting Alex up a little as he squeezed her in his arms.

I looked away, fighting down a sudden jealous part of me that remembered how strong Justin's arms were, and what it felt like to have them around me. It only lasted a moment, though, and then I looked back. They'd finished their kiss by then, and Alex was up on tiptoe, saying something into Justin's ear. I couldn't hear it at all, with the noisemakers, people still yelling "Happy New Year!" and general hubbub around us, even though I'd had to move where I was almost against them to keep the crowd from separating us now.

I couldn't hear, but I could imagine. She'd be telling him she loved him, of course. That, and saying that she'd looked around to make sure there weren't any cameras on them, and that this was why she'd wanted to come out to Times Square, instead of watching it on TV at their parents' place.

That was what I imagined, but as it turned out, I was totally wrong. The two of them let go of each other, and then Justin turned to me, hugged me, and kissed me. I almost yelped in sheer surprise at first, but then I relaxed and let myself enjoy the arms around me that I'd remembered before, the warm feel of his breath coming out his nose onto me, the warmer feeling of his tongue meeting mine...

When we'd dated, Justin had been a pretty good kisser, but he must've learned something with Alex, because that kiss was spectacular. A little too spectacular, it seemed, because it only lasted about two or three seconds before Alex took him by the arm and pulled him out of it, giving him a glare. Which was kind of funny, since I was sure it'd been her idea in the first place. She could be jealous sometimes, and Justin knew that well, so he wouldn't have suggested it... but apparently he wasn't supposed to kiss me quite like that.

Right then, though, I have to say I didn't really care. I smiled, watching for a moment as Justin tried to stammer an apology I could only half-hear, and Alex looked daggers at him... and I just laughed.

It all worked out okay in the end. Once we were out of the square, I took Alex aside and thanked her for having Justin do that, and made a few comments about how most girls wouldn't have been secure enough with their guys to do that, and... well, I'd learned a while back that flattery was the best way to persuade Alex of anything.

It was a happy New Year, I do have to say.

... and that's done with the holiday-themed bits for now. Things are getting better in my little corner of the world, and I'm feeling like writing again, so updates to the ongoing stories should be coming soon!