Page 6 of Take Me Home for Christmas

It hit me hard, I wasn’t going to lie. Two years later, I had more perspective. My life with Charlie would have been predictable. With low-simmer arguments…and, I realized now, low-simmer passion.

And in the meantime, I’d done my best to get myself back out there.

Brax, the polar opposite of Charlie, had never put up the pretense of ever wanting to settle down, but I’d been completely swept away anyway. My brief time with him had been electric. I simply couldn’t stop myself from falling hard.

“I hate men.” I must’ve said that out loud, because Gabe came over, pried the wineglass out of my hand, and hugged me hard.

Shortly afterward, I got back to work dropping balls of dough on the cookie sheet. I couldn’t resist saying, “I thought Brax spends Christmas with his sister in Philly.” Brax and his sister had grown up in a rough west Philadelphia neighborhood. His ticket out had been a full scholarship to the University of Wisconsin, and he’d ended up staying on in our fine state for med school. He did his residency at the prestigious Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia but returned to Wisconsin last summer to work. Jenna lived in Philly, where she was married and worked as an accountant, and Brax was very, very proud of her.

Gabe started scooping dough. “All I know is that Jenna’s pregnant, and Brax is thrilled. I think he was going to make sure everything at the hospital was covered before he made a decision about going to see her.” The chief residents made the schedules, which could get tricky over the holidays. We all worked extra hard so that every one of us could get either Christmas or New Year’s off. It was common for the chiefs to pitch in and cover shifts to help it all work out.

I didn’t know much about Jenna, but I knew she was all the family Brax had. He’d never elaborated much, but from little clues he dropped here and there, Gabe and I both figured that his upbringing hadn’t been the greatest. All we knew was that he was very close to his sister.

Gabe set down his cookie scoop and grabbed my wrist. “Ask him.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re pushier than my Grandma D’Angelo.”

Across the island, Sam nodded. “What have you got to lose?”

A lot. Also, I was making a mess of this cookie project. My balls were all different sizes and the dough was sticking to my fingers when I tried to fix them. “Hi, Brax, remember when we dated last summer?” I said in a fake-cheery voice. “Well, I kept embellishing that to my mother, and now she thinks I have a serious boyfriend coincidentally named Brax. By the way, would you like to come home with me for Christmas?” A groan escaped my throat.

“Maybe you can get to the bottom of whatever’s holding him back,” Sam said.

“That’s the thing,” I said. “Not wanting to keep seeing someone isn’t a crime.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Sam said, “Brax doesn’t do serious with anybody.”

Except I’d thought we were serious. That he was maybe even The One.

Typical small-town girl goes to the big city and gets a reality shakedown.

Gabe stared at me. “I know what he says. But I also know how he checks you out when you’re not looking.”

I shook my head in denial. Except, to be honest, I knew exactly what Gabe was talking about. Sometimes, I’d look up to find Brax staring at me, his eyes a little heavy lidded, with fire burning in them, directed straight at me.

I might have dated my hometown honey for a lot of years, but I wasn’t born yesterday.

Sam patted my shoulder. “How about we hit the town? The bars are still open.”

“I’m not picking up some rando at a bar and bringing him home!” Geesh.

“Just an idea,” Sam said.

“Right. A bad one!” The bottom-line truth was that Brax was a heartbreak waiting to happen (again), and I couldn’t take another one. And that slow, smoldering burn that I always felt with him was just another reason not to ever bring him home—or anywhere—alone.

I must’ve looked completely stressed out, because Gabe said, “I have another solution. Maybe you should just come clean. To Brax, to your mom and dad. To everyone. Think of what a weight off that would be.”

“Tell the truth?” Sam gave an incredulous snort. “Gabe, I bet you were one of those kids who confessed to sneaking candy in the cupboard.”

Gabe shrugged. “Probably. But I didn’t come out until I was seventeen. That was a whopper to hold back for all those years.” He looked at me. “You don’t have to carry all the burdens for your family. It’s okay not to be perfect.”

“I just can’t,” I said firmly. “My mom loves Christmas. And this year, things are so emotional.” I didn’t tell them, but my sister had died right after Christmas, and as you can imagine, the anniversary of her death always brought up tons of memories. But this year, with my mom’s cancer…nope. I just couldn’t tell my family I’d been lying for months. “I need to come up with Plan B,” I said. “Fast.”

Gabe embraced me from the side, rubbing my arm. I probably felt tin-man stiff. “You’re really tense,” he said, dropping his arm and scooping up a blob of raw dough. “That’s what lying does to you,” he added sagely.

Sam shook her head at his antics. “I vote for the rando.” Sam poured me more wine and counted on her fingers. “Exciting,adventurous, and completely out of your comfort zone. Just what you need, girlfriend.”

If they hadn’t been such good friends, I would’ve tossed some cookie dough in both their directions.

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