Page 9 of Take Me Home for Christmas

That was why Gabe, Mia, and I became friends. None of us were fire starters by nature, just competent, normal people who did their jobs and toed the line. Except I’d made a primary error. I broke my own rules. I’d gotten too close.

“Mia needs help.” Gabe cast an anxious glance toward Drake.

“Is she in trouble?” Outwardly, at least, I practiced measured patience. From the corner of my eye, I checked for Laura and Mia. They were still in Rylee’s room.

Gabe sighed. “She’ll kill me if I tell you.”

“Okaaay.” My brain kicked into crisis mode. Debt? Eviction? A medical error? Someone giving Mia a hard time? That was doubtful, since she got along with just about everyone.

“But if I don’t tell you, she might suffer even more.”

My veins turned to ice. Her mom was doing great, but what if something had happened? “Just tell me already.”

Gabe sighed. “She needs someone to go home with her for Christmas, no questions asked.”

Irritation swelled in me, despite Gabe’s good intentions. “That’s why you pulled me over here? I mean, you’re always matchmaking.” Now Mia was back in the hall, moving on to Marc Markeson’s room, a twenty-year-old with Hodgkin’s lymphoma who’d had a rough night of nausea from his chemo. I figured I had about five minutes before she finished rounds and walked back to the front desk.

“This isn’t matchmaking,” Gabe said emphatically. “This is?—”

“You know I can’t.” Mia and I had somehow managed friendship after what happened between us, but sometimes, things got awkward as hell. Like when she caught me staring at her. Or I’d catch her staring at me. Making me wonder if she was remembering the exact same things I was about our timetogether—how our chemistry had been off the charts, incredible. Too good to be true.

I’d done everything I could to stop the crazy attraction, but I might as well try to demagnetize a magnet. So maybe I couldn’t help it that she made my stomach do cartwheels or made me feel like Pedro whizzing around the ward on Rollerblades, but I didn’t have to act on it.

“Bottom line,” Gabe explained, not letting this go, “is that she needs to show up with a boyfriend because she told her mother she had one, and I can’t do it. And if you won’t do it,hewill.” He nodded toward Dr. Suave, who was now flirting with one of our brand-new nurses. Ugh, no.

“She told her mother she had a boyfriend.” I wasn’t following.

“To help her get through her treatments, Mia sort of…embellished.”

“Embellished.” To handle a tough few months? Okay, understandable, I guess. Gabe somehow knew all about this.

But not me. I’d let her down, not just as a boyfriend, but also as a friend. I sucked.

Gabe was staring at Drake, who was now laughing and casually touching the nurse’s shoulder.

Nice. That had taken him one minute or less. My blood began a slow simmer at the thought of Drake trying to sweet-talk Mia. Or touch her. Let alone spend an entire long weekend pretending to be her boyfriend.

Why was she even asking him?

“YouknowI can’t go home with her,” I said, as much for me as for Gabe. “It would be…uncomfortable.”

“Maybe you’d like to talk about that sometime?” He folded his arms and cocked a brow.

I telegraphed him a look that said he was entering this discussion at his own risk.

“Okay, then, that’s between you two. But while you’re figuring that out, you should know that I wouldn’t interfere unless I thought she really needed you.”

Gabe was a fixer. He couldn’t help it. He was always trying to push himself into my personal life on the pretext of “helping.” He gave me a sad little shake of his head and a shoulder pat. “It’s okay to let yourself feel things.”

He feltsorryfor me.

“Maybe psychiatry is your true calling?” I knew it was a bad joke, but I was on the defensive. My all-American looks fooled most people into thinking I was raised with apple pie and baseball and a fantastic family like I knew Mia had. And I did nothing to stop people from assuming that. In fact, I really didn’t talk about my past at all because it would blow that squeaky-clean image to shreds, and what would be the point? “I know you think I was a jerk to her.”

He’d been down this road with me before, trying to get me to talk about why I broke up with her, but I wouldn’t. Icouldn’t. Talking about emotions wasn’t exactly my strong suit. Or why it was so much safer for everyone to just stay friends. That way, no one got hurt.

“Do me a favor. At least talk to her,” Gabe said as he left for the toddler ward. As I headed back toward the nurses’ station, Mia walked out of the last room. A split second before I would’ve met up with her, Drake stood up and intercepted me.

“There you are,” he said, his big, athletic form suddenly standing right next to her, dwarfing her more petite one. He flashed her a toothy grin, ignoring me and effectively blocking me with his body.

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