Page 24 of A Christmas Harbor

“Wreckage of what?” David prodded Paul’s leg. “Come on, I spilled my big woeful secrets, and yet I hardly know anything about your life.”

Paul took in a deep breath, then released it. “I needed to spend Christmas in a place where there were no memories of my fiancé. Where I wouldn’t even think about him, much less bump into him and his new boyfriend in the frozen-food aisle.” He made a faint snort. “Not that he’d ever be caught dead buying frozen food.”

“You were engaged? What happened? If you feel able to talk about it, I mean.”

“I think I can.” Paul took a long sip of his coffee, making a pleased grunt as he swallowed. “I couldn’t…no, Iwouldn’tgive him the attention and devotion he wanted, that he deserved. Always with my head in the clouds—or up my own ass, some would say. Anyway, he was six years younger than I, and he wanted so much. Family, security, a home. He wanted to give me those things. And I just couldn’t give them back.”

“What do you mean?”

“Writing is great for the soul, but not always for the bank account. I’m doing okay on my own, and by now I’m used to having a rollercoaster income, but he hated not knowing how much was coming in each month, or even each year.” Paul sighed. “But the biggest issue was kids. I’d never wanted them. I just pretended to want kids for his sake. I pretended so hard, I even convinced myself for a while.”

“You pretended to be someone you weren’t, just to make him happy?”

“Yeah,” Paul said with a scoff, “and it didn’t even work! I couldn’t fool him. So he found someone else, someone on the side, someone he could jump to once he worked up the courage to leave me. I found out on Christmas Eve, of all days.”

“Jesus.”

“Exactly. We were at midnight Mass, and his phone rang. Instead of turning it off, he leaped up off the pew and scurried out to the vestibule to take the call. It wasn’t like him, so that night while he was asleep, I checked his phone to see who it was.”

David gasped. “Oh, shit.”

“I didn’t recognize the name, so I looked at their texts.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. David, there were pics.”

“Pics of—”

“Yes! And let me just say, I could not measure up in that department. In fact, I’ve never met anyone who could.” Paul was half-laughing now. “We were staying at my parents’ house, so I couldn’t throw the phone in his face and scream at him the way I wanted. I had to pretend the whole day—all through opening gifts and eating dinner and washing dishes—that everything was fine. But he knew. He knew I knew. And I knew he knew I knew. Wait.” He repeated the last sentence under his breath. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“So then what happened?”

Paul’s gaze went to the wall-mounted TV above David’s head, as if his doomed love story was playing there and he was a mere spectator. “He told me he’d break it off with this guy, and maybe he did. For a while. But springtime came, and our families were like, hey, the wedding’s in eight months, maybe we should book a venue or find a photographer or-or-or—” He held up his free hand, the one not clutching the coffee mug. “And just like that, it was over. Like we were a time bomb with a stuck clock. One nudge and…boom.” His fingers snapped apart in simulated explosion.

“I can’t blame you for wanting to get away.” David did the math in his head. Eight months from spring would have been… “Was your wedding scheduled for—”

“Today.” Paul pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, yesterday now. Christmas Eve.”

David let out a low whistle of sympathy, at a loss for words. But then it hit him. “He cheated on you, and yet a minute ago you said the breakup was all your fault.”

“Notallmy fault. But I can see why my fiancé would’ve had second thoughts. People find escape however they can, and what most people want to escape is the truth.”

“That’s very charitable.”

Paul shrugged, staring down into his coffee. “Rampant empathy is the writer’s lot. I can put myself in almost anyone’s shoes, even people I think are awful. Like certain celebrities or politicians, or whoever’s playing the Bulls that night.”

“Sounds like sorcery to me.” He touched Paul’s arm. “So did your plan work tonight? Or were you thinking of your ex?”

“Iwasthinking of him. Constantly.” Paul looked up from his mug. “But then I walked into this piano joint and drank an absolutely disgusting magical potion made by a bartender who had a tenor to make angels weep with envy.”

“So the bartender made you forget your broken heart?”

Paul smirked. “Indirectly. Might’ve been the piano man. But my money’s on the handsome submariner at the end of the bar—the one who, through no fault of his own, had just plummeted into Wham-halla.”

“Oh, I know that guy. He’d make anyone feel like less of a loser by comparison.”

“Stop.” Paul touched his first two fingers to David’s lips. “He can’t be a loser if he won me. Because I’m a major prize.”

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