Page 83 of The Hero + Vegas = No Regrets

“I think I’ll take this one,” Bennett says, choosing a wreath even bigger than mine. “It will take a big bow.”

I might have unwittingly slipped into the twilight zone. We’re not a natural fit for a crafting workshop.

“It’s safe to leave me on my own, you know. Monday is just around the corner, and I’m not taking any of you to work.”

“I could meet you for lunch,” Leo says.

“I have a lunch,” I lie. “But thanks.”

“Then Monday night is our normal get-together,” Fisher says.

“But we swapped Friday out instead of Mon—” I realize they weren’t swapping Monday out; theyaddedFriday to be with me.

I have the best friends.

“Then Tuesday, you want to go for a run in the park?” Byron asks.

“And if you feel like ditching the day job, I could do a gym session, maybe pitch some business ideas at you and you can tell me I’m crazy.” Fisher pulls out a length of ivy from a pile of greenery, then thinks better of it, abandoning it in a verdant pile.

“Thanks, but I’m going to be busy at work this week.”

“Good,” Fisher says. “Not good that you can’t come to the gym with me, but good that you’re going to be busy at work. That will be… good.”

Bennett rolls his eyes at Fisher’s awkwardness, then thanks the person delivering our coffees.

I don’t want to tell them they’re being overbearing mother hens—even if they are. I appreciate them more than they can ever know.

“Okay, guys,” says Rose, clapping her hands together. “Is everyone ready to create their own festive wreath?”

Never in my entire life have I been as ready as I am right now, on a December afternoon, surrounded by my best friends, drinking coffee—like this is just another normal day.

THIRTY

Sophia

Costco with my mom makes me feel twelve years old again.

“You want some gummy bears?” she asks as we pass a display of a million boxes of multicolored chewy candy.

“Urm, no, thanks.”

“Is there anything you do want?”

An honest conversation. Some kind of certainty you haven’t lied about other fundamental aspects of my childhood.The voice inside my head sounds bratty, but somewhere in the airspace over Ohio, I reverted to the kid I used to be, ready to arrive at around fourteen as soon as the airplane wheels hit the tarmac.

“Nothing I can think of,” I say. I know at some point I need to speak to my mom about how I’m feeling, but right here in the middle of Costco isn’t the time or the place.

“Well, let’s go right to the middle aisles, then.”

We’re here because Mom wants to buy holiday decorations. Because she definitely needs more of them. Our house was always decorated for the holidays, no surface or wall escapingornaments and fake snow. We’re only a couple of weeks out, and her house looks like a winter wonderland.

I wonder if Worth decorates the brownstone. I didn’t see much of it, but the bits I saw were so pretty—so quintessentially New York—it definitely deserves a real fir, strung with multicolored lights and candy canes. Worth deserves that too, along with a magical Christmas where all his festive wishes come true. My teeth saw over my bottom lip. I know he’s hurting, and I know I’ve caused it. I just hope he doesn’t do what he promised to and wait—because I don’t know if I’ll ever be the woman he deserves. He needs a woman who can love him with her whole heart. One who trusts him. I don’t know if I’ll ever be that woman, given what my dad did.

“You take the cart,” Mom says, pushing the empty buggy toward me as she heads over to a Christmas display. “Isn’t this darling?”

I pull the cart over to where she’s standing. It’s a miniature Christmas town made up of various models with moving parts. There’s a station on one side, and a train pulling up to the station with passengers waiting on the platforms. The windows of stores either side of a snowy, old-fashioned main street are filled with Christmas presents and toys. Little figurines are scattered across the scene, some throwing snowballs, others singing carols. A pond on the other side of the railway station is full of ice-skaters moving in circles. A boy lugs a cart full of presents across a patch of grass.

It looks idyllic. If you’re an inch tall.

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