Page 79 of The Catch

“No.”

“I had hoped maybe he would call last night. Are you going to call him?”

“You didn’t see his face, Em. I doubt he would answer if I did.”

“Where do you think he’s spending the holiday?”

Cat let out a sigh. She’d been wondering, no worrying about that for the last two weeks. “I hope with Minnie and Shawn,” she said, her voice shaking. “I can’t believe I was so cruel, Emma.”

“You weren’t meaning to be.”

“He really was perfect, you know. Until I came along and broke him.”

“No one is perfect, Cat, and people aren’t made of glass. You didn’t break him. You just stumbled upon a trigger.”

“I think I stumbled on a few of them.” She sighed. “And I pulled them all.”

“We all have them, but Josh loves you, Cat. Anyone can see that.”

“I want him to love me from here. I just want him back.”

“I know, sweetheart. Just try to have a good day today, okay?”

Cat held back a sardonic laugh. All she was really hoping for was to get through it, but she knew Emma wouldn’t let her get away with that. “I’ll try,” she promised.

Christmas Day brunch at her parents’ was, as ceremony goes, comparable to a state dinner for a foreign dignitary. Her mother hated to make a fuss.

The food was delicious as always, and the chaos that every large-scale gathering of her family dissolved into was in full swing. But even between sleep-deprived children and eggnog-indulging adults, the noise still wasn’t enough to drown out her incessant thoughts. They looped like a miniature train underneath the tree:Josh. Where was he spending the day? He was supposed to be here. Was he alone? Josh. Josh. Josh—

“Where’s Josh?” her cousin Rose asked, plopping down in the chair beside her, where Olivia had sat during the meal. Her sister was helping with the dishes now, leaving Cat’s flank exposed to a surprise assault such as this.

She’d spent the previous evening stuttering like a fool at each repeat of that question from a different family member. Today she simply turned her head and let her lips part, the answer tumbling out. “He’s not coming.” Her voice was so flat she almost stopped to check her own pulse.

Rose quirked an eyebrow at her, probably wondering if she was on some sort of narcotic. She didn’t push, though, instead she launched into a story about her job as a dental hygienist that sounded like a string ofblah-blah-blahwith no particular conversational cadence and threatened to have Cat dozing over her dessert. Where was Rose last night when she was sobbing into her pillow, begging for sleep to grant her a reprieve?

“Catia,” her father called, poking his head into the dining room. A last minute stay to her impending execution by boredom. “Come with me.”

Cat rose slowly from her chair, waving a half-hearted goodbye to Rose, and followed her father into the parlor where the shimmer of his bar gave her mother’s eight-foot-tall, silver and gold Christmas tree a run for its money. Colorful bottles and fancy new tools decked the space like ornaments. It seemed there had been a theme for his gifts this year.

Her father walked behind the polished wooden surface, gesturing for her to take a seat on one of the leather stools. She glanced over her shoulder to see the rest of the family split like atoms into smaller groups around the tree and in the living room. They were alone over in this corner, and she suddenly got the impression she’d been lured into a stern talking to with the promise of alcohol.

Carlos grabbed two of the copper Moscow Mule mugs Josh had helped her pick out from the hooks he’d already assigned them, then set his hands on his hips, inspecting the array of pain-relieving options. She hoped he picked the strongest one.

He settled on something dark, and after a few other ingredients were gathered, he began pouring. “We were all sorry to hear Josh wouldn’t be coming last night or today,” he said, his eyes on the measuring jigger.

She didn’t respond. They couldn’t be any more sorry than she was, so what could she say?

“You know, Catia, your mother and your sisters are traditional in their choices. It’s served them all well. Maria and Olivia have beautiful families. There is no doubt about that. But you? You always danced a different step.”

“Not always,” she whispered, thinking of the white picket fence around her and Micah’s college dreams.

“Always.” He looked up for some stern eye contact before dropping back to his work. “You’ve tried in the past to go that route, but somewhere along the way, you swung so hard in the other direction that you lost your balance. You’ve been wobbling ever since.”

Cat bit back a sigh, wondering how much longer this drink took to mix. Did becoming a hobby mixologist turn you into one of those hybrid bartender-therapists from television?

He must have felt her brushing him off, though, because he forced her to meet his eyes again as he slid the copper mug across the bar. “Your mother makes me feel the way Josh looks when he looks at you. I’m not as good at showing it, but I recognize it in him.”

That got her attention. She knew her face was betraying her surprise, but she couldn’t help it. Carlos Roday waxing poetic was an absolute first. Maybe he’d been sampling his gifts.

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