Page 73 of The Mistletoe Bluff
I would do whatever it took to keep it there.
Another hour passed, the moon high overhead when we left, and I drove Maya back to her apartment. Within moments of getting in the car, her eyes slipped closed, and she fell asleep.Each time the Jeep rolled to a stop I couldn’t help glancing over at her. A life with her flashed behind my eyes, I saw it all perfectly.
Chasing our dreams, growing a business, building a home, and starting a family, experiencing all that life had to offertogether.
I wanted it so bad my heart ached.
Careful not to wake her, I took her hand from her lap and kissed the back of it, wishing I never had to let go.
Maya might not return my feelings yet, but I knew without a doubt…
This woman was my forever.
Maya
On Christmas Eve I woke up with that familiar sense of dread that made my stomach roil and squeezed the air from my lungs, making it difficult to breathe.
I had always hated this day. It was a day where we, as a family, should have been wrapping up presents, baking some cookies, or having a Christmas movie marathon.But instead, it was a day that I wondered where my father had gone, and questioned whether my mom would even come home, or if she’d keep wasting her life working and ignoring me.
I had learned to hate Christmas Eve because it meant I was always alone. As sad and pathetic as it sounded, it was a day where it was evident that I had no one that loved me enough to be their first choice.
Even when Aunt Maggie started inviting me to spend Christmas with them a few years ago, I was still alone on Christmas Eve. I would wake up on Christmas morning and see a sad little tree that I had put up by myself, with zero presents under it—at least until I stopped bothering to decorate at all.
I didn’t waste money buying my mom gifts anymore. I learned the hard way that she neither wanted them nor cared whether she received anything from me or not.
Still sore from the snowball fight, I half rolled half fell out of my bed with a weird combination of a whimper and a groan before shuffling into the kitchen.Usually, I was happy to see my place void of any reminders of what time of year it was, but this year it made my heart throb.
A dull ache filled my chest. My limbs were far too heavy as I made a pot of coffee then collapsed on the couch with my mug.
It had been a weird couple of days since Friendsmas. Elsie, Jameson, and Luna took off on their trip, and Emma left with Aunt Maggie to drive back to the city.
I had offered to keep Emma company while she was still in Meridel, but she claimed she had a lot of homework to do. “Weather never sleeps,” she’d said. Though I suspected that was a fib. Emma was wallowing. She likely wanted to be alone because being back in Meridel after Liam had left brought back bad memories.
So, I spent the last two days at home since Dina’s was closed this week. I still didn’t have a car, so I couldn’t go anywhere, and after Oliver’s confession and the tender way he kissed me when he dropped me off at home, I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him. Though that didn’t stop him from texting me multiple times asking if I was all right, or if I wanted topracticefor his family dinner some more.
Eventually I responded and asked for some alone time, feeling like a terrible person for doing so. I didn’t need alone time. I was just too scared to face my feelings—and Oliver.I had no regrets about what happened at Friendsmas, but I couldn’t face my feelings. It was easier to shove them away and pretend they didn’t exist than face them and the possibility of a shattered heart.
The irony was, after everything I had experienced with Oliver over the last couple of weeks, I didn’t think he would break my heart.
And somehow that made it even scarier.
And it was weird—the way I found myself missing him. It was a feeling I wasn’t used to; different from how I missed anyone else in my life. This was overwhelming, like I was missing a crucial piece of me, and somethingmorethat I didn’t know how to identify.
I fought myself on several occasions, going back and forth on whether to see Oliver, but I never got myself to put fingers to the screen and send the message. His confession had shocked me, and my own feelings had as well, and I was still all over the place, trying to come to terms with what I felt for Oliver Lewis.
I had hated him for so long, so it was more than a little strange tonothate him and feel…this.
With nothing else to do, I flipped on the Hallmark Channel and lost myself in someone else’s fantastical and romantic life when mine was confusing and indescribable. I had just started to doze off again, despite the two mugs of coffee I had, when my phone buzzed next to me.
Blasted Brit
Happy Christmas Eve, princess.
My stomach erupted into butterflies, but I couldn’t help sending a snarky response, bitter about being aloneagainon Christmas Eve.
Me
I don’t see anything particularly happy about today.
