Page 90 of Host for the Holidays
“Yeah.” It doesn’t sound as convincing as I had hoped. Ididhave a good day, though. On paper, it looks a lot better than yesterday. But it wasn’t. “I found some really pretty locations for the photoshoot.”
“I bet you did. You’ve got the eye for it.”
“Well, it’s not hard in Paris.”
There’s a short silence.
Rémy fiddles with the keys he’s holding. “Will you be going back out?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I think I’ll just stay in and watch a movie or something. Go to bed early.” I hadn’t really planned on that, but suddenly it’s how I’m feeling. It sounds a little pathetic, I realize, and I can see in Rémy’s expression that he’s not sure what to think of it. “I love movies,” I say like it’s some odd quirk I have that he should be aware of.
“Just don’t watchNew Moonwithout me.”
I smile big, happy he even remembers the name. “I’ll try, but I can’t make any promises.”
I wish Rémy a good night, and he shuts the door behind him.
I look around the empty apartment, coaching myself to look at it as a cool, freedom thing rather than a slightly depressing thing. I probably should have thought far enough ahead to bring home some dinner for myself, but I kind of hurried back, hoping to see Rémy before he left.
I know. I’m pathetic. And I’m going to embrace that tonight. I finished the last of my Camembert this morning, but the orange cheese I bought when I first arrived is still sitting in the fridge, calling out to me in a strong American accent, “Eat me!”
I wrinkle my nose. Orange as a cheese colordoesfeel a bit suspect now, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
I head to the kitchen and crouch down to open the small fridge. There’s a new Camembert sitting on the top shelf. The yellow sticky note on top says, “For Madi.” I smile, feeling a bit better about my night. We might not have spent the day together, but hedidthink of me during it.
Standing up straight, I look around until I spot it: a baguette. Rémy would never buy me cheese without a fresh baguette to pair it with. It’s still in the brown bakery paper, and there’s another sticky note on top. “Supposedly the best baguette in Paris.”
I do my best cutting it, but I’m not blessed with Rémy’s bicepsora lifetime of practicing exactly how thick to cut the slices, so it’s not pretty. It’ll do, though.
Armed with my plate of bread and cheese, I head over to the couch and start flipping through Netflix, trying to decide what movie will pair best with my bread, cheese, and mood.
My phone vibrates on the coffee table, and I grab it, hoping for a particular name and notification. But it’s Siena.
Siena:Looking at the evidence, you clearly made the right decision, Mads.
Madi:Wait, what are you talking about?
Siena:Oh.
Siena:Thought you’d have seen it already.
She sends me an Instagram link, and I click on it with a little foreboding in my stomach since I can see Brianne’s handle on the preview. The foreboding turns into something sick and hollow as my gaze settles on the picture.
It’s Josh and Brianne. Well, it’s them and others, but they’re right next to each other. He’s wearing his usual business attire, while she’s got on a slinky red dress with a generous sprinkling of sexy shoulders and a dash of cleavage. They’re. . . cozy. It looks like they’re at some swanky work party. And in the background? A view of the Eiffel Tower and the city through tall glass windows.
I stare at it. And then I stare some more. It’s so weird that Josh and I are in the same city right now but not together. Last year, I really thought he’d invite me to come along on his business trip here—enough that I made a spreadsheet of places I wanted to go together, complete with prices and opening times. He never asked me, never acknowledged the hints.
I suspect he wasn’t planning on asking me this year, either, until I started telling him I didn’t know if we should stay together anymore. He begged me not to give up on us, dangling Paris in front of me, complete with an implied proposal. It was everything I had wanted the year before, so of course I said I’d come.
That was how things with Josh had gotten. We’d gone from that starry-eyed couple in the picture that came up in my photo memories this morning to the one where the only way he would show some commitment was the moment he sensed me teetering. He’s great at big promises, but the delivery never really lived up to them. He couldn’t even make it to the Eiffel Tower with me—not even to walk somewhere close enough to just see it from afar. But there he is with Brianne.
I tap away from the picture, hoping it’ll rid me of the tingling at the back of my eyes. It’s not even jealousy. It’s that I put up with being such a low priority for him for so long.
I scroll through photo after photo to distract myself. It’s just a few days before Christmas, which means most of the posts I see are of people at work parties, family parties, ugly sweater parties. All the holiday parties.
And then it hits me. Christmas is in just a few days. And I’ll be here. On Christmas. Alone. I’ve had a couple of rough Christmases—the one when we had no presents right after my dad died being at the top of that list—but at least then I had my family. Here, I have no one. Rémy’s going to be at his mom’s house for Christmas Eve dinner and sleep there, I assume, because that’s what normal people do on Christmas. They spend it with their families, not thousands of miles away in a foreign country by themselves after they just broke up with their boyfriend.
The beginnings of panic—or maybe it’s homesickness—start to creep into my stomach. My mom is on a cruise, so there’s no reaching her. I shoot a text to my brother, Jack. Dire straits, people.
