Page 54 of Ghost of Ex-mas Past
The door opens and Charlie comes in, hair damp from the shower and breath minty-fresh, and strips before crawling into bed with me.
“Who are you texting?”
“My roommate Brin.”
“The woman I met?”
I grimace. “I don’t think I actually introduced you.”
He chuckles and pulls me closer to him. “I’ll make a better second impression. I can’t wait to meet your friends.”
“They’re—”
I cut myself off. Why was I about to deny being friends with them? Unexpectedly, tears form in my eyes. Brin’s so sweet, and maybe I’ve been doing them a disservice. Instead of being worried about being a messy roommate, maybe I should worry about being a better friend to them.
Nash’s words echo in my head too.
Friends.
I turn my face to Charlie. “Who are your friends?”
He props his head up on his hand. “I have a few friends from college who are in New York now. I’ve seen them a couple of times since I’ve opened the office. And there’s Arlo, who’s probably one of my best friends. And mentor, and investor, and sometime—more frequently than I’d like—therapist. And one of my sales managers moved from the Bay Area to head the team in New York. You’d like her.” He laughs. “There’s also a programmer who used to work for me who recently reached out and we grabbed a coffee.”
“Theyusedto work for you? And you’re still friends?”
He sighs. “I’ve made a lot of employment mistakes in the past. Most of them don’t end well, and it’s hard for either side not to take it personally. Arlo says I have to make the best decisions for Rivrse and see how things fall. Most of them don’t resurface, but this one did. She’s wildly talented and clever, but she wasn’t a great fit. So, yeah, I’d call her a friend.”
“Hmm. How would you feel about moving out of the city?” I’m not even sure I want to anymore. I definitely think Here is too small for me, but I want to leave my options open.
He doesn’t hesitate. “Amazing. After I leave Rivrse,” he amends.
I look up and pretend to give it a good, hard think. “After you leave Rivrse. And kids?” I think I know how he feels about this from conversations back when we were teenagers. But I’m finding that there’s a lot about Charlie that’s changed.
He kisses my lips again before agreeing. “Lots of kids. How would you feel about me buying my parents a house?”
I snort. “How do they feel about it?”
Charlie breaks into a smile. “I’m working on it.”
I laugh and he cuts it off with a kiss. This one’s deeper, surer. And full of hope. So full it swells inside me and breaks through. “I love you too,” I whisper against his lips when he lets me breathe.
This small town might have brought me exactly what I needed—and shown me what I already have.
28
Bea
It’s a Christmas miracle—aday late, but there’s an open parking spot right in front of my building. We unload my bags and Charlie helps me carry my stuff upstairs. It’s late in the afternoon the Saturday after Christmas, since we lingered as long as we could with our family before they had to leave for their flights in Albany. We’re just going to drop my stuff off and say hi to Brin and Marco before I drive over to Charlie’s. He wants to show me his new place and I’ll stay the night tonight.
I have the next week off—the Heartly offices are mostly closed between Christmas and New Year’s, and Nash is still out of town. Charlie asked me to show him around the city, and I’ve come up with an agenda: ice-skating at Rockefeller Center, snowman building after a fresh snowfall in Central Park, drinks at my favorite bar, and a colleague at Heartly invited me to a New Year’s Eve party. I also asked Clara for restaurant recommendations, though I apologized for bothering her on her vacation.
“Please,” she’d said. “If there’s one thing I adore about living in the city, it’s being my friends’ go-to person for the best food recs. Now, have you been to that Javanese place I told you about?”
I unlock the door, swinging it open and striding down the hallway to the living room. “I’m home!”
There’s a crash to my right and I glance over just in time to see a flash of skin and Brin and Marco’s bedroom door closing.
Charlie and I glance at each other. And then I catch sight of the living room. There’s wrapping papereverywhere. Rolls of bright silver and blue and patterns of red and green. There are empty tubes, scissors, tape, and shreds of cast-off wrapping paper.
