Page 20 of The Santa Situation
My pulse kicked hard. I’d always thought of Charlie as steady, unshakeable, the one person I could depend on to keep his cool. Seeing him coming apart like this made something inside me fracture and reform all at once.
The truth hit me so hard my eyes stung. I wanted to tell him he couldn’t lose me, not ever, but words felt too small for the moment. So instead, I reached across the console, my hand finding his thigh, needing him to feel that unspoken connection we’d always had.
“No, Charlie,” I said softly. “Never.”
With a quick yank of the wheel, the car swerved suddenly onto the shoulder, snow crunching beneath the tires as he threw it into park. He dragged both of his hands down his face. “You said yourself you didn’t know if you wanted more than physical.”
The dashboard light carved shadows across his face, making him look worn down in a way I’d never seen before. It hit me then that this wasn’t coming from out of nowhere. This felt like something that’d been weighing on his mind, and he was only just now sharing it.
“But Idoknow,” he continued. “I’ve always known, I think.” He pressed his thumb against the bridge of his nose between his eyebrows. “Yesterday, the girls asked why I never pursued you after our divorces, and I realized …”
He let out a raw sound, halfway between a laugh and a groan, and dropped his head back against the seat.
“What did you realize, Charlie?”
The air felt heavier suddenly, like the truth between us had been waiting for years to be spoken. I already sensed where this was headed. I just needed to hear him say it out loud.
“I realized I was terrified you’d reject me. That you don’t want what I want.” He swallowed hard, and his eyes met mine again. “The truth is, I don’t want stolen moments like this. I want to fall asleep with you every night and wake up to your face every morning until we’re both too old to remember why we waited so long.”
His shoulders sagged, the fight draining out of him as he looked over at me. “I want forever with you, Jemma Price. And if that’s not what you want, then I can’t do … whatever it was that we just did. Only getting stolen pieces of you would destroy me.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out. Charlie wanted forever? Withme? Not with the version of me I’d carefully curated—the good friend, the safe harbor, the woman who neverasked for more than he could give. He wanted the messy, complicated, middle-aged truth of me.
The woman who was so damn tired of pretending she was fine.
God help me, I wanted that too. Wanted him to see every ugly, unpolished part and stay anyway.
Something clicked into place inside me, a key turning in a lock I hadn’t known existed. The truth rose to the surface, undeniable and overwhelming.
“I want that too,” I whispered. “All of it. The mornings, the nights, the forever part.” My hands found his, and I squeezed his fingers. “I think I’ve always wanted that, but was too scared to admit it—even to myself.”
His eyes widened slightly, the crow’s feet at their corners deepening as hope broke across his face like sunrise. “You mean that?”
I nodded. “Take me home, Charlie.”
seven
. . .
Charlie
The restof the drive to Jemma’s place passed in a blur. The silence between us wasn’t strained anymore—just weighted, like the air after a thunderstorm when everything still hums from the lightning.
By the time I turned into the long gravel drive leading to her farmhouse, the snow had eased to a soft drift, the world hushed and white. Her porch light glowed warm against the night, a beacon I’d driven toward more times than I could count, but never like this.
When I killed the engine, the sudden quiet roared in my ears. For a second, neither of us moved. Then she turned toward me, her face washed in the soft light from the dashboard, and I felt that same flutter in my chest I’d felt the first time she ever smiled at me across a cafeteria table.
We got out of the car, and I walked around to meet Jemma at the passenger side. Snow crunched beneath our boots aswe made our way up the steps—a sound I’d heard a thousand times, but tonight it felt different. Like each step was taking us somewhere we’d never been before.
At the front door, she turned to face me, the porch light throwing soft shadows across her face. She wanted this—I could see it—but wanting and doing were two different things after twenty-five years of friendship. Was this goodnight? Would we talk in the morning, figure out what came next?
Hell, had we even decided that yet?
I didn’t have the faintest idea what I was supposed to say or do now, so I went with the simplest thing I could think of: I leaned in.
Her breath caught, and my pulse tripped in response. I was already picturing the kiss, remembering the taste of her tongue tangling with mine, when she blurted, “Do you want to come in? Eli … umm … he won’t be home until midnight.”
It took me a beat to process what she was actually saying—what she was asking without asking.
