Page 70 of The Holiday Whoopie
“Don’t.” It’s sharp enough that he goes still. “Don’t offer to flip your life to make me feel safe about mine.”
His eyes narrow, the lawyer seeing the weakness in the opposition’s argument. “So you’re scared.”
“Of course I’m scared.” The truth of it is hot and humiliating. “I have a business that works because I work it until my feet go numb. A town that can’t whisper. A mother whose spreadsheets are a love language. I don’t have room for a man who leaves.”
He takes that without flinching. “I haven’t left.”
“Yet.” I aim for kind and hit honest. “And I’m not mad. I’m grateful. I—” The words stop as my heart stumbles. “It was great while it lasted.”
“Was.” He tastes the past tense, grimacing like it’s a bad drink. His gaze flicks to the wall clock, to the door, back to me. “So this is what, audit day? You close the books and write me down as a seasonal expense?”
“That’s unkind.” My words lack the vehemence of truth.
“I’m trying not to be.” He closes his eyes, his voice fraying on an exhale. “I’m trying very hard not to be.”
We hang there in the quiet kitchen, two people pretending not to collapse.
Finally, Jack straightens, moving the way a man does when the punch he didn’t block has landed. His eyes flick to the immaculate sink, the knives in their slots, the neat parade of cooling shells. “It seems you have your picture, and I’m not in it.”
The echo of my words—spoken without venom—is somehow worse.
All I can do is nod.
He obliges by pushing off the table. Not angry. Tidy. Moving through my kitchen with confident, careful steps, pausing only when he reaches the door.
I wait for him to say something. Something brave. Something stupid. Maybe both.
Instead, the moment of silence passes like a final farewell before he unlocks the door and the cold comes in and carries him out.
I stand where he left me, in a kitchen so clean it feels sterile—and just as empty. The table gleams—no flour dust, no stray sprinkle, no proof I didn’t imagine him with his sleeves rolled up and his hand on my lower back telling me I’m out of parchment when I’m not.
The timer for our relationship that I never set goes off in my head.
I hit it with the heels of my palms, rubbing them into my eyes until the burn subsides. Until I can count the week’s orders I memorized in my head. Until I’m positive that I won’t be adding extra salt to my treats with my tears.
Getting to work, I line up a row of whoopie pie shells so straight it hurts. Then I line up another.
Perfect little halves, waiting for someone to put them together.
Jack
The Haven’sroom key is heavier than it needs to be. It thunks the desk when I drop it, an accusatory little paperweight beside my laptop and a glass of water I forgot to drink.
I drop my shapeless-but-warm coat over the chair and stare at myself in the full-length mirror on the wall. No tie, no Brioni—just a hand-knit scarf and the kind of fatigue that makes even good decisions look guilty.
I pull out my phone and draft a text: I took on Evans as a client because?—
Stop. Delete.
I try again: I didn’t go into this thinking it was temporary?—
Stop. Delete slower.
“I went into this knowing it wasn’t permanent.”
What’s the point on explaining when she already made it clear I’m not what-who she wants?
Dropping onto the bed, I check my inbox. Three messages from LA, one from a studio attorney with a subject line that reads like a threat dressed as a favor. I flag them all and answer none before crunching up off the bed to move to the desk and open my laptop.
