Page 48 of Holly Jolly Heresy
“How do you know?” he asked around the lump in his throat.
She smiled. “Because it’s Christmas.”
Caleb watched them leave, though he seriously considered going with them. Gavin clapped him on the shoulder, steering him away from the door and back towards the table where Jamie was pouring them all another round of Scotch. “Start at the beginning, big brother.”
So he did. He told them about his first day at St. Anthony’s High and how Molly had given him a tour of the building, pointing out the coffee maker in the teachers’ lounge that liked to randomly shock people and teaching him the trick to unlocking the wonky side door. He told them about chaperoning the senior ski trip together and that night last May when he’d almost kissed her, the time she’d visited him at the church and he thought she might kiss him. He told them about the way she challenged him on the harm done by the Church, how she made him face his role in it. He told them about spiked hot chocolates and sleeping next to her and breaking his vows underneath the Christmas tree—though he kept the specifics to himself. And then he told them about coming home and the panicked look in her eyes when she’d said she needed space, her bombshell about a job offer out of town, her insistence he not change his life for her.
“But she’s already changed my life!” he said, pleading with his friends to understand. “She’s been changing my life little by little for eighteen months. I could no more keep being a priest now than I could swim across an ocean!”
“He’s a sucky swimmer,” Gavin said, leaning closer to Jamie as though he were sharing a secret.
Caleb ignored him. “I resigned. Tonight was my last Mass.”
“If Molly were to tell you tomorrow that she didn’t want to be with you, would you regret resigning?” Jamie asked.
“No.” He sliced his hand through the air. “I needed to walk away. I've needed to for a while. Molly helped me see that, but I didn’t make this decision overnight. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.”
“Then that’s it. You just need to help her understand,” Ethan said.
“If it was that simple, I would be out doing it and not here talking with you four,” Caleb said.
“Itisthat simple,” Baz replied, setting down his empty Scotch glass. “You’ve been in love with her for over a year. Tell her that.”
"He can’t justtellher,” Gavin protested. “He has toshowher.”
“Gav’s right,” Jamie said. “That first year, Tessa would get skittish sometimes, and I’d—”
“Careful,” Ethan warned, eyeing his friend-turned-son-in-law.
“I’d find a way to show her how much she meant to me,” Jamie finished, rolling his eyes at Ethan. “Little things to let her know I was paying attention and I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Caleb considered his friends’ advice. If he could show Molly this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision for him, that he’d been dreaming of a life with her—and without the priesthood—for over a year, then he could help her see she didn’t need to give him space, not for his sake anyway. Molly was a caregiver, willing to fight for anyone’s happiness but her own. It was high time someone showed her thatherhappiness was worth fighting for—and if she wouldn’t do it herself, he’d do it for her.
And if her happiness means a new job in Boston?
Then he’d pack his bags and move to Boston.
“Do you know how to bake?” he asked Jamie.
“I am a professional chef,” Jamie replied with mock offense.
“Is that a yes?” Baz challenged.
“I mean, I don’t know exactly, but I do have access to my wife’s recipes,” Jamie said. “Why are we baking?”
“I have an idea, but if I’m going to pull it off, I’ll need your help.” Caleb looked around the table at the friends who were so much more like family, each one of them ready to spend their Christmas Eve helping him fight for the woman he loved. “Gav, can you go to Mom’s and see if she has any templates left in the recipe drawer?”
“On it,” Gavin said, saluting before he grabbed his coat and practically sprinted from the restaurant.
“Ethan, can you see if there’s any place open in town selling candy?” Caleb asked.
Ethan snorted. “No need. I have a box at home full of the good stuff.”
Baz smirked. “You have a quest for me too?”
“Nope. The three of us are about to bake up a grand gesture,” Caleb said, indicating himself, Baz, and Jamie.
“Better not get any flour on my suit,” Baz said.
