Page 7 of Christmas Crisis
MIRANDA:I’ve missed you, Leo-Bear. Talk soon.
Chapter three
Miranda
NOW
The drive from the airport to Leo’s apartment in Tacoma was less than half an hour. The whole way there, I kept waiting to feel nervous, but it never materialized. Not during the flight. Not when I walked through the terminal. Not when I hauled myself into the rideshare at 11 p.m. After the way we’d left things on Halloween, I should have felt some trepidation about seeing him face-to-face, but I didn’t. Only relief that we were talking again.
Even if the circumstances were less than ideal.
When I first heard his voice a few hours ago, I almost cried into the phone. Until the moment he’d picked up—his “Hi Miranda,” followed quickly by “How can I help?”—I hadn’t realized how much his absence from my life over the past four weeks had affected me. I’d masked it with work and Stone and other forgettable nonsense, nearly convincing myself it was okay. But hearing his deep baritone offering comfort broke a dam inside me.
I’d missed my best friend.
As much as I’d wanted to cry and apologize and give in to my emotions, I forced myself to focus on the disaster at hand. Leo would do Thanksgiving with his parents as planned, while I drove to LAX and caught the first flight to Seattle. He offered me his second bedroom for the weekend. For a hot minute, I thought about getting a hotel, but if he was willing to put Halloween behind us, I was going to take that gift. Besides, I’d stayed at his place so many times it would have been strange not to.
And now that we’d hashed out those logistics, I steeled myself to make a big ask of him.
Shoshanna and Lauren had agreed to my plan after I showed them the cache of photos on my phone. Contrary to what my forty thousand Instagram followers believed, I was actually a pretty private person—hence the reason my socials contained only pics of my adventures, not my friends, family, school (now work), or home life. As far as the internet was concerned, I was an extrovert who liked to travel and do outdoorsy things. Still, I’d maintained an air of mystery, not hinting at my identity. I didn’t even caption most of the images.
But the albums on my phone told a different story.
There were pictures of Stone and me. But since we spent most of our time together at our homes, other than a few secludedvacations, there weren’t many. You could only pose for so many living room selfies before you got bored with it.
Most of my personal pics were disorganized and banal. PowerPoints taken during classes, screen grabs of QR codes, evidence of cooking fails and makeup tutorials gone wrong, weekend hiking trips with friends, an unreasonable amount of adorable dogs I met on the street, bookstore shelf shots reminding me what I wanted to check out from the library, and candids of me with my sisters.
And Leo. Beautiful, warm, Viking-statured Leo. Starting two Christmases ago, when his brother James fell in love with my sister Marley, he’d been a constant presence in my life. And my camera roll.
Even though he lived in Washington state and I lived in California, we’d been able to get together somewhat frequently and stayed omnipresent in each other’s lives thanks to the twin miracles of texting and FaceTime.
There were pictures of us at Disneyland and the Grand Canyon. Dancing at Marley and James’s wedding. Holding hands before doing a Polar Plunge. For the first time, I was thankful Marley had made Leo and me wear matching footie pajamas for Christmas last year.
I’d only had to show Shoshanna and Lauren a few to make them enthusiastic about my idea. The many screenshots I’d taken of Leo and me video chatting especially excited them. Leo was terrible with phone angles and therefore often unintentionally hilarious, prompting me to preserve close-up shots of his inner ear and forehead pores for my amusement, including the timestamps.
We would still be accused of faking the photos, of course, but since none of them were faked, it was our best hope.
As long as I could get Leo on board.
He opened the door to his apartment before I even knocked. “Miranda, I know I said this on the phone, but I’m so sorry for how we left things after Hallo—”
I barreled into his arms. “You don’t need to apologize, Leo. We both let it get out of hand. I know you only questioned things because you care about me.”
The tears I’d been holding back since that morning fell onto his shirt.
He wrapped me tightly in his arms, resting his chin on the top of my head. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay… Ssshhh.” His hands ran circles over my back. “And you’re right. I do care. I’m just glad our stupid argument didn’t keep you from calling when you needed me.”
Sniffling, I breathed in the familiar scent of him. Sandalwood from his soap combined with the vaguely fruity smell of his shampoo.
I closed my eyes, pushing my cheek into his broad chest as I mumbled, “I hope you still feel that way when I explain.”
He pulled away and set me back from him, handing me a tissue. Picking up the duffel I dropped, he slung it onto his shoulder before tipping my chin up with one finger to meet my gaze. “You know I’ll do whatever you need.”
Meeting his eyes, I swallowed. He held my stare for a few seconds before dipping his chin.
I followed him into the living room. It hadn’t changed since the last time I’d been here in August.
After Marley and James’s wedding in July, I spent most of the summer in Coleman Creek, the little town in north central Washington where I’d grown up and where my sisters still lived, but I’d stayed a few days with Leo before heading back to Los Angeles. I hadn’t seen him in person since then.
