Page 196 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
She was a bit tough with her words, but she had to be. I had been pining over Brad for a year and she had heard it all. She hated him for what he did to me. I didn’t blame her.
“Listen,” she said. “Cayden is a great guy. He has a great job, he treats you very well, and he’s hot. You cannot screw this up, Tiffany. You need to let Brad go. You needed to let him go a long time ago, but now you really need to let him go.”
She was right. Still holding on to Brad could ruin my relationship with Cayden. I felt stupid for not being able to let go of the past, especially when Brad had been such an awful fiancé. He had cheated on me, for crying out loud.
“Thanks, Mandy,” I said. “You’re right. I need to focus on Cayden.”
“Anytime,” she said, as she hung up the phone.
I turned into Cayden’s complex, but still felt conflicted. I knew what I had to do, I knew why I had to do it, but I still could not let Brad go. I walked up to Cayden’s door, noticing the Christmas lights in the trees around his neighborhood. Everyone was in the Christmas spirit, except for me. Cayden opened the door, a glass of wine already in his hand for me.
“Did you get lost?” he asked. I walked in, taking the glass from his hand. I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “I had to stop for gas. I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” he said, as we walked inside. He already had all the groceries unloaded and had started to boil the water. I sat down on a barstool and chugged my wine. As I put the empty glass down, Cayden looked at me with a shocked look on his face.
“Are you okay?” he asked. He was genuinely concerned. I faked a smile.
“Of course,” I said. “It was just a long day. I barely slept last night. I was psyching myself out about the meeting this morning.”
He nodded understandingly.
“I get it,” he said. “You do have a lot going on this week. But, it’s all exciting stuff, right? You feel good about this, right?”
“I do,” I said. I really was excited about my new job and leading the empowerment group, but I still couldn’t shake the thoughts of Brad. He was going to ruin this excitement in my life, whether he knew it or not.
CHAPTER 21
CAYDEN
I walked into work feeling utterly confused. Last night was supposed to have been a fun night. It was supposed to be filled with good food, great company, and even better sex. It was not. I didn’t understand what went wrong so quickly. Tiffany was fine at work yesterday and even in a good mood at the grocery store, until she left to get the olive oil. Everything changed as soon as she came back. She was distant, but insistent that nothing was wrong.
I made a fantastic dinner. I even surprised myself with how good the recipe turned out. Tiffany barely ate it. She had a few bites and pushed the rest around on her plate as if she were a picky toddler. She didn’t touch the tiramisu, either. After our meal, she said she was tired and left. I understood that she had a long day and was going through a big change at work, but I felt like it was something more than that. I could not figure out what it was, though.
As I walked into my office, I peered into her new office. Her office was dark. She wasn’t there yet. I would have to find her later that day. I needed to talk to her. It was driving me crazy that something was wrong, and I didn’t know what. I kept thinking about what had happened. Did I say something wrong? I didn’t think so, but who knew?
Unfortunately, I got wrapped up in morning meetings and couldn’t stop by her office until near lunchtime. She wasn’t there, probably out to lunch with Nikki. I headed to the breakroom to grab my lunch when I knocked into her. We were the only two in the room.
“Hey,” I said. “How is your day going?”
“Fine,” she replied, not looking me in the eye. “Busy, but fine. You?” Her words were short. Something was still bothering her.
“Same,” I said. “I’ve been in a lot of meetings. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about last night.”
She still would not look at me.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked. She shook her head.
“You just seemed off,” I said. “If something is wrong, you can tell me. Are you stressed out about work? Are you not feeling this relationship?”
She finally looked at me.
“First, nothing is wrong. You need to respect me when I say that and not ask me a million follow-up questions. Second, we are just dating. This isn’t a relationship. We’ve had a handful of dates, Cayden. Let’s not get caught up.”
The mix of her tone and words stung. I had never heard her speak in this tone before, and I didn’t think I deserved it. Actually, I knew I didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I knew that I could not fight fire with fire. I had to cool down before I responded.
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” I said. “But, I’m not here to play games. I’m too old and I have a child involved. If you want to do this half-ass relationship where we hook up occasionally, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m not that type of guy.”
