Page 494 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“She’s a good woman.”
“Yeah, she is.” I puffed on my cigar and slid my other hand in the pocket of my robe. “To be honest, I didn’t see it all falling apart like this. I thought… hell, I don’t know what I thought. I guess I wasn’t thinking about how everything would look when the new year started and this Naughty Santa shtick wasn’t keeping us together.”
“Do you think she thought about it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Son,” my father said as he turned to me. The ember of his cigar painted his features with a warm glow. “Take it from an old man who was lucky enough to spend the majority of his life with his great love. There is no room for ‘I don’t know’ when it comes to matters of the heart. If there is any part of you that isn’t ready to let go of her, you should tell her.”
I sighed.
My father closed a hand on my shoulder. “You’re in love with this girl, Chadwick. You need to wake up.”
In love with her?
“Dad, I—”
“I saw the video of you and Humphrey Bishop’s little shit of a son.”
I winced. “Right.”
He patted my shoulder. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. That little worm deserved more than what you gave him. But I saw more in that video than what was on the surface. Do you want to know what that is?”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me regardless.”
“Yes, I am.” He puffed his cigar, flicked ash on the snow, and met my eye. “I saw a man standing up for the woman he loved. I saw my son, a good man with a loyal heart, standing up to an asshole. What I saw made me proud. And Tinsely? She deserves someone who will go to bat for her. Someone who will have her back, who will challenge her, who will drop everything he’s doing to go to her.”
I looked down.
“Don’t let her go so easily,” my father said softly. “Christmas is the time of year to follow your heart. To tell people how you feel. To be honest. If you care about her, don’t hold her at arm’s length. Let her in fully and see what happens. Chadwick.” He shook my shoulder so I would look up at him. I did, and I stared into wise hazel eyes that had guided me through the trials of my life. “Give yourself permission to feel joy, my son. Go get your girl.”
CHAPTER 35
TINSELY
My little cousins squealed with laughter through my phone, balanced on my knees. I sat on the window bench seat in my living room, propped up against two throw pillows with sequin snowflakes on them. A blanket lay draped over my lap, and I had my knees drawn to my chest with the phone sitting on it so I could listen to the joy on the other end of the line.
“You can’t open any of them until Christmas morning,” I said.
The kids groaned and complained to their mother, my aunt Lydia.
“Can’t we open just one?”
“Pretty please?”
“With a cherry on top?”
My aunt Lydia scolded them, and I heard her chase them around the living room, their little feet rustling wrapping paper and ribbon as they fled her.
“No,” she said, “you can wait until Christmas morning like the rest of us. What would Santa think if he knew you’d all conned me into letting you open them early?”
I smiled.
It felt good to hear their voices after the day I’d had, which wasn’t much of a day at all. The only productive thing I’d managed to do after my hangover subsided—partially—was unmake my bed and throw the bedding in the washing machine. It came out smelling fresh, and I’d used the last bit of my motivation to make the bed and turn it down.
With a heavy heart and mild headache, I planned on climbing under the blankets before ten o’clock, closing my eyes, and saying goodbye to this hell of a day.
“How’s the weather there?” I asked.
