Page 75 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

“And I’ve never... Carter never... You went...”

“I went down on you?”

“Yes.”

“Holy hell. He’d never... Seriously. What the hell is wrong with that guy?”

Her face was flaming hot, she really didn’t know how to have a frank discussion like this. And here she was in the middle of it.

You didn’t know how to do a lot of things before Brody, though, and now you’re just doing them. So there’s that. You’re just doing it, even though you don’t know how, and that’s really something.

That made her chest feel lighter. Made the tightness there ease. Maybe it was a terrible thing that they’d done this. And that they couldn’t keep doing it. It had been a lesson. A good lesson. And everything was ending amicably. They would still be friends. Because that’s what this was. A friendship.

She had not moved here expecting to have this.

This easy companionship with this man. He had bothered her at first because she had been attracted to him, and she had figured that out. Figured out what they could do with this. She’d had sex with him, and she wasn’t ashamed. And she didn’t feel prickly around him, or like she had to avoid him anymore.

That meant that it was the natural conclusion. The opportunity to step forward into a friendship.

Yes. Friendship.

“I think there was something wrong with us,” she said. “As a couple. We were too young to understand what we actually needed out of a romantic relationship. And it’s hard. Because he gets it with someone else. And I don’t mean that because I’m jealous. I mean that because it hooked into my insecurities for a long time. I thought it was me. But I think it was us. And it still bothers me the way that it rebounds on Benny. Because, of course, it’s easier for him to mostly compartmentalize and focus on his family. And then he gets touchy with me about... About the fact that I can’t live in limbo to serve him. To bring him his son when he wants him, keep him close at hand, and... Sorry. It always turns into that drama.”

“It’s the thing that you deal with every day. I’m not surprised that it comes up a lot.”

He was just so understanding. She hadn’t known men could be like that.

She hadn’t known that anyone could be like that. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to talk to somebody and not be afraid of what they would think when she revealed the details of her life. Of herself. And she didn’t feel like she was confessing shortcomings when she talked to Brody.

They pulled into the cabin, and he put the truck in Park. She heard Benny hop down, and Brody got out. “I’ll go help him with the tree.”

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It wasn’t the text. It was Carter. And he was actually calling her.

She answered. “Hello?”

“Hi. I thought that we should talk.”

“Why? We never talk.”

“I know.”

It was a metaphor for their entire relationship. They hadn’t talked anymore. They hadn’t talked until it was too late. Until he was going off to marry another woman. Until he had gotten that other woman pregnant. And then they had talked. When the only talking left to be done was him telling her that they were over.

“So why are we talking now, Carter?” she pressed.

“I had an informal meeting with the judge this morning.”

“You can do that without me?”

“I can, because you aren’t here.”

“Yes. But the judge knows that. I can certainly be on a phone call and...”

“There will be a phone call later,” Carter said. “I just wanted to give you a heads-up. I’m asking that Benny come back home for Christmas break.”

“What?”

“We share holidays,” he said. “It’s pretty normal.”

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