Page 80 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

“Can you stay with him for a second?”

“Sure,” Brody said.

“I’ll be right back.” She stepped out onto the porch, and she closed her eyes. It was two weeks. And yes, it was Christmas. Yes, it felt sacred. But Benny’s happiness was the most important thing to her, and if he had not wanted to go for Christmas, she would’ve fought tooth and nail to make sure that he could stay with her. But of course he did. Because it wasn’t just his dad, it was his siblings. She felt completely disconnected from Carter’s children, and why wouldn’t she?

But Benny didn’t. They were his brothers and sister. It would be a full house with rambunctious children, and why wouldn’t he want to be there?

It just... It made sense. And it was fair, and she couldn’t see standing in the way of it. She didn’t need to make it personal, she didn’t need to make it about her.

She pulled out her phone, and hit Carter’s name out of her recent calls. “Hello?”

“Hi,” she said. “Benny wants to come. We don’t need to talk to a judge.”

“Elizabeth...”

“I mean, we will, to make sure that we have a real agreement in place for how things are going to work when I’m here, because I don’t need to be doing this all the time. I prefer it when we can keep the hassle between the two of us to a minimum.”

“Right.”

“But for this... He can go. He can go for Christmas break. But you have to come and pick him up, you have to have him back a full day before school starts, and you have to... You have to see it through, Carter. You can’t decide that it’s going to be too busy, you can’t...”

“Hey,” he said. “I promise. It was my idea.”

“Don’t you understand that I’m afraid for him? I just... I’m always afraid that you’re ashamed of him.”

“I’m not ashamed of him, Elizabeth. I’m ashamed of myself. He reminds me of that.”

She sat with that for a moment. She could hardly take it in.

“You’re ashamed of yourself?” she asked.

“I love Ashley. Don’t... It’s just there was no excuse for me to do things the way that I did. He reminds me that I broke us up.”

He had. She would never have left him. Not ever. She also knew that there had been other issues in their marriage, issues that she would never have ever approached. Because she just wanted to be married. She didn’t care if it was a blissfully happy marriage, just having the marriage had been blissful to her. For her, a successful marriage was one that didn’t end. For her... That was what mattered.

And she wasn’t entirely sure that it had been the path to the greatest and brightest happiness for herself or Carter. But things might’ve been simpler.

And since the two of them often struggled with the complications of arrangements... If she ever wished that things could go back to the way they were, that was really what she was fantasizing about. The simplicity that came with being in one household was it. Not being with Carter.

“Well, you have to get over that,” she said. “Because it did happen, and it wasn’t his fault. We got married too young.”

“Yes. We did.”

“Only time can fix that. The fact that we were kids trying to handle a very adult situation.”

“We aren’t kids anymore,” Carter said.

“No. We aren’t. So consider this a grown-up olive branch. As long as things go well.”

“Right. Well. I’ll be there to pick him up... When exactly does he get out of school?”

“December twenty-second.”

“Wow. They really push it right up to the line these days.”

“I imagine it’s true for your other children too.”

“Ashley knows all that stuff.” She could hear him wince on the other end of the phone. “Yeah. That’s another thing I should probably get a little bit on top of, right?”

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