Weird timing.
“I know, Erika mentioned it. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’ll be seven days a week at first, until I get it up and running, but then I’ll split my time. Weekdays there. Weekends here.”
Just like my schedule. “That’s great, but what was with the big secret? You didn’t think that I’d want to know my best friend was going to live in the same city all the time instead of half the time? That I wouldn’t be thrilled that my best friend was taking a huge step forward in his career?”
“I was hoping that when you found out you wouldn’t be my best friend. Or at least not just that. I was biding my time, hoping that when I found an apartment there, it wouldn’t be my apartment, but our apartment.”
My brain scrambles to sort all this out, but it’s too much. I can’t think, I don’t know how to feel—
“I’m in love with you, Kelly. I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you. I loved you like a boy loves a girl back then, when you were the only one there for me. And now I love you like a man loves a woman, because you’re the only one I want. For always.”
My heart leaps, but he’s not done.
His voice is sad. Resigned. “But I don’t . . .” He gives his head a quick shake. “I don’t want to take it slow. I can’t sit around and wait for you to figure out if you feel the same.”
My heart stumbles in my chest. “Mark—”
He lifts his hand to my cheek, and though the gesture’s gentle, the expression on his face is resigned, and my heart beats faster in panic.
“I can’t keep waiting for you, Kelly. I can’t keep wasting year after year hoping you’ll feel the same, only to lose you every time a tarot card or crystal ball leads you elsewhere.”
His lips are soft against mine, a whisper of a kiss that’s both meltingly tender and heartbreakingly bittersweet.
“Mark.” My voice is a shattered whisper, and I lift desperate fingers to his wrist, clinging. “I told you I think I love you.”
His smile is sad. “I want more than ‘I think,’ Kell. I deserve better.” He gently eases away, handing me the car keys. “Take it. I’ll find another ride.”
Helplessly I watch him go. And as tears run down my face, I realize why his kiss seemed so brutally bittersweet.
The kiss was a goodbye.
December 24, Sunday Afternoon
“Thanks again for inviting me to this,” I tell Erika as I follow her around the auditorium, putting cups next to the plates that she places at each setting.
She glances over her shoulder with a slight smile. “You’re welcome. Figured you could use something to keep your mind off . . . you know.”
Yeah. Yeah, I do know. I know all too well that my ex-boyfriend flew out to Oklahoma this morning after a painfully awkward talk over pancakes at the local diner. I’d told him that while I was pretty sure someone out there wanted us to be together . . . it wasn’t me.
But who are we kidding? Colin is so not the problem here.
The real problem is that Mark’s at his parents’ house. Without me.
I wasn’t quite uninvited. Mark’s mom called this morning saying that they’d all still love to have me over for dinner, and that Mark’s dad could come pick me up, drive me out there, and then take me back home afterward.
That just about says it all, doesn’t it? Mark doesn’t hate me so much that he wants me to be alone on Christmas Eve, but neither can he bear to spend time with me alone.
I lied to his mom, told her that the sore throat I’d been fighting all week had finally won and that I was sick.
I’m the worst. There’s got to be a special place in hell for people who lie on Christmas Eve to their best friend’s parents, but the alternative was unthinkable. I can’t sit across the dining room table from him eating mashed potatoes and knowing that things will never ever be the same between us.
Erika texted to see if I was okay, and when I babbled out the whole sad story, she insisted I come over to the high school auditorium to volunteer with the dinner for the homeless that she’d helped plan. Desperate for a distraction, I happily agreed.
“I have dinner with my mom,” she goes on, “but if you want to come over after, I was going to watch Christmas movies. I haven’t seen Love Actually this year. Seems like your jam. All that cheesy romance?”
I make a rude grunting sound.
“No?” she asks.
“Let’s just say it reminds me of Mark.”
As I was lying awake last night—all night—I’d replayed the evening’s events over and over, and made the not-so-pleasant connection between our conversation last week about the kiss between Keira Knightly’s character and the sign guy.
The worst part? I was the one who’d informed Mark that it had been a goodbye kiss.
Little did I know it’d blow up in my face.
She gives me a pitying look. “Sorry to tell you this, but that’s what happens when you tangle with someone you’re that close to. Everything’s going to remind you of him, at least a little bit.”
“Gosh, thanks for that.”
Erika shrugs. “Not gonna lie to you, Byrne, he’s a tough one to get over. I suggest lots of wine, and training for a marathon. Worked for me.”
I wrinkle my nose. “A marathon? What are you, some sort of monster?”
The wine, however . . . I fully intend to get behind that initiative.
“You ready to tell me what happened?” she asks as we finish setting the final table.
“Nope.” I straighten a fork at one of the settings. “I’m not even sure I know what happened.”
She gives my shoulder a sympathetic pat. “Doors open in five. We already have plenty of people to serve food, but the guests always enjoy company. And nobody chats as well as you do.”
I’m not feeling the least bit chatty, but I can fake it. Someone turns on Christmas music. An unfortunate smooth jazz situation that’s got too many loops and variations on the familiar choruses for anyone to properly hum along.
A few minutes later, the first guests arrive.
Haven does this every year, opening up the high school gym to those from the community who’ve fallen on hard times and can’t afford a warm meal. I wish I could say I’ve been more involved in the past, but this is a first for me. However, I usually host the Thanksgiving version, so I know from experience that all these people want is a hot meal and touch of Christmas cheer.
I paste on a smile and make the rounds, complimenting hair, handing out candy canes to kids, wishing they were the dolls and video games that I suspect they really want but won’t get.
I’m pleased to say that with each minute, my spirits lift a bit. Someone changes the music to Nat King Cole’s Christmas album, and though there’s no Christmas tree, someone’s hung twinkle lights from the ceiling and there are wreaths on each table.
There’s also mistletoe in the doorway, and it takes all my self-control not to toss that offending piece of crap out into the snow.