CHAPTER TWENTY

HOLLY

 

Somehow a few weeks of somewhat casual sex went by, and I found myself in Ben’s minivan a couple days before Christmas.

We sat outside Liz’s house, the endnote to our weekend together. He turned to me, grinning, and I had to smile back. My eyes lingered on his lips and I allowed myself to drift back to his place just an hour earlier. I thought about the pizza, and how he had allowed me to inhale four slices while he ate two and proceeded to devour areas of my body that would make my mother blush. The memory was a nice one, especially when it consisted of food that didn’t come from his crockpot.

Reaching across my lap, he opened the glove compartment and removed a little wrapped box. “Here, I got this for you.”

I held my breath in my lungs, silently cursing him for buying me a freakin’ Christmas present. “Ben, I didn’t get you anything,” I admitted. We hadn’t even considered ourselves together, for crying out loud.

He just shook his head, still flashing those dimples. “We never talked about gifts, it’s fine.”

He said it was fine, but it wasn’t fine. Not at all.

Still, I awkwardly unwrapped the present, cursing him further at the sight of a velvet jewelry box, and I creaked it open to reveal a little teardrop garnet pendant attached to a thin silver chain. All at once I felt guilty, angry, ashamed, and touched at the sight of the glittering little stone.

“Ben, I really don’t think I can—”

He held up a hand. “Yes, you can. I want you to have it.”

“Thank you,” I said in a choked mumble, unable to take my eyes off of the necklace. “It’s beautiful.”

Ben smiled as he began to stroke my hair with a gloved hand. For a fleeting panic-stricken moment, I thought he was about to ask for us to move forward; meet the parents, meet the daughter, and I knew I’d have to turn him down. What kind of awful person wants to do that right before Christmas?

But thank God, he wasn’t making any suggestions that night.

“Come here,” he said coyly, and I turned to him.

Yes. This is something I can do.

He kissed me softly, his lips barely touching mine, teasing me, before parting his lips. Mine followed his lead, allowing for his tongue to slip between them for just a few moments. And then he pulled away, flashing his dimples. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

I left the car, feeling guilty with a dash of lust, and walked up to the house. Liz opened the door, waving to Ben with a big grin. She called a hearty “Merry Christmas!” to him before he drove away and out of sight.

“God, Holly, you’re so lucky to have him,” she gushed, clutching her hands to her chest, and I wished I could agree.

 

***

 

The next day Anna and I had busied ourselves with baking Christmas cookies—another bittersweet moment to add to the scrapbook. Just a year before, Stephen and I had baked them together, as we did traditionally, allowing ourselves a rousing duet of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and a lovely slow dance to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” while the cookies baked to perfection. We laughed over our tongue-in-cheek gingerbread men as “Jingle Bells” played, and we cuddled around the yule log blazing on our TV screen with cups of hot cocoa spiked with Bailey’s Irish Cream, as an elevator version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” tinkled in the background.

As I rolled out the dough for Anna to squish her cookie cutters into, I caught myself feeling a little emotional, wondering if Stephen was baking his own cookies with Anthony and if he was thinking about me while he stuck little candy cane penises onto gingerbread.

I sighed through my festive sadness. Christmas always has a cruel way of reminding you of all the things you forgot you missed.

Liz returned home with a bag of presents from her co-workers at Dr. Martin’s office. I had to admit I was a little jealous as she pulled out the tins of baked goods and token gifts, missing my own Christmas party at Teen Queen. Not that it was ever a particularly fun time; my former boss would hand out a scented candle to everybody, we’d eat some food, maybe have a few drinks, and go on our merry way. But still, it was a holiday party, and babysitters didn’t get those

And as my thought process traveled through people and things I was missing, Brandon filled my mind, pushing everything else aside with his perfect hair, velvet voice, and expensive cologne. I had seen him only once since I started seeing Ben. It was as though he had been purposely avoiding me, and although he had insisted that wasn’t the case, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was lying to me.

By all accounts, Ben should have filled the void he had left with his absence, but I missed my friend. I missed the way he always made me feel better without trying. I missed the way he could build me up to something when I felt like nothing. I missed the way he smelled, and the way his arms felt when he pulled me in for a hug, and the way his lips felt on my cheek …

I missed the guy I insisted was just my friend, and as Alvin & The Chipmunks crooned through the speaker in Liz’s kitchen, I found that nothing had made me sadder than that.

 

***

 

Clutching a tin of Christmas cookies in my hands, I hurried into Reade’s out of the cold, wishing my sort-of-wool coat provided me with a little more warmth against the winter chill. But within seconds, the ice around my bones thawed and my lips curled into a smile at the sight of Brandon, despite that he was clearly about to leave the store with a cup of coffee in hand. Seeing him walking in my direction was enough to lift my spirits away from everything else I had spent the evening missing with painful reminiscence.

“Merry Christmas, stranger,” I said, just as our paths met.

His hug surprised me, after the way he had been not-avoiding me for over a month. But he wrapped his arms around me, holding me to his chest as a hand cupped the back of my head. He held me as though he had just returned home from battle, his heart beating hard but steady inside his chest and against my ear.

“Merry Christmas, Holly,” he said with his chin resting on top of my head. He spoke in a low, gruff voice that made me shiver despite being wrapped in my coat and the warmth of his arms.

I reluctantly pulled away from him, but not before inhaling his cologne, and I asked him what he was doing for the holiday. All he said was that he would be spending it with Nick, and without thinking, I invited him to my parents’ house. Clearly touched, his cheeks flushed and he thanked me for the offer, but that it was a little too last minute to blow off his friend—and yeah, I might have felt a little rejected.

“And I’m sure you’re spending time with your boyfriend. Not sure how he’d feel about another man hanging around,” he threw in, eyes narrowing with suspicion, and instantly my crappy coat was too hot for comfort.

I opened my mouth to tell him I wouldn’t be seeing Ben, who wasn’t my boyfriend, when I saw Bill approaching. He was wearing an incredibly loud Fair Isle Christmas sweater that blinked with colored LED lights, and with the smile he wore, I could tell it was one of the best things he had ever spent his hard-earned money on.

“Merry Christmas, Ho-Ho-Ho-lly!” he shouted, pleased with his creative butchering of my name. “Bet you haven’t gotten that one before, huh?”

“Only every year since my dad thought of it,” I whispered to Brandon before rushing to give Bill a hug.

“Are your parents’ big fans of Christmas?” Bill asked, wrapping his arms around me tightly. “Because your name is pretty festive, isn’t it?”

I laughed, and handed him the tin of cookies. “Anna and I made these for you,” I said with a smile, “but you have to share them with Jessie and Scott. Anna insisted.”

“We’ll see about that,” Bill laughed, and then his eyes floated upward and a cheeky smile spread across his face, emphasizing the deep-set lines at the corners of his bright eyes. “Hey, don’t look now, kids, but I think you two are standing under the mistletoe.”

And as though the woman had bionic hearing, Jessie came bounding over from the Book Nook to come see that, yes, we were indeed standing under the freakin’ mistletoe.

“Ooh! I told that Debbie Jefferson I could get people under the mistletoe! She said, ‘Jessica, there is no way you’re going to get anybody to go along with that garbage, so get rid of it,’ but look at you!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together with enthusiasm, causing the bells on her wrists and sweater to jingle a tune that was simultaneously festive and irritating.

“Hey, I haven’t committed to anything,” Brandon laughed doubtfully, but he turned to me and cocked a suggestive eyebrow.

“Oh, but you wouldn’t want to break tradition!” Bill exclaimed jovially, and Jessie reached to grip his hand, clasping it between hers.

Brandon twisted his lips thoughtfully, his eyes never leaving mine. “Well, now that would be a shame.”

I could feel my cheeks burning as I looked up at him. “I can’t,” I hissed in a whisper. Ben and I hadn’t discussed what we were, but we had also never discussed kissing other people under mistletoe. Together or not, the whole thing screamed “unfaithful” to me.

“I know, but …” He shrugged nonchalantly. “You wouldn’t want to break tradition, would you?” Brandon took a step toward me, causing my breath to hold in my lungs. “Plus, we’re just friends, right?”

The sad look in his eyes seemed to say something entirely different, but he smiled tauntingly as he craned his neck with a slight bend of his back, bringing his face closer to mine.

My eyes rolled in a regrettable display of indifference as I groaned, “Okay, fine,” and my stomach lurched with the sudden onset of nerves, as I closed my eyes.

My mouth seemed to have a mind of its own as it formed a smile that I couldn’t stop despite how hard I tried, in anticipation of feeling his lips on mine once again. With every painstaking second that ticked by, I found there was nothing I wanted more. But after a few moments of lingering and feeling the fresh, cool breath from his nostrils against my face, I opened my eyes, afraid he had decided to back down.

What I saw was the sparkling blue eyes staring back at me, while he wore a smile similar to my own.

Right. Just friends.

“Let’s make this quick,” he said, feigning a groan as I felt a warm hand on the back of my neck.

“Just get it over with,” I whispered, knowing I wasn’t tricking anybody when my voice caught in my throat at the touch of his other hand against my jaw, his thumb stroking the skin of my cheek, and with that, he pulled me towards him.

And you know, I thought that after months had passed since I first kissed him, that maybe the thrill would be gone and I would feel nothing. I thought that those sparks wouldn’t have sprinkled behind my eyelids and the wobbly feeling in my knees would remain a distant memory from a time when I was desperate. I envisioned that, after experiencing his lips on mine one last time, I could put it to rest knowing that it was just a fluke, and we could continue as the friends we truly were.

But what happened instead was … something else entirely.

Our lips crashed together as I melted into his hands, and all I could do to keep myself from collapsing at his feet was to reach my arms up and around his neck. The small kiss between friends in the spirit of tradition, had quickly built to something intimate; our lips parting in unison and the tips of our tongues meeting somewhere in the middle with a tenderness that could only be interpreted as romantic. The bitter sampling of black coffee sat on my tongue, and even though I would have at one point been completely repulsed by the flavor, it tasted like him, and I had to fight myself from devouring it then.

But then … There was that ache, more pronounced than the scraping of his stubble against my chin. It began as a whisper and ended as a scream, telling me to not let him go, to keep him there in that moment with me, but before I could listen to myself, it was over. He pulled away, and it wasn’t until that point that I realized I was on the brink of tears. My heart felt wrung out of all emotion, and for just a second, I was terrified of looking at him and seeing that he felt nothing, leaving me to drown alone. But despite my fears, out of necessity, I reluctantly opened my eyes to find his scanning my face as though they were searching for something.

They locked onto mine; moisture lined the rims, turning his blue eyes into prisms. “Holly, I—”

Swallowing hard, I asked, “What?”

I wanted to hear him say whatever it was that sat at the tip of his tongue. I imagined it being something to the effect of, “Leave him and be with me,” and dammit, I would have done it. I would have pulled my phone out right there and called Ben to tell him it was over. Whatever it was.

But then the world reappeared around us as Jessie sighed. “Oh, Bill … Wait until Debbie hears about this …”

And just like that, I remembered we were friends. I remembered the guy I had been semi-unfaithful to. I remembered that there were other places to be, even if that place was in my bed, alone with my cat.

I dropped my hands from Brandon’s neck as he dropped his from mine. I composed myself with a clearing of my throat as Brandon ran his hands through his hair in what I guessed to be an attempt to put himself back in order. I wished the three of them a merry Christmas, and before anything else could be said, I hurried out of there, cursing Jessie for not listening to Debbie Jefferson.