“But did he really feel that bad about it?” Marie asked, holding a wine glass between her fingers with her right hand, and a pair of scissors with her left. Since she was right-handed not much was happening as far as her helping me wrap presents went.

The fireplace crackled next to us, occasionally popping with that wonderfully Christmas-like sound. We decided to turn on Christmas Vacation in the background, mine and Finn's favorite movie to watch when wrapping presents. Only Finn wasn't here this time.

Marie and Noelle were.

He'd been gone for two days, and he was due to come home Thursday morning. To be honest, I couldn't frigging wait. Two days was too long to be without my man. I loved my friends, don’t get me wrong, but I’d fallen asleep in my husband’s arms for so long that doing without just felt…wrong. The only other times we’d been apart, really, had been when we fought.

So, this couldn’t help but remind me of those times.

It wasn’t a good feeling.

Noelle laughed. “No, I don’t think he was.”

I forced a smile, bringing my mind back to the present. I slapped a piece of tape on Susan's stuffed animal—she loved cats and was obsessed with getting as many of them as possible—before lifting my head. “I don’t know, he seemed like he felt pretty bad to me.”

Noelle rolled her eyes and set aside a prettily wrapped package for Cory. “Riley’s good at looking sorry when he really isn’t. That’s okay, though. I love him anyway.”

“Do you miss him?” I asked.

"Like crazy," she admitted, smiling sheepishly. "But we're kind of used to it. I travel a lot for book signings, and he does the same for his day job. Once he's published, he'll have even more traveling. But when we come back together…"

Marie leaned closer. “Yeah?”

“Reunion sex.” She sighed and picked up her wine. “It’s the best.”

I licked my lips. “Ooohhh.”

Marie groaned and set the scissors down. “You guys are killing me. I don’t have a guy who’s gone, and can give me amazing reunion sex.”

“There’s an easy fix for that,” I said, putting a bow on Susan’s cat.

"Don't," Marie groaned. She put down her wine and picked up a board book about dinosaurs for Cory. "This for Finn?"

I rolled my eyes. “Nice.”

“Sorry. I’m cranky.” She rubbed her forehead and placed the book on the wrapping paper. “I just…I don’t know. I don’t know why it keeps coming back to him all the time, or why people are trying to push us together. I feel like nothing is working out because people keep putting that thought in my head. If we were going to be together, don’t you think it would have happened by now?”

I swallowed. “Well, I mean, have you guys ever…you know…?”

“No, God, no.” She cut the wrapping paper, her blonde head lowered. “We kissed, once, in college, and then he started acting all possessive over me, so I was like, no way.”

Frowning, I thought back. “Did he?”

“Yep.”

Noelle sighed. “He was pretty young back then, though. Maybe he’s changed?”

"He's definitely changed," I agreed. "He used to be one of the most serious people I knew. Never smiled. Only spoke when spoken to. But then over the years, after he got out of the military, he changed. He's funny and talkative, lighthearted…"

Marie rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should date him, then.”

"I would if I didn't already have the love of my life by my side," I shot back. "Don't you want that, too?"

“You know I do,” Marie muttered. She lowered her head again. “He just…I don’t know. He intimidates me. The way he looks at me, it’s like if I let him, he would consume me.”

Noelle smiled. “Riley looked at me like that, too, and it scared me.”

“Finn, too,” I said slowly, remembering the heat in his eyes after our first kiss all those years ago. He still looked at me like that. Like he couldn’t live without me. “Notice a trend here?”

Marie shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

I said nothing, not wanting to press her more. Naturally, I wanted my best friend to be happy, and in my opinion, she could find that happiness in Hernandez. But if she wasn’t ready?

She wasn’t ready.

Noelle handed me the wrapped present, then reached for another from Cory’s pile. “How did you know Finn was the one, Carrie?”

I picked up the Fingerling Monkey Finn had scored for Susan. "We had a rocky start, as you know. When I fell for him, I fell hard, but he kept pushing me away. When we finally got together, he…well, to steal Marie's words, he consumed me. He was my world. I thought I finally understood what love was, and why people were willing to do anything for it."

Noelle nodded, eyes on me. “Mmhm.”

“I was there. She’s telling the truth.” Marie picked up another present. “He was all she thought about. All she talked about. At the time it was annoying, but it was also inspiring.”

Noelle nodded, all wrapping forgotten as the scissors dangled from her fingers.

"But then I found out that he worked for my dad and was protecting me for cash, so I called it off with him. Even when he begged me to give him a chance, even when he told me it had always been more than just a job between us, I didn't believe him. I couldn’t bring myself to hope again, because it crushed me, thinking I'd been nothing more than an assignment."

Marie shook her head. “All you had to do was look at that boy to see it wasn’t.”

“I know, but back then…” I shrugged. “Anyway, after we split, I felt like half of me was missing. A while after that, I got sick, and he found me. He carried me to his place, and took care of me despite his own issues with vomit—something he still has to this day.”

Noelle shuddered, touching her stomach. “Me too.”

“I guess that's when I knew. I loved Finn, and despite everything, I was ready to forgive him, so…I did. I might not have said it right away, but that was the moment I knew for me, it would always be him. At the time, I'd been trying to make it work with Riley—"

Noelle straightened. “That was then?”

“Yeah.”

Marie snickered. “Awkward.”

“Not at all, he told me about it.” She laughed. “He also told me he was in love with you for years, despite respecting and caring for you and Finn. He just couldn’t shake it.”

I blushed.

Marie chimed in with, “Yeah, he was, but he never looked at her like he looks at you.”

“How did you know Riley was the one?” I asked, trying to take the focus off my failed attempt to fall for her husband. I picked up my wine and took a chug.

“He asked me to marry him when I was going down on him.”

I choked on my wine, coughing and gasping for air.

Marie cracked up, holding her stomach and laughing so hard tears streamed down her face. I hadn't seen her lose it like that in…well, years. "Are you serious?" she finally managed to ask.

"Dead," Noelle said, grinning, getting back to wrapping. "From then on, I knew he was the one."

“Because he asked you to marry him…”

“When his dick was in my mouth,” Noelle finished for me. “Yep.”

Marie laughed again. “Why, though? Why then?”

“Because it was so spontaneous and fun.”

I lifted my brows. “That doesn’t sound like Riley.”

“I know, which makes it even more real now that I know him.” Noelle taped the wrapping paper. “When he was with me, he was a different guy, and maybe on some level, I recognized that in him, even though I didn't know it at the time."

Marie stared at Noelle, her lips parted.

"Then when I, too, found out that we weren't going to work out after all, on that awful night…" She swallowed hard. "It broke me."

I reached out and squeezed her knee. I'd been there that night, and it had been terrible to see them fight like they had. Riley had been cold, a different man, and he'd almost lost her because of that.

Marie cleared her throat. “Luckily, he came to his senses, and now we have you.”

“And I have you guys,” she said, smiling at us both.

I blinked rapidly. “I love you guys.”

“Take the wine away,” Marie joked. “She’s drunk-loving on us.”

“I’m not drunk,” I argued. I wasn’t. “I haven’t gotten drunk since college.”

Having a husband who couldn’t drink without slipping back into his bad habits kind of made it hard. We usually didn’t even have alcohol in the house, despite his ability to not touch it. I didn’t like to make it harder on the man I loved to stay clean, thank you very much.

Marie frowned. “How’s Finn been?”

"Fine. Perfect. Finn."

Noelle hesitated. “He was hooked on pills?”

“Yeah, after his injury overseas back when I was in college…he almost died. And when he was recovering my parents found out about us, his dad died…it was bad. Really bad.”

I looked away from her, not liking to revisit that time in my life.

Marie grabbed my hand, this time. "They broke up, her and Riley hung out, he thought they were hooking up, and they kind of relived history. After the attack on Riley and Carrie, where he saved them—"

“Oh my God, you were with him then?” Noelle cried.

“Yeah. He didn’t tell you?”

“No. I mean, kind of.” She hesitated. “When we talked about it, I didn’t know you yet, but he told me he was with a friend who was attacked for ransom with him.” She licked her lips. “It never occurred to me that friend was you, but it makes sense, considering your fathers’ connection.”

“Yeah.”

Noelle waved a hand. “Go on. Continue.”

"Oh, right. Well, he got clean with help, and then he came back into my life, but we didn't get together right away. He'd said some awful things to me when we broke up…but when he saved me again, it all just kind of poured out, and we got back together. He went to college with my dad's help, so did I. We got married, and all was good until a little after Susan was born. He got in an accident, and acquired pain pills without me knowing…"

"Enough of this," Marie interjected. “He slipped up, they made up, now they’re happy.”

Noelle nodded. “Yeah, let’s move on.” She looked at the present she was wrapping. “Your kids are adorable.”

"Speaking of which... You guys thinking of having kids anytime soon?" I asked.

“We…” She cleared her throat. “We’re trying. We were pregnant a couple of months ago, but we lost the baby, so…”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I dropped the present I was wrapping and crawled over to her, hugging her. Marie did the same. “I had no idea.”

"We didn't tell anyone," she said, holding onto Marie and me.

“I lost a baby, too, when I was shot.”

Noelle nodded. “Riley told me about that.”

"We're so depressing, guys," Marie said, sniffling. "It's Christmas. We're supposed to be fricking jolly. Ho ho ho, and all that crap.”

We all laughed, hugging each other closer. As we held one another, I realized that no matter how much I missed my husband, I was a lucky girl because I had friends like them.

That was never anything to take for granted.