“It’s not an imposition. Hallie’s been basically begging to see you again, every single part of her wants to spend the holidays with you. All you have to do is show up, ask her, be there. It’s all either of you wants for Christmas.”
“Yeah…” Audrey breathed. It was. She loved the camera so much, but she’d give up every Christmas gift she’d ever gotten if it meant she got to be with Hallie. “Okay. I… think I need to call… Wes. He’d probably be the happiest to come pick me up from the airport.”
Zora squealed. “Oh, my god, he’s going to be so excited! I cannot wait to hear every little bit of how it goes. And pictures! You’re going to take pictures and we’ll look at them together over coffee and it will be the best thing ever.”
Audrey felt her eyes burning. Zora was amazing. This whole thing was amazing. Everything was going to be amazing.
She tapped again, counting, breathing, praying everything would be okay. Maybe it would… just this once?
“I love you bigger than the whole sky,” she told Zora, ridiculously emotional and pouring every bit of love and gratitude she could muster into the statement.
“You too, babe,” Zora replied, impossibly softly. “Now, go get your girl!”
Audrey laughed as they hung up and she immediately dialed Wes. He was every bit as happy to hear from her as Zora had been.
“Hey, Prof! How’s it going?” he asked, his voice deep and amused, like he’d already been in the middle of laughing.Perhaps the universe had somehow alerted him that amazing things were taking place.
“Good. Yeah. Uh, Wes? How would you feel about coming to get me from the airport tomorrow?”
He was quiet for a moment, frozen, before he exploded. His voice felt closer to the mic, as if he was positively ramming the phone into the side of his face. “Are you serious? You’re coming here? We get to see you again?”
“I mean, yeah, if you’ll have me?”
“You don’t even need to ask! Hallie’s going to… well, she’s probably going to die from happiness.”
“I really hope she doesn’t.” Audrey cringed and forcefully shook her head at the idea, her fingernails digging hard into her thumb.
Wes laughed. “Don’t worry, she wouldn’t literally die and miss getting to see you. You just have no idea how much she’s missing you.”
Audrey smiled a little sadly and very knowingly. “I think I might have some idea.”
“You’re going to stay for Christmas, right?”
“Yeah, so long as you don’t think she’ll get sick of me?”
He snorted. “Be so for real right now. You could stay forever and she’d never get sick of you.”
Audrey’s insides glowed hot and hopeful. She really wanted to find out that that was true.
“And,” Wes continued, sounding more like he was smirking, “your timing couldn’t be better.”
“How?”
“Well, I just made it to Ann Arbor. Guess who’s got a date tonight with your spider specialist.”
Audrey laughed. She’d known Wes and Imani would get along but she had not been expecting a date. He mustreallylove spiders—Imani had forever promised never to datesomeone who couldn’t understand how beautiful they were. Unfortunately, that had left her dating pool surprisingly small after accounting for the rest of her tastes.
Maybe it wasn’t that surprising that Wes was hitting all of her criteria. He wasn’t Audrey’s type, but she could see the way he was checking things off Imani’s list. The Fullers were just magical like that.
“I cannot wait to hear all about it,” she told him happily.
“Hey, this whole thing wouldn’t be happening without you. Whatever you want to know is yours.”
She laughed again and hoped he’d run that by Imani first. “I don’t want to make you drive all that way today and then back down tomorrow. I can get a rental car…”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m off work and can book a place to stay tonight, come get you from wherever you’re flying into, and we’ll head back and surprise Hallie together. I’ll text the family to make sure they’re all at Mom’s.”
“Ah. An audience…”
