He pondered that as he made her tea. They weren’t teenagers who were still trying to decide what they wanted in life or needed most in another person. Celeste was not a wishy-washy person who couldn’t make up her mind about things.
If she was so dead set against any kind of relationship, maybe it was time he took her at her word and quit hoping for something more.
Chapter Four
Mike hadn’t been by in days.
He’d sent a few texts, mostly about Kristina, but otherwise Celeste hadn’t heard much from him. She didn’t know what to think of that. It wasn’t that she never went a day without talking to him. It just didn’t happen that often, especially in the months since she’d officially become an empty nester.
“I could make Christmas cookies and invite him over.” She would enjoy the cookies; she would enjoy his company even more.
Celeste pulled out her phone and sent off a text.I’m making cookies. Want to come over and have some?
She pulled on her apron and dropped her phone into the pocket. Mike liked chocolate chip the best, so she gathered up the necessary ingredients. She liked baking. She hadn't done it as often since Kristina left for college.
Mike had told Celeste that one of the challenges of suddenly having no kids at home was figuring which things she’d doneprimarily for the kids and which things she’d done at least partially for her own sake. Maybe baking was one of those things she’d enjoyed as much as they had.
Her phone chimed. Celeste smiled as she pulled it out of her apron pocket. Mike, just as she’d assumed.
I’m at the annual holiday work party. Give me a rain check on the cookies.
She read it twice just to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood. She had gone with him to that party the last couple of years. Everyone else, he’d explained the first year, brought their spouses or significant others. He hadn’t wanted to be the only one there alone. Why hadn’t he invited her this time?
I hope it’s not too miserable, she typed back.She stood at her counter, the cookie ingredients laid out but nothing actually mixed yet.
Her phone chimed.Amy from accounting is here alone, too. So, not too bad.
Amy from accounting? Why would Amy from accounting make his evening better? Mike had only ever mentioned her in offhand ways, things like “I need to get my expense report in to Amy from accounting before the weekend” or “The last person I would want to watch a fake YouTube concert with is Amy from accounting.”
Celeste stared at her phone for a long, drawn-out moment. She didn’t know how to respond or even if she should. Interrupting a date was rude— not that Mike was on a date. He and Amy were only at the party together by chance, really. It wasn’t like Mike had gone over to accounting and asked Amy to sit with him at the party. Right?
Ask Amy if she knows where to find vintage jeans that'll fit a vintage-age person. LOL
The moment she sent the text she realized how stupid it probably was. And a little pathetic. She was trying to spendthe evening via text with a guy who was already spending the evening in person with someone else. And she’d typed LOL, something she’d always sworn she wouldn’t do; it felt too… stupid.
In the end, she couldn’t say if Mike agreed that the message was pathetic or the acronym stupid. He didn’t text back.
A batch of cookies later, he hadn’t texted back.
She strung a strand of lights on the front porch. Still no text.
She pulled the tabletop Christmas tree out of the attic and set it up on the end table in the front room. No text.
She even found and ordered a pair of jeans in her size on Etsy that she would have drooled over twenty-five years earlier. Still nothing from Mike.
There was nothing to be done but turn onA Christmas Caroland have some cookies and hot chocolate. Watching George C. Scott transform into a decent person was usually very cathartic, one of the highlights of the season for her— why had she ever thought that skipping these things would make her happier this year?— but it fell a little short this time.
“I’m Scrooge,” she said to the empty room, “no family around, no friends, all alone at Christmas.” Except Scrooge had been happy about it, at first anyway. “I was, too. A little bit.” She had been looking forward to a very low-key Christmas. Mike had turned that into a fun scavenger hunt, and she couldn’t be satisfied with the quiet any longer.
“That’s what friends are for, making a person dissatisfied with the status quo.”
Speaking of status quo: why in the world was he at his annual work party with Amy from accounting? He always took Celeste. Always.
She felt like she’d been stood up. Or overlooked. Or something.
Not that the work parties were dates or anything. She and Mike were just friends. Friends who were free to date… accountants. Except, Mike worked in IT. An accountant didn’t seem like the best match for a computer geek. A lawyer would be more likely to offset the geekiness. Not that Mike was super geeky. Or that shewas looking to date him.
Then what was her problem? She was upset about him being out with someone else even though she wasn’t looking to be anything but his friend? Was “friend jealousy” a thing? She wasn’t jealous of his other friends. She knew most of them; she liked them. She enjoyed hearing about the things Mike did with his other friends.
