My cheeks heated despite the cold temps. “I thought it was supposed to be something else tonight. The Grinch or something.”
Sam continued to look at me. “I know the guy running the projector. He works for me in the summer.”
Realization slowly started to dawn. “You didn’t—”
He shrugged. Then smiled. Then picked up the funnel cake and started walking back toward the Meyer’s campfire. “Come on, Haden, or you’re going to miss the best part.”
Dumbfounded, I followed after him, deciding I would reinforce the defenses around my heart tomorrow.
CHAPTER 8
The Great Christmas Bake-Off
“Are you ready? You don’t look ready.” Teagan frowned at me, laying on her couch in my Sunday afternoon don’t-give-a-shit comfies—baggy sweatpants that were Hudson’s at one point, a baggy Mistletoe basketball t-shirt I’d had since high school, and fuzzy socks that were waging a war against the winter temps . . . and losing.
I set my Kindle full of Christmas-themed smut down on my stomach and squinted at her. “Ready for what?”
“It’s cookie day, bitch!” She held up a bottle of red and green sprinkles and shook it at me.
I groaned, throwing my arm over my face. “Cookie day is today?”
“Um, last I checked it’s the second Sunday in December. So yeah, girl, it’s cookie day.” She picked up her purse from a shoe bench near the door. “And we’re already late, so I’m going to need you to put some pep in your step.”
I set my Kindle down on the coffee table, a little regretfully, and stood up to my full height. “Do I have time to change at least?”
Teagan’s gaze moved from my floppy, messy bun piled on top of my head to my no-makeup face, to my ratty sweats and socked feet. “I think you’re perfect, just the way you are.”
Rolling my eyes, I added my KU dorm sweatshirt from freshman year to the layers of I-do-not-care, then slid my feet into my worn-in Ugg Tazz slippers. Popping a hand on one hip and letting the other flutter down my side, I asked, “What do we think of the final fit?”
An amused giggle bubbled out of Teagan. “Gorgeous, darling. It’s really giving . . . Christmas break after a breakup.”
I grabbed my purse as we headed out the door. “It’s not really that, though.” We moved toward the stairs that led to the parking lot. “The breakup, I mean. Hudson and I were over so long ago that I’m not depressed about it. Or him. I just, on a molecular level, find it really hard to get dressed seven days a week. Like my life philosophy is that at least one day a week should be reserved for slob vibes. No makeup, no hair products, no bra.”
Her eyes snapped to mine. “You’re not wearing a bra?”
“I’m wearing a bra thing. A bra-ish. No underwire. What I really mean is no underwire.”
She nodded seriously. “I can get on board with that. A day without underwire is a good day.”
“Amen.”
Once we were settled in her car, she asked, “So you’re really not sad about Hudson? Even though just a few months ago, you quit your awesome teaching job, prepared to leave your whole life in Denver behind, and prepared to move across the country to be with him?”
I shrugged, but her eyes were on the road, so I elaborated my blasé response. “There are a lot of things I can tolerate. And if I would have dragged my ass all the way to Tennessee, I might have forced myself to see it through. At the very least, I wouldhave tried everything. Couple’s counseling . . . therapy . . . rock climbing . . . tantric sex tricks.” Teagan laughed. “You know, I wouldn’t have given him any reason to break up with me. But I honestly don’t even know if any of that would have worked.” I blew out a slow breath. “He was a supremely selfish individual. Do you know he accepted the job in Nashville before he ever asked me about it? Sure, he was happy for me to tag along after the fact. But he didn’t ever say like, ‘hey, what do you think of moving to a different state and starting over?’ He genuinely didn’t even let me know he was looking for jobs outside of Colorado. It was always the Hudson show. And I think I felt relief when it finally ended. I felt . . . hope for the first time in a long time. Like my life could be what I wanted it to be. Like I could pursue my own favorite things again.”
“Ew, Holls. Relationships should not be like that. You shouldn’t feel . . . oppressed by the other person’s personality.”
The second shrug was compulsive. “Maybe it was a way out too. You know? Like a path that didn’t lead back to Mistletoe.”
She nodded. “Yeah, but maybe it would have been same shit, different city. He reminded me a hell of a lot of your mom.”
“No,” I argued, repressing a shudder. “No way. They hated each other.”
She snorted and turned onto her parents’ street. “Yeah, because of course two absolute narcissists would hate each other.”
I wrinkled my nose at the stench of relationship memories that were suddenly concerning. Hudson was actually a lot like my mom, down to the snarky attitude he would get when plans changed without his express permission. Like the one time we drove across town to try a new Thai place, only to find it had closed early. He got so mad that we suddenly had to come up with a new place to eat and he’d wasted half a tank of gas that he karate-kicked the trash can outside the restaurant. It tipped overand spilled trash everywhere. While he sulked in the car, I’d had to bend down in my date night outfit and pick up other people’s trash.
How had I never made the connection before? How had I not seen the twin petulance between the two?
