I watched the comings and goings of people as I nursed the bitter brew, my knee bouncing anxiously beneath the table.
And then he appeared.
I knew him instantly, as if it had only been four minutes instead of four years. His half-curly hair blew back from his head as he ducked his chin and adjusted the straps of the bookbag strapped to his back.
Beneath his open coat, he wore a set of black scrubs with sneakers, and my heart leaped into my throat. Abandoning the coffee and chair, I pushed to my feet. My lips moved, but my tongue was suddenly too dry to call out and my eyes too greedy to let me do much more than stare.
Someone leaned out the glass doors behind him and called out. He spun and said something I was too far away to hear. But just the implication of him speaking unleashed a craving for the sound of his voice. For his laugh. How I’d missed those things.
After waving, he turned back around. I hurried forward, but the traffic forced me to wait. He lifted his chin, and I was blinded by the wide smile spreading across the lower half of his face, a smile so bright it made me feel like I’d been existing in the dark.
But just as soon as the sun came out, it disappeared again behind a dark cloud. A cloud in the shape of a man. A man who appeared seemingly from nowhere on the pavement. A man who acted like he had all the rights to someone I considered mine.
His broad shoulders swooped in, stupid backward hat covering his hair and neck. Frozen, I watched the dude-bro hold out his arms and wrap them around Toby, completely blocking him from sight. My eyes dropped to where Toby’s hand slid around to his back, specifically the way his fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt.
When he pulled back, Toby smiled up at him, saying something that made the other man laugh.
I blinked. Blinked again. Surely, I was hallucinating. Or maybe getting the wrong idea. They could be friends. Good friends.
I used to hug Toby all the time.
Until you pushed him away.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, ignoring the pit in my stomach, I made my way across the street—and into the path of an oncoming car.
“Shit,” I swore and stumbled back just as it swerved around me and laid on the horn.
Cringing, I froze like a deer in headlights, expecting everyone on the street to turn and stare. Expecting Toby to see me.
No one noticed. Of course they didn’t. Honking horns were practically white noise in a city.
As my chest heaved, I watched the dude-bro slip his hand around Toby’s. My eyes burned as their fingers linked and they started off down the street.
The pain of missing him for the last four years intensified. The regret turned acerbic and singed the back of my throat. Toby turned to look at his boyfriend, that smile lighting up someone else’s life instead of mine.
He’d moved on. He had a boyfriend. Of course he did.
I might have been too afraid of change, too afraid to take a leap, but clearly someone else wasn’t.
I hadn’t considered this. Not in the last four years. Not in the four hours it took me to get here. In all the panic and wanting to turn around, it never once occurred to me that Toby might be with someone else.
Because even when we were apart, to me, Toby was always mine.
But he wasn’t.
I watched Toby’s retreating back as he made his way down the block, his hand clasped confidently by another man. The mistletoe in my pocket felt like a live wire, steadily electrocuting me with zaps of pain.
When they disappeared around the corner, I turned and retreated in the opposite direction, digging the mistletoe out of my pocket and abandoning it right there on the street.
I’d lost my chance with Toby four years ago under the mistletoe. And it was clear I wouldn’t be getting another one.
Present Day…
Stupid mistletoe.
Stupid gingerbread.
Stupid mistletoe forcing me to work with Toby and the gingerbread.
