Auggie sets her down, and her head tilts as she asks, “Why didn’t you tell me Gavin was coming?”
“Why didn’t you tell meyouwere coming?” he throws back, playfully tugging on the end of her hair. “This guy”—he points a thumb in my direction—“got all mopey after a few drinks and admitted he was going to spend the week alone. So I told him he was coming back.” Shame burns my cheeks as he continues. “He resisted until I told him you wouldn’t be here and your room would be open.”
Her gasp of betrayal echoes through the living room, and I bite back my grin at the sound of it. “He’s inmyroom? Are you kidding me?” She shoves both hands into Auggie’s chest, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, he lets out a chuckle that only seems to make her nostrils flare.
In years past, when I was here for Christmas, I stayed in the guest room. But it has now been turned into Bea’s quilting studio and Luci’s knitting and crocheting headquarters. It’s a tornado of creativity—stacks of fabric, spools of yarn, and half-finished projects everywhere.
If it wasn’t so adorable that they share a mother-daughter creative space, I might’ve been devastated that they did away with my guest room.
But I left without a word. How were they supposed to know if I was coming back?
“I’ll get my stuff and go,” I concede, trying to dissolve the tension brewing in the room.
“You arenotleaving,” Beatriz, Lena and Auggie’s mom, announces as she walks by and points at me. She nudges Auggie out of the way and wraps an arm around Lena’s waist. “Amorzinho,we thought you wouldn’t be here. So when Auggie told me Gavin was coming, we let him have your room.”
“It’s okay,” I tell them, nodding toward one of the two couches in the living room. “I can move out here tonight, and then I’ll leave tomorrow.”
Bea scoffs and waves a hand in the air. “No you will not. Lena and her bad attitude can sleep on the couch.”
Lena’s hands prop on her hips, and she pins me with a glare. “Enjoy my bed,” she offers with a condescending smile before she stomps to the bathroom.
My pulse skyrockets. “I don’t mind sleeping down here—”
The bathroom door slams shut with abang, cutting off the rest of my words.
The loud noise startles Noah, and he lets out a screeching cry from Luci’s arms.
As Auggie picks him up to settle him, Bea wraps her arms around my waist and says, “I don’t make it a habit of apologizing for my daughter’s rude behavior, but this time it seems necessary. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I force a small smile, thankful that without Lena in the room, my ability to breathe is finally returning.
Following Bea into the kitchen, I fall into place at the counter, silently peeling and cutting potatoes for our dinner while trying my best not to think abouther.
But, as usual when I try to avoid thinking about Lena, my mind brings her to the forefront instead.
My least favorite quality about myself is that I have lusted after my best friend’s little sister for years.
Auggie and I met during our freshman year of college. We stayed friends after graduation but lived hours apart, so we didn’t see each other much. A few years later, he was hired by the architecture firm I work for in Eugene, Oregon, and when he found out I was going to spend Christmas alone in my apartment, he invited me to Juniper.
That’s when Lena entered my life, completely turning it upside down.
The first time I met her, she was sledding behind the house by herself. She rushed down the hill, a sprinkle of snow flying out behind her as she squealed with delight all the way.
Then she dragged her sled to where I was standing on the back porch, trying to get service to text my girlfriend at the time.
Even though I knew exactly who Lena was, I let myself admire her flushed cheeks and rosy lips as she walked toward me. I let myself have one blip of a moment to appreciate how goddamn beautiful she was before I shrank back into the reality ofwhoshe was.
My best friend’s little sister. Nineteen years old. Ten years younger than us. And someone whose radiant eyes I shouldn’t be staring at dreamily.
And since then, every time I’ve thought of her, guilt has seeped through my veins like a toxic chemical, killing me from the inside out.
I can hate my inability to make friends other than Auggie, I can despise my trauma-filled childhood, and I can loathe my incompetency when it comes to dating.
But the thing I hate the most? I want Lena’s company more than anyone else’s in the world, and it’s quite possible I will die still wishing for it.
Even though I’ve kept myself away for the last few Christmases, my absence never stopped me from daydreaming about what they were doing here. I wondered what their tree looked like, if someone else made the cinnamon rolls, or if Lena still got her favorite lemon pie.
But at least I wasn’there. Watching her from across the room and wishing beyond all hope that she would look my way and gift me my favorite smile.
