“It was just a weird night,” I said. The lie came out smooth and practiced. “Hosting stresses me out. I get… emotional. It’s not a big deal. I’m fine.”
He watched me for a long moment, and I had the distinct, uncomfortable feeling of being seen.Reallyseen. It made my skin itch.
“Okay,” he said eventually, nodding. “If that’s what you want me to believe, I’ll believe it. For now.”
“For now?” I echoed.
He shifted the box in his hands, breaking eye contact for a second like he was giving me a chance to breathe.
“I’m going to ask you something else,” he said. “Less heavy. I promise.”
I exhaled slowly, tension easing by a fraction. “Less heavy sounds nice.”
“I heard Nathan is out of town next week for Thanksgiving.”
The way he said it, flat and assuming, made another thread of unease weave through my ribs. He was right, of course. I wondered if that was part of the reason Nathan had been so sweet all week. Was he trying to make up for the fact that he had to go back to Vegas during the holiday?
I didn’t really mind. I was looking forward to some alone time, and Georgie was going to FaceTime me.
It did sting a little that I was neveraskedabout these things, though. Nathan just told me, the decision already made without any input of mine. And he hadn’t asked me to join him. I’d never been to Vegas. Maybe it would have been fun. But I wasn’t even a thought.
“That’s not a question,” I pointed out.
“What are you doing while he’s gone?”
I huffed, glancing down at my heels. My feet ached after walking in them all night. I didn’t even know why I’d worn them. This event didn’t call for a dress and heels. I’d have been better suited in jeans and a jersey and sneakers.
But Nathan bought me this dress…
Probably because he wanted to control how I looked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “FaceTime Georgie. Maybe volunteer at a kitchen. Order takeout, watch some trashy TV, read a book.”
Silence stretched between us for a beat. When I looked up, Shane was watching me with ghosts in his eyes.
I wondered if he was thinking about our first Thanksgiving as a couple, the one where I nearly burned our apartment down.
“It feels wrong,” he said finally, “you sitting alone with DoorDash on Thanksgiving while half the city eats themselves into a coma.”
“I won’t be alone,” I argued weakly. “I’ll have… Netflix.”
“Ari,” he said, voice soft with patience and something like amusement. “You know what I mean.”
God,I loved when he said my name like that.
“Some of the guys on the team are doing a Friendsgiving,” he said. “In honor of Daddy P’s last season. We have a game the night before and the day after, so it won’t be anything crazy, but… they’ve invited me. And I’d like to invite you.”
I shifted.
“You’ll have other friends there, too. Maven, Grace… I don’t know if you’ve met the rest of that crew yet.”
“We had a girls’ night, actually.”
“See? It’s perfect.”
The image bloomed in my mind before I could stop it — loud laughter, crowded table, mismatched chairs, someone shouting over a football game in the background. It sounded like the kind of Thanksgiving I’d only ever glimpsed in movies, the kind I’d dreamed of as a kid, the kind where people felt safe enough to talk too loud, eat too much, stay too long.
My chest ached.
