“Jacob showed me his workshop. We had a late dinner, and he brought me home.” She hung up her coat and worked to get her boots off. They’d skipped the sing-along, preferring to stay in the cacoon created at his cabin. With the snow reports coming in daily, being snowed in with him was a real possibility.
Ethan sat next to her on the bench and yawned. “You two are moving fast.”
Lauren tilted her head. “It might seem that way to you, but for me, it’s more like we’re right where we are supposed to be.”
“Fair enough.” He sat there, staring at the floor.
“You okay?” she asked.
He jerked out of his stupor. “Yeah. Pearl called a while ago. She talked to Collin for all of three minutes before she hung up. Breaks his heart every time, but I can’t keep her from him. Ya know?”
“I do.” She patted his knee. “Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head quickly and then slowed. “Look. I don’t mean to be a downer, but if you ever listen to anything I say, let it be this: Slow down. You and Jacob have changed since high school. You’re not the same people you were. I thought Pearl and I could grow old together because we’d grown up together. I was so naïve.”
“You think?” She looked up at the light fixture Mom had wrapped in greenery. “Maybe you were hopeful.”
He snorted. “I was an idiot. I didn’t see what was right in front of me because I wished it was something else.”
“What did you say?” She sat up straight and stared at him. Had he made a wish too?
“I said I wished it was something else–that she was someone else. And I only saw what I wanted to see.” He got to his feet and made his way back to the living room. “Just think about it, okay?” he said before rounding the corner.
Lauren stared after him. She’d think about it all right.
She’d wished to spend every day with her soulmate. And every day, she was with Jacob. Did that mean he was her soulmate? Or was she stuck in this eternal Christmas because there was some other guy out there she couldn’t see because Jacob kept getting in the way?
No way.
Jacob was her best friend. He was the love of her life and the only person she could imagine being stuck with for eternity.
But Ethan was right about one thing: if the day after Christmas ever came, what would that look like for the two of them? Could they make things work beyond this strange spell?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that because on the day after Christmas, everything got real.
CHAPTER18
Jacob lunged out of bed and raced to the window like Scrooge, who was reborn on Christmas morning.
Before he could throw open the sash and yell: Merry Day After Christmas! to the world, his phone beeped. Maybe it was Lauren. What a fantastic day! He was in love, and he didn’t care who knew it.
He grabbed it off the nightstand and looked at the text from his little sister.
Charlotte: Missing you today. Wish you’d come. Merry Christmas!
She’d attached a picture of her on Santa’s lap with his nieces and nephew.
“No,” he whispered as his heart sank to the floor. He checked the calendar on his phone. It was stuck on December 25th.
Stuck. Just like him. No. No. No. He wanted out of this circle. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Lauren, but it should be a life with children who graduate from high school and move out. There should be arguing and making up. Work and a sense of accomplishment. Progress and setbacks. All of it.
He and Lauren were in love. They’d said the words. Kissed under the mistletoe. All the things he was supposed to do to break the wishes.
“It didn’t work!” he yelled to the ceiling, where Nick parked his sleigh. Remembering Nick had a cell phone, he placed the call, punching each number with vigor.
“North Pole–What’s up?” asked a female voice
Jacob pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at the screen, checking it against the card in his hand. “I’m looking for Nick Kringle?”
