“Don’t need those,” Dad says. “I’d walk into traffic if I had one of those damn things. You know how easily I get distracted.”
He does. Dad has ADHD and likes to do twelve things at once. A cellphone would make his head explode, but I still wish they had one for emergencies. Mom clears her throat. “Well we won’t keep you. I suppose you’ve got a lot going on at that job what with the holidays almost here.”
“Yeah. It’s busy,” I say and clench my jaw. She always sounds so eager to stop talking to me, even when she’s the one who calls. “But I have a minute. How are you two? How’s Gonzo?”
Gonzo is my parent’s parrot. He hates me. Always has. When I was a teenager, he used to dive bomb me in the kitchen, where my parents often left his cage door open. I secretly hope he’s dead every time I ask. Horrible I know, but in my defense, he’s also how I found out that my fiancé was banging my cousin. On Christmas Eve. Less than a week before our wedding.
“He’s good,” Dad tells me. “We got him his Christmas presents already.”
“Lucky boy,” I mutter.
“We got you presents too, honey,” Mom interjects. “That’s why I’m calling. I was wondering if I should be mailing them to Vancouver or if you’re coming back home this Christmas.”
It’s literally two weeks away and this is the first time they thought to ask? Really?
“I won’t be home,” I explain and then blame the team, which is not accurate. Yes, they have games on the twenty-third and the twenty-seventh but I could easily fly back to my hometown of Kelowna in that time. Hell, I could even drive. And back-end staff like me doesn’t have to be here for every single game. After the Community Christmas Party in two days, I don’t have another event to run until the first week of January. But I’d rather spend Christmas with grinchy Nolan Duggan than my family. “Work is crazy. And Ellery and her family have been kind enough to invite me to theirs for Christmas day, so don’t worry about me.”
“Oh. Okay,” Dad at least sounds a wee bit disappointed. “We’ll miss you. And we’ll call you, of course.”
“We could Facetime if you guys had cellphones. Or Facebook accounts,” I reply.
Ellery sips her martini, eyes stuck to my face trying to read the situation since she can’t hear their end of the conversation. Dad just chuckles at that. “I told you, I’m not giving in just yet.”
“Maybe we could Zoom,” Mom suggests. “I learned how to do that at work.”
“Okay. Sure.” I say.
“But since you’re not coming home, I just wanted to tell you…” Mom pauses and I know that I’m going to hate whatever comes out of her mouth next. “We’re going to go to Auntie Liz’s for Christmas day this year.”
“What?”
“Oh Felicity, we wouldn’t do it if you were coming home, obviously,” Mom says, sounding annoyed. Like I’m the problem here. “But you aren’t. So why should Dad and I sit here by ourselves?”
“No. Yeah. Okay,” I sputter. “Go spend it with Liz and her daughter and my ex-fiancé. That’s reasonable.”
“That’s not reasonable,” Ellery hisses and hands me her martini. I take a big ass gulp.
“Felicity are you still really upset about that?” Dad asks softly. “I mean, it’s been years and you seem to be doing just fine. And he always asks about you, you know.”
“No. I don’t know, because I’m not the one working with him,” I bark out and instantly regret it. My father loves any chance to play the victim.
“I have a job Felicity. One that put you through college debt-free and keeps food on the table for your mother and I,” he says flatly. “I can’t sacrifice our well-being because you got your feelings hurt.”
“My feelings hurt?” I spit out. “Bryce was my fiancé and he was sleeping with my cousin. I had to cancel my wedding and find a new job and move my entire life.”
“You could have kept working in Seattle. He had nothing to do with your job,” Mom reminds me. “He played on a different team.”
“Yeah,” I swallow and hate that after two years, there’s still a lump in my throat when this comes up. But now it’s not about Bryce. It’s about my parents essentially picking him over me after it all went down.
“I’m not coming home from Christmas,” I say after a shuddering breath and another gulp of Ellery’s martini. “Go break bread with Aunt Liz, her whore of a daughter Jennifer and her boyfriend also known as my cheating ex. Merry Christmas!”
I punch end and toss my phone onto the chair across the room. It bounces on the seat cushion and stills. When it rings again, I ignore it. I know it’s my parents calling me back. Ellery unwraps herself from the blanket and reaches over and hugs me. “I swear to God your dad is whacked,” she says sympathetically. “He should have dropped Bryce as a client when he was caught cheating on you.”
“I agree, but he clearly can separate family from being a sports agent,” I mutter and fight against the tears threatening to spill from my eyes. “And he’s not even a major league player yet. He may never be. He doesn’t bring in a ton of money for my dad. He’s a long shot. A shitty, cheating long shot who my stupid cousin Jennifer will likely marry.”
“Can I be your plus one at that wedding?” Ellery whispers as she squeezes me again. “I promise to get drunk and be belligerent and puke on the wedding cake.”
I bark out a laugh at that. As I pull away, she waves at the drink still in my hand, encouraging me to finish it. So I take another sip. She sighs. “You know if I told my dad one of his players did something as insignificant as not holding a door open for me at the arena, he’d offer to trade him. And your dad can’t just drop this douche? So not cool.”
