I kiss him one last time then open the door.
“Hollis,” he calls from the doorway when I’m nearly at my minivan. I turn and look. “I’m good with chaos.” He shrugs. “Just so you know.”
My eyes bounce from him to everything around him. The ground covered in snow and flurries still blowing through the air. Little piles of white stick to random crevices of the camper and the branches of bare trees like they’ve been coated in icing. I wish I could ask him to come with me. Wish Christmas meant himandthem.
I smile but feel a pang of sadness.
“Of course you are,” I say.
Then I’m gone, out his driveway and down the road, his beacon of Christmas in the woods disappearing as I go.
I replay his words the entire drive. At every red light and on every aisle in the grocery store.
It isn’t until I hear them when I’m sitting under a partridge-covered pear tree wrapping gifts that I know what he meant.
Christmas Eve
Jay
Hollis
Merry Christmas, Holiday Club! Thanks for letting me tag along this year :)
Marv
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Hollis
Wait ...Check all electronic gifts for tracking devices. I figured it out!
Jay
Took you long enough, Hollis the Writer. Enjoy today. I’m disappointed you’ll miss Marv’s snowshoeing outfit.
Hollis
Next time.
Jay
Next time.
The woman crying in the bowling alley wouldn’t have been so problematic if I wasn’t falling in love with her. That’s how it goes though, right? Life gives you what you need when you least expect it.
I throw the tennis ball to Goose, and he barks before pouncing through the snow to retrieve it, stopping halfway back to where I’m standing to roll around in the white powder.
When Hollis left last night, I wanted her to take me with her. I wanted to help her do whatever it is she does on Christmas. Wake up at midnight and make hot chocolate—I love hot chocolate. I would have volunteered to play Santa for her four hilarious kids. But she didn’t want me to. Even after I offered, she shot me down.
It’s early with kids—we’ve only known each other two months and I’ve only met her kids once. I know these things take time. There’s more to consider than just me wanting to be there. But I can’t shake the thought that maybe she can’t see me there. Maybe what we’ve been is all we’ll ever be. Fun for a season. A distraction from what she didn’t have.
Goose retrieves the ball, and I scrub him on the head before throwing it again.
I don’t usually dwell on the comings and goings of women in my life, but she’s been poking at every thought since she left. Distracting me.
Even Marv noticed this morning.
“You’ve been infiltrated,”he stated, somehow managing to keep a fur coat—which he made from an assortment of peltshe’d harvested—tucked into his sweatpants while his snowshoes crunched the snow of the trail.“It was bound to happen.”I gave him a flat look but didn’t argue—he probably has some gadget letting him know what was going on between us before I even knew. “You aren’t as strong as I am, Jay. Don’t look so surprised. This is why I pay for sex. Strictly business. Carnal. Business.”
