The New Normal

by Brogan, Tracy

  That tugged at Carli’s heart, because she would miss Mia next year. She’d gotten acceptance letters from virtually all the colleges she’d applied to, even the University of Michigan, and with each one, Carli felt a wave of pride quickly followed by a wave of inevitability. Her baby birds would have to leave the nest, and she’d just have to deal with it. But not today. Today was for celebrating their family Christmas.

  “Now here’s the next part.” Mia handed her an unmarked envelope, but before Carli could even break the seal, Mia exclaimed, “Guess who got a full-ride scholarship to Fairfield College? This girl!”

  “A full ride—” How was that even possible? “I didn’t even know you’d applied for a scholarship.”

  “Well, I did. And I got it. It’s based on your grades, and I had to write, like, four different essays and get letters from my teachers, but they must’ve all said nice stuff about me, because I got it. I’ve known for a while now, but I was keeping it a secret until today so I could surprise you. Merry Christmas. Looks like I’ll get to go to college!”

  Mia leaned over and hugged Carli around the neck, and she almost couldn’t breathe, but she wasn’t sure if that was from the angle of the squeeze or because Fairfield College was six hours away.

  “I’m so proud of you, Mia,” Carli said, gasping a little from lack of oxygen until Mia let her loose. “Have you decided that Fairfield is where you want to go?”

  “Maybe? I like that it’s all paid for, don’t you?”

  “I just want you to go wherever you’ll be the happiest.” Now the gift of the journals made even more sense. And if that’s where Mia wanted to go, Carli wouldn’t dissuade her, but damn, that was far away. Maybe Carli should’ve listened to Steve and pushed Mia toward U of M, since it was only half an hour from where they lived. And she had been accepted there, too.

  Mia shrugged. “I don’t have to decide today. It’s just fun knowing I could go someplace for free.”

  After opening presents and having an enormous brunch that ended with candy from their stockings, Mia and Tess modeled their new outfits, then they all spent the day watching Christmas movies and giggling over silly things. Carli wanted to soak up every moment. She was filled with nostalgia, and although it was strange celebrating without Steve, it wasn’t awful. She suspected the girls were working hard to keep their focus on all that they had rather than the things they were missing, and she was proud of them both.

  Late in the afternoon, Carli texted her dad a simple Happy Holidays, and he responded a few hours later with a basic Same to you, kiddo, but from Ben she got a Merry Christmas followed by no fewer than two dozen emojis from snowmen to Santa to presents to angels. He’d taken Addie and Ethan to Colorado for a big Chase-family Christmas with their extended relatives, and she couldn’t deny she missed him. They hadn’t had any time to connect since the night of the deer incident, because he’d gone to work at Chase Industries and she was preoccupied with other things. There’d been a friendly text here and there, but nothing that hinted at anything significant, and she wondered if all the feelings she’d had brewing since the Holly Trolley were just her imagination trying to create romance where none existed.

  Regardless, she was looking forward to him getting back to Michigan. And maybe if she played her cards right, she could get him under the mistletoe.

  Chapter 29

  New Year’s Eve had never been Carli’s favorite. There was too much pressure to have the best night ever. Sometimes it happened and then it was great, but more often than not either she or Steve, or both of them, drank too much and suffered through the next day in cotton-mouthed misery. A brutal hangover was no way to kick off a new year, and she had no intentions of overimbibing tonight, even though she did have a lot to celebrate. Getting through the past twelve months was a major victory, a year full of deep lows but also high achievements, and she’d decided to focus on the latter.

  Now it was December 31, the eve of the new year, and it felt as if she was on the eve of a new self, too. Not just a new job, but a new career. A new attitude. She was learning and growing, and if nothing else, she knew the coming year couldn’t possibly be as emotionally draining as the last. And if it was, somehow? Well, she’d manage.

  She put on her sparkly red top and dangly earrings and looked into the mirror, feeling pretty damn good. The only cloud over the evening was the fact that Ben was still in Colorado, so there was no chance of a kiss at midnight. Not even from her kids, who were begrudgingly spending the weekend with Steve and Jade, no doubt tanned and relaxed from their tropical vacation. Too bad for them, because they were about to miss a very fun evening.

  The Fifteenth Annual Monroe Circle Progressive New Year’s Eve Party would start at DeeDee’s at 8:00 p.m. before moving on to Renee’s at 9:00 p.m. and end up at 11:00 p.m. at Erin’s, where they could all watch the ball drop. Carli planned to go, mix, mingle, have one or two drinks, and be back home in bed by 12:05 a.m., and when the rest of her friends felt miserable tomorrow, she’d be feeling fantastic.

  That was the plan, anyway. DeeDee greeted her at the door with an effusive hug that nearly knocked Carli right off the front step.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. I wasn’t sure we’d see you tonight.”

  Carli’s general lack of enthusiasm for this particular night of forced revelry was well-known, and there had been a few times she’d skipped it altogether.

  “Yep, here I am.” She took off her coat and hung it up in the front hall closet. “Do you need help with anything?”

  “No, I’m just taking care of a few things in the kitchen that still need setting up. You sure you’re good?” DeeDee squeezed her shoulder.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Totally fine. You do what you need to do, and I’ll get myself a drink.”

  “Is that Carli?” Renee came around the corner and gathered her into a hug that rivaled DeeDee’s. Girlfriends were feeling the love tonight. Maybe they’d already started drinking, which was a bad sign. If ever there was a night to pace yourself, it was New Year’s Eve.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Renee said, squeezing her a second time. “What a day, huh? Kind of a rough one, I guess. How are you holding up?” Renee’s voice was full of compassion, and Carli wondered if her low opinion of New Year’s Eve was really that obvious.

  “I’m hanging in there,” Carli said, smiling.

  Erin came from the kitchen next, and Carli got another warm hug. So much love. So much. She felt a rush of gratitude for her friends. They were really coming through for her today, and it was a good feeling.

  “How are the kids handling everything?” Renee asked.

  “They’re okay. Christmas was really nice for us, even though, you know, Steve took Jade on that big vacation, and now they’re sort of bummed to be stuck at his place this weekend. They didn’t want to go, but he was pretty adamant about it. Typical Steve. You’d think he’d understand that sixteen- and eighteen-year-old girls have better things to do than spend New Year’s Eve with their dad, but you know him. World revolves around his needs, and all that.”

  Renee and Erin exchanged glances, and Carli felt a flutter of unease. She made a mental note to be more positive. It was a party, after all, and her new year’s resolution was going to be to focus on the positive. DeeDee came back from the kitchen, and they caught her eye, waving her over. Kind of insistently, in fact. Wow, it was just one little comment. They’d all said worse about her ex, but suddenly they were all gazing at her with various levels of concern on their faces, and her stomach took a nosedive into the deepest pit of the deepest pit.

  “What?” she asked. Good grief. Please don’t have this be some kind of an intervention. She just wanted to have a couple of drinks and a nice evening.

  “Let’s go in the den,” Erin said, weaving her arm around Carli’s shoulders. Once in the smaller room, they gathered around her, and whatever was on their collective minds, it didn’t seem good.

  “You guys are freaking me out. What the fu
ck?” Carli said as DeeDee closed the door behind them.

  “Maybe you should sit down,” Renee said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

  “Or maybe I should stand and you guys can tell me what’s up. Why are you all looking at me like that?”

  “Do you not know why Steve wanted the girls with him this weekend?” Renee asked.

  “Um, yeah, I know why he wanted them. It’s because he’s been gone for two weeks and he missed Christmas, so now he wants to celebrate with them.” Not that complicated.

  They exchanged more emotionally charged glances, and Carli’s gut took another dive.

  “Seriously, you guys need to tell me what the hell is going on. You’re all looking at me like you’ve got my terminal test results or something.”

  DeeDee had pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped on the screen while Carli was talking, then slowly handed it over to her. Carli noticed her own hand trembling, although she didn’t know why, and when she looked at the picture on the phone, the rest of her started trembling, too. All the air left her lungs. And the room. And the planet. It was a photo of Steve in his favorite black suit. And Jade in a short white dress. And a veil. A veil? Her vision was suddenly too blurry to read the caption, and her stomach filled with hot lava that very much wanted to erupt up and out.

  She stared back at the concerned faces of her friends. “Did he . . . did he marry her?”

  Erin nodded. “I’m so sorry, honey. Apparently, they got married in Aruba, but they posted this picture about an hour ago. There are a bunch more of the wedding and a couple from tonight. It looks like they planned a New Year’s Eve party and then surprised everyone when they arrived and told them it was a reception. None of us knew about this, though. It must just be her friends who got invited.”

  Where was the oxygen? Seriously? Where was it?

  “He’s only been dating her for, like, two months. What the hell is he thinking? He can’t marry her. Oh good Lord, when do you think my kids found out?” The floor started to wobble, or maybe that was her legs. She really had no idea, and she fell down into the chair.

  There were so many questions and emotions erupting all at once, Carli thought her head would explode, but above all else, she wondered how Mia and Tess were handling this news. This was big! And there was no way they could’ve known before tonight. He must have sprung it on them as a surprise. Surprise! You have a new stepmom. Surprise! I know you don’t know her at all, but she’s going to be in our lives now. Surprise! I’m an insensitive asshole. Oh, wait. That last part was no surprise at all.

  “For what it’s worth,” DeeDee said, “you’re way prettier.”

  “And way smarter,” Renee added.

  “And much stronger,” Erin chimed in. “And better off.”

  Carli was better off. She knew that, deep down, but there was a lot to unpack from this situation. How was she supposed to feel? She didn’t even know. She was sweaty and cold and confused and incredulous. Steve’s life was Steve’s life, but this impacted her kids, and they deserved better. And it was all so spontaneous and impulsive and stupid.

  “I need to text my kids,” she said breathlessly. “Can someone get my purse?”

  DeeDee was back with it in a flash, or maybe it had taken her an hour. Carli couldn’t really tell, because time was frozen and meaningless. Her heart ached, but she wasn’t sure why. Her thumbs were clumsy, but she managed to send a message to Mia and Tess. It simply said, I’ve heard the news about Dad and Jade. I love you both very much. Call me if you need to.

  “So what do you want to do now?” Renee asked gently. “You can stay here and get royally shitfaced, which I think is your best option. Or if you want, I’ll go back to your place with you and we can eat ice cream and call Steve every vile thing we can think of. What do you need?”

  “Shitfaced,” Carli answered emphatically. “I definitely need to get shitfaced.”

  “Thanks for bringing me back a few days early, Dad,” Ethan said as Ben left the airport parking structure and eased their way into the evening Glenville traffic. Addie was still in Colorado and would fly home with his parents the day after tomorrow, but he and Ethan had traveled home today because, at eighteen years old, his son had a major party to go to. Ben let him think it was a generous offer, coming home sooner than expected, but the truth was, Ben wanted to return to Glenville, too.

  Maybe his neighbors had made a Monroe Circle–ite out of him after all, because he’d chosen to leave his family vacation early just so he could go to something called a progressive, and if he understood things correctly, that meant his neighbors would travel from house to house throughout the evening, drinking and partying. That seemed like a poor choice for December in Michigan, but whatever. It’s where Carli was. So it’s where he wanted to be as well.

  He took a fast shower at home and dressed in record time, noting from his watch it was already almost 10:00 p.m. According to the red flyer with sparkly gold lettering sitting on his kitchen counter, they should all be at Renee’s house right now. Perfect. That was just down the street.

  Carli was just this side of tipsy by the time he arrived, and she greeted him with a tight, full-body hug that lasted long enough to leave him feeling both breathless and restless. It took all his willpower not to keep his arms around her and just kiss her then and there. But according to the rules of New Year’s Eve, he’d have to wait until midnight and the strains of “Auld Lang Syne.” She was wearing a silky red top that had a shimmer to it, and when she leaned forward toward him, he could see her lacy bra. He felt like a fifteen-year-old boy, thoroughly captivated by something so innocent and yet so dangerously alluring at the same time. This was going to be a long night, even if it was already ten o’clock.

  He needed a drink. A strong one. He made the rounds, saying hi to various neighbors who’d become his friends, and poured himself a tidy vodka tonic, all the while keeping Carli in his line of vision. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was laughing very hard at something Erin had said. It made him warm all over, and he wondered if by some miraculous chance they’d finally have a moment tonight. It was crowded, and everyone in this group knew virtually everyone else, so catching her privately was going to require some strategy, but he was up for the challenge.

  He got his chance about fifteen minutes later, when she walked into the empty living room, where all the coats were piled high on top of a sofa.

  “Hi,” he said, coming up behind her as she stared out the front window.

  She turned too quickly, and her drink splashed. She didn’t seem to notice, though, and he wondered how many of those she’d had. No judgment. It was New Year’s Eve, after all.

  “Hi,” she said a bit too loudly. Then her voice lowered as she leaned toward him and tapped her chest with her index finger. “Guess what?”

  “What?” he asked while thinking that sloppy Carli was kind of cute. She moved closer still, and he dipped his head to hear her better.

  “Steve got married in a Roomba.”

  “What?”

  “A Roomba. I mean, he got married in Aruba.”

  She said Aruba like ah-rooooooo-bah, tilting as she spoke, and Ben realized Carli wasn’t a little drunk. Carli was very, very drunk. And no wonder. When he’d found out about Sophia and Doug, he’d drunk an entire barrel of whisky.

  “Steve? As in your Steve?”

  She shook her head and took a gulp of her drink, tilting back to the other side. “Not my Steve anymore. That’s for sure.”

  “Wow. That’s . . . wow. I’m not even sure what to say about that.” Other than, what a douchebag. Ben knew from Carli that Steve had just met that woman a few months ago. Or was it weeks? Either way, not long enough to marry.

  She leaned forward again. “Do you know what I say about that?”

  “What?” He smiled, because she really was adorable this way, but his heart twisted, too, because he knew she was upset. Who wouldn’t be?

  Carli gave a big, overly animated nod of her head and pok
ed him in the chest again. “I say that you and I should go back to my place.”

  His smile froze. Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was his moment. His chance to kiss her and see where it led. To touch her skin and taste her mouth and do all the things he’d been thinking about doing since the first time he’d seen her standing in his yard with her dog. But . . . she was drunk. As in very, very, and there were very specific rules about such things. Yes, he wanted to kiss her, and yes, he wanted to take her to bed, but if she’d just heard that her ex had eloped, she probably wasn’t thinking all that clearly. He didn’t want to be somebody’s drunken mistake. Especially not Carli’s.

  Or did he? The devil on his shoulder poked a searing pitchfork into his brain as Ben contemplated his answer. Take her home and rock her world? Or take her home and put her to bed, alone, while she slept this one off? This was not a dilemma he wanted to face, especially since every nerve in his body wanted to agree with her. Damn his moral compass.

  Carli sensed his hesitation and straightened her shoulders so abruptly that she spilled her drink again. Her sassy grin evaporated as a slightly horrified expression took hold.

  “Or not. Just kidding.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t take. She’d misunderstood his delayed response, thinking he didn’t want to because he didn’t want her, but nothing could be further from the truth. He did want her. He just wanted her clear minded when she made the offer, because if they took that step, and she regretted it in the morning, he’d never forgive himself. Could he tell her to go have a cup of coffee and sober up a bit and ask him again in an hour?

  He reached out to take her arm, but she twisted to the side with an uncomfortable laugh.

  “Carli,” he said quietly. “I would. Honestly, there’s nothing I would like more than to go to your place, but I’m not sure you really mean it right now.”