A Kiss at Christmas

by Meg Easton

  She seemed so happy and full of life as she was telling him, but he felt stabs of pain in his gut on her behalf. It was all awful, and he was even more impressed that she was as open and happy as she was when she had every right to be closed off and cynical.

  “But apparently, I had been worried that my dad just didn’t want me anymore and would be just as happy if I wasn’t around even more than I thought I had been. Because during our phone call, which was so perfect and amazing, he told me that he missed me and that he missed spending Christmas with me, and that he hoped that he’d get integrated with JoAnn’s family soon so that he could start integrating me into the family. So it is just temporary, and not only am I going to get my dad back, but I’ll also be getting a bigger family out of the deal!

  “I had no idea how much I believed that would never happen until he told me it would, and it’s like a giant weight has been lifted off me and now I’m flying.”

  He loved seeing Kelli this happy. Part of him wanted to spin her around in a circle and celebrate with her. But another part of him—a bigger part—was worried that she was just being set up for a fall from a very dangerous, very scary height. That her dad wasn’t going to follow through with all that he promised, and she would be back to having a very part-time dad in her life.

  And with as excited as she was getting, that fall was going to be crushing and he worried what it would do to her. He just wanted to wrap his arms around her and protect her from such a devastating fall, and to be a soft place to land when she did.

  “Kelli,” he said, trying to figure out how to tiptoe his way in, “are you sure you want to get so excited yet? I mean, maybe it’s better to wait until you actually see it happening.”

  She cocked her head to the side and grabbed hold of her elbows with her hand. “You don’t think he’s telling the truth?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just...I don’t know. It sounds like JoAnn has a lot of sway over him.”

  “She does. My dad never would’ve shut me out of Christmas if it wasn’t for her. But I think all of that is because they just got married, and she’s trying to look out for her girls. They all still live at home, you know. Like my dad said, she just needs time to feel secure in their relationship.”

  He let out a deep breath and looked out the window before meeting her gaze again. “Maybe just be careful with hoping that things are going to go back to the way they were with you and your dad before he met JoAnn.”

  “Well, of course they won’t all be the same. He has more people than just me in his life now. But that also doesn’t mean things are going to keep going the way they were this Christmas.”

  “You never know. I mean he did it once.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”

  “Parker.” She was blinking rapidly now. “I don’t know why you aren’t being happy about this with me. Everything is going to work out just fine! My dad always has my back. He’ll look out for me.”

  “Except he didn’t look out for you. Even if this was all JoAnn’s choice, your dad didn’t say no. He chose a wife and daughters who had only been his family for less than a year, and ignored the daughter he’s had for twenty-six years.”

  Really, Parker wanted to throttle the guy. It was awful that he would make Kelli feel the way that she had, especially when there was so much he could’ve done so that she wouldn’t have had to go through all that. It was so frustrating that he hadn’t. While they’d been on the retreat, he’d seen just how badly what her dad did had hurt her, and he wished he could protect her from every bit of pain.

  “You don’t even know him.”

  “I just don’t get why you are giving him another chance. What he did was...” Unforgivable was how he wanted to end the sentence. But this was her dad, so instead, he just shook his head, looking down at the carpet, and said, “terrible.”

  Kelli was quiet long enough that he looked up. She was standing next to his desk, one hand on her hip, and she was looking at him with eyes narrowed. It was a look he’d never seen on her before.

  Finally, she said, “So you think I should just cut him out of my life. The only family I’ve had for a lot of years. The link to the possibility of becoming more of a family with my new stepmom and my new stepsisters.”

  “Kelli, I—“

  “You don’t cut someone out of your life just because they made a mistake.” Her voice gave him chills down his back, and he suddenly knew she wasn’t talking about her dad anymore.

  As soon as he thought about it from her point of view, he realized how what he said could’ve been taken so wrong. Especially if she was imagining herself being the one making a mistake. But he would never do that to her.

  “No, Kelli, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that he’s your dad, so family should come first for him.” He was scrambling, trying to come up with a way to explain it to her after he had probably done irreparable damage.

  His phone, still sitting on the desk where he’d left it, lit up with a message, and both of their eyes were automatically drawn to it. But then Kelli’s eyebrows drew together, a confused and hurt look on her face. She stared at it until the screen went dark again, then she looked at him. “You have a job offer?”

  Oh, no. He got to the desk in three strides and picked up his phone. The message was from Josh, and although the lock screen didn’t show the full message, it showed enough.

  I get that this job is your backup plan if things go south at ZentCube (I’m guessing this is about a girl?), but I still plan to work hard to entice you to accept...

  He stared at it, and of all the thoughts that could’ve gone through his head first, Stephanie’s list made it to the front. One of the items that annoyed her was that he let his notifications show on his lock screen. Maybe he should’ve taken that one more seriously.

  “I wasn’t looking for a job. Josh and I worked together before ZentCube and we became friends. So when his company was looking for a brand manager, he recommended me.”

  “And you decided that you’d like to stay at ZentCube, but you didn’t tell Josh’s company no. You’re holding on to the job offer, because you’re afraid that things won’t work out between us, and you don’t want to work at the same place as me if they don’t.”

  She had spelled it out exactly. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t make this worse. He pled with his eyes that she would understand that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded—he had just been scared. Scared that he wasn’t good enough, and scared that he wouldn’t be able to tell when he wasn’t, so he wouldn’t be able to fix things in time.

  “You’ve got a backup plan so that if I make a mistake, you can easily cut me out of your life.”

  Her words hit him like a blast, nearly knocking him backwards. “That’s not it.” He reached his hand out to her, but she didn’t reach out toward him. Her hand didn’t so much as twitch, so he dropped his arm.

  “You are so wrong about my dad. He’s a good guy, but you’ve decided he isn’t without even meeting him first.”

  He ran his hands over his face. There were times when he was able to dismiss Stephanie’s whole list as just something created out of her own special brand of rudeness. But other times—most of the time—he felt like she had been spot-on. He could picture her in the room right now, standing with a hand on her hip, an eyebrow cocked, telling him all the ways in which he’d messed up during this one single conversation.

  “Parker,” Kelli said, her voice softer now. She stepped right up to him and this time she was the one who reached out her hand. He reached forward, almost mechanically, like his mind hadn’t decided what to do yet, but his body responded anyway, and he let Kelli hold his hand. “I really like you. A lot. A crazy amount. If the two of us are going to work out, you need to trust me more. Be on my side.”

  He sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes. The first thing on Stephanie’s list was that he hadn’t put her as his number one priority. Kelli
saying that he hadn’t been on her side felt like the same thing. It felt like evidence that Stephanie had been right about him all along. He wasn’t anywhere near good enough for Kelli.

  Even though he didn’t want to see what his words were going to do to Kelli, he made himself open his eyes and look at her. “I don’t think the two of us are going to work out.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, sadness seeming to fill every inch of her.

  “You should take the job,” she whispered. Then she dropped his hand and walked out of his room.

  Parker spent what was left of the evening in his room, feeling awful about how completely he messed things up and replaying all the monumentally stupid things he’d said to Kelli about her dad and about the job offer. He had just been awful to her. The look on her face when he’d said that they weren’t going to work out was burned into his memory, and it kept playing on repeat. He was the one who had caused that expression of devastating grief. Even with as much as he loved her, he did that to her.

  But he was in the main rooms by seven a.m. the next morning. He was hoping that she would be down a little before the closing ceremony started so he could begin to apologize for being such a jerk. And maybe explain why he had said that he didn’t think they would work out. And maybe tell her how wrong it had felt to end things.

  Thomas was the only one in the kitchen area that early, so he tried to focus on chatting with him enough to somewhat carry on a conversation when his mind was so far away from it.

  A few more people trickled in, most of them going through the items that had been set out to eat for breakfast during the closing ceremony, in the car on the way to the airport, or on the airplane. Still, Kelli didn’t come down. She was usually so early to everything. Especially to something like this, where they were going to say goodbyes and announce who got the most points and won the grand prize.

  At seven twenty-five, he stood up from the bar stool he’d been sitting on, and he was about to go up to her room to check on her when Graham walked in. As soon as his eyes fell on Parker, a sadness washed over him. He walked straight over to Parker, put his hand on his shoulder, and said, “I’m so sorry to hear about you and Kelli.”

  “You know?”

  Graham nodded. “She told me when she came to me last night and asked if she could possibly fly home today instead of on New Year’s Day. Oh. She didn’t tell you.”

  Alarm shot through Parker, and he’d taken one step on his way to rush up to her room and try to explain everything and convince her not to leave, but Graham put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

  “She texted a couple of hours ago, saying that she was taking an Uber to the airport early. She’s already gone.”

  Everything closed in on him, crushing him, as everyone else in the room made their way to the couches in the family room to hear the winner announcement. Everything around him didn’t quite seem real, and the world seemed very far away.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” Parker said as he made his way out the door, and hopefully up to his room before he fell apart.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Before Kelli talked to Parker last night, if someone would’ve told her that she’d be going home today and that, because of her late decision to do so, she wouldn’t even get the flight home with all the new friends she had made, she would’ve been devastated.

  But after everything with Parker, she was glad she didn’t know anyone on the plane, because she didn’t want to talk to a soul. Not even the people on either side of her. She went to the back of the line so she could board last, and the moment she sat down, she put on her headphones—the universal “I don’t want to talk” signal.

  She didn’t even listen to the audiobook she had gotten specifically for the plane ride. She just dusted off her Sad Songs playlist and wallowed along with Adele and John Mayer. Parker had been so worried about her getting her hopes up too much that things would work out with her dad. Maybe he was right to worry, and maybe he wasn’t. But what Parker really should’ve been worrying about was her getting her hopes up too much that things would work out with Parker.

  Because him ending things with her crushed her more completely than her dad not inviting her to Christmas had, which she hadn’t even thought was possible.

  He had just been so harsh about her dad. Way more than he needed to be. It was good that she got to witness the side of him that saw things as black and white, right or wrong, without taking everything into consideration. She could never be with someone where she had to worry if he was going to judge her just as harshly for a mistake she made. She should be happy she discovered this side of him early. She should be thrilled that he broke things off before she got invested even more.

  So why wasn’t she?

  Probably because she had discovered a lot of other sides of him, too. As the plane flew from the east coast toward the west, she couldn’t stop thinking about how much she enjoyed spending time with him, how easy it was to talk with him, how quick he was to laugh or tell a joke, and how great it was that she could get him to go do fun things at the spur of the moment.

  And how quick he was to help people. When they had spent hours on the cold bench on Christmas Eve, she talked about what she wanted to do to get ZentCube employees to help at the soup kitchen in Denver. Not only had he been encouraging, but he said he’d be the first to sign up. And he was so cute with the kids at the Christmas Village. And seeing the way he held Graham’s baby had made her heart melt into a pile of goo. She wanted to have kids someday, and she wanted their dad to look at them exactly the way Parker had looked at baby Hope.

  And he’d been so kind and inclusive at the Tinsel and Tidings Ball. She was so impressed at how he’d looked out for her. He was always looking out for her, more than just at the ball. She closed her eyes and let the memory of how it had felt to have his strong arms around her when she was scared. His arms made her feel safe and protected, like there wasn’t a fear in the world that he couldn’t quell. Even the thought of it made warmth spread throughout her body, bringing with it the feeling of peace she had when they’d been so close.

  That morphed into the memory of how it had felt with his arms cradling her when she was sad. The way he listened and comforted her and made her feel that no matter how bad things got, everything would be okay. She wished those arms were around her now, comforting her and telling her everything would be okay.

  Right now, she desperately wanted to see again the way a smile spread across his face whenever she walked into the room, showing that dimple in his cheek.

  Then another memory hit her. The very first day, when Merit had introduced Elise, she had wished and hoped and craved to one day have a man look at her the same way Merit looked at Elise. The realization that she had gotten her wish—that the way Parker looked at her was exactly like that—was difficult to bear. She had wanted so badly for things to work out between them. As she sat in her seat, headphones on and eyes closed, silent tears rolled down her face and fell into her lap.

  Maybe she would never be able to hold on to a love like that. Maybe the memory of it was all she would ever have.

  The plane touched down at Denver International and it hit her that she had been so wrapped up in thoughts of Parker that she hadn’t even thought about where she was long enough to be apprehensive about the takeoff or landing.

  She wiped the last few tears off her cheeks, took off her headphones, wrapped them up, and placed them into their pocket in her bag.

  “Are you okay?”

  Kelli looked at the person in the aisle seat for the first time—a man in his thirties who looked very uncomfortable asking, yet also very concerned—and she nodded. Although she could still feel his concerned gaze on her, he thankfully didn’t ask any other questions.

  As she got off the plane, walked down to baggage claim, got her suitcase, got on the shuttle to the car lot, then got in her car and drove home on snow-lined streets, she thought about the guys she had dated before. She had fe
lt a connection with a few of them. She had with James, too, actually, although that connection came very slowly.

  She had never felt it as strongly, though, as she had with Parker during their week that felt like two months. Maybe it had been longer than that. Maybe she had felt it from the other side of the second floor of the marketing building at ZentCube ever since he started working there just over two and a half years ago. Maybe that was why their pranks had continued over such a long period of time, when they hardly saw each other through their normal work schedules.

  She just hadn’t known how strong that connection would grow to be until they both boarded a plane headed for the other side of the country.

  When she finally pulled into the parking lot in front of her apartment, right next to a monstrous pile of snow left by the snow plow, she grabbed her suitcases out of her car and headed up to her place. As soon as she opened the door, two warring emotions hit her. Comfort and relief at finally being home again after a long vacation, and a sudden empty loneliness, like a home after everything is packed up in a moving truck.

  Normally, she wouldn’t do anything before unpacking her suitcase and getting everything perfectly in its spot. But today, she just left them next to the front door, trudged to her bedroom and climbed into bed, pulling the covers over her head.

  Chapter Twenty

  Parker missed the announcement of the winner at the closing ceremony.

  He missed saying goodbye to Graham, Tessa, baby Hope, and the eight other ZentCube Employees who were flying home.