Home for the Holidays: A Contemporary Romance Anthology

by Christine Bell

  “Really?” Riley asked brightly.

  I gave her a filthy look and she laughed. “Just kidding. He was yours first. I’m really not into the whole ‘all in the family’ thing,” she joked.

  That made me feel better. Not that I cared—not really, anyway.

  “I’m just teasing, honey,” my mother said to me, her voice gentle. “I just wish both of my girls could meet nice men and settle down.”

  “And give you grandchildren,” Riley and I said in unison.

  “And give me grandchildren,” my mother agreed. “That’s all I want for Christmas one of these years—a grandchild to spoil! Is that too much to ask?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Prospects are pretty grim,” my sister agreed.

  My mother shook her head and regarded the soft lights of her Christmas tree, which she’d insisted on putting up the day after Thanksgiving. “You two better get working on it. I’m not getting any younger.”

  “Have you heard from Chris again?” Riley asked me the next morning as we were warming up the ovens.

  “No. Thank God.”

  She shot me a worried look. “If you do, you should probably call the police.”

  “I don’t think I need to do that,” I said. I felt a pit in my stomach, the same thing I always felt when I thought about my ex-boyfriend. Chris had seemed perfectly nice when we’d started dating, but he’d gotten obsessive during the year we’d been together. If I went out after work with my friends, he would follow me. He checked the messages on my phone without my permission. He accused me of cheating, which was ridiculous.

  When I told him I wanted to take a break, Chris had gotten violent. He’d pinned me up against a wall, yelling and screaming and threatening. I’d been so scared I almost called the police. But he’d backed off, crying and saying he was sorry.

  Still, I’d gone back to my downtown apartment, packed up my clothes and called my landlord to break my lease. I quit my job and flew back to Rhode Island the next day. I’d been planning on moving home after my father died anyway; this was just the extra push I needed. I was so not messing around with an obsessive boyfriend. One of my best friends had been in an abusive relationship and I’d seen her go through hell. Maybe I’d been over-cautious running halfway across the country, but it didn’t matter.

  I’d rather be over-cautious and safely away from Mr. Douchepants, thank you very much.

  Obsessive Chris, aka Mr. Douchepants, had been calling me ever since. He’d been begging and pleading for me to come back. He hadn’t threatened me again but still, I just wanted him to leave me alone. He didn’t deserve another opportunity.

  “I don’t think I should call the police just because he’s having a hard time with the break up,” I explained to my sister.

  She shook her head. “I don’t like what he did to you. It creeps me out.”

  “I know—but he can’t do that to me from the other side of the country. I got away from him before anything really bad happened. I’m lucky I had my family to come home to.” I swallowed over a lump in my throat. I knew a lot of other people didn’t have the resources or support to get away from a bad relationship.

  “Just keep me posted,” Riley said. “I know you don’t like to talk about it.”

  “I just don’t want Mom to know what happened,” I said. “She’d get really upset.”

  Riley nodded. “So…speaking of things we’re keeping from Mom, how’d it really go with Sean yesterday?”

  “Fine.” I shrugged. “He looked good. Actually, he looked great.”

  “Was he the same? Still sweet?” Riley asked. She’d always liked Sean when I dated him in high school.

  “The same, still sweet, but…he was bigger. Manly.” Studly. “He looked like he’d been lifting some serious weight.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Are you saying that he looked even better than he did before?”

  I kept my eyes on the dough I was kneading. “I guess.”

  Riley turned off her mixer and turned to me. “Spit it out.”

  “There’s nothing to spit out—”

  “If Sean Maines, of the hunky big shoulders and the piercing blue eyes, looks better than he did when he was nineteen, there is absolutely something to spit out,” Riley interrupted me.

  I sighed. “He looked great. He seemed pretty good…maybe a little sad that he just got a divorce. It didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about it.”

  “Maybe you should have coffee with him.” She grinned at me. “Help him out of his funk.”

  I started to throw the dough around. “That’s a dumb idea.”

  “And why is that?” Riley asked.

  “What do I say? ‘Sorry about your divorce, and by the way, sorry I broke up with you and never talked to you again? Even though you were my first all sorts of things?’” I snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like fun.”

  “Saying sorry isn’t the worst thing you can do in life,” she said.

  “If it just reminds Sean of what an asshole I was, it might be.”

  “Chicken,” Riley said.

  “Am not.”

  “Are so,” Riley said, and turned her mixer back on.

  Grr. I let myself be annoyed, but I wasn’t taking the bait. I couldn’t afford to. I’d learned the hard way that there wasn’t a nicer guy out there than Sean, but what I’d done to him could never be taken back.

  Youth really was wasted on the young. I’d had the perfect boyfriend, but I’d been too big for my britches to see that. …so fancy that you had to run off to Smith and major in Women’s Studies. And you’ve only been out with jerks and losers ever since. My mother’s words echoed in my head as I thought briefly of Chris and winced.

  Jerks and losers, indeed.

  3

  SEAN

  It was snowing, and that was making it hard to see as I rounded mile four on my loop. Normally I liked to get my run out of the way first thing in the morning, but we’d had a briefing earlier and I didn’t have time.

  I headed down Main Street, heading back toward the compound, when I saw a woman out running with her dog. “Hey!” I called. It was Charlotte, with a beanie pulled over her head and her cheeks flushed.

  “Hey!” she said, jogging over toward me and stopping. She caught her breath while her dog sniffed me. “This is Gypsy. Gypsy, this is Sean.”

  I scratched the hound behind his ears and he grunted in satisfaction. “He’s a creampuff,” I said.

  Charlotte laughed. “I know. He never barks. He’s not exactly a guard dog.”

  “I didn’t know you were a runner,” I said. “Last I remembered, the only time you ever ran was to the mall when there was a sale.”

  “Ha-ha,” Charlotte said, but then she shrugged. “Well, that’s actually true. But I grew up, I guess. Running makes me feel better—it helps me blow off steam. Plus, Gypsy likes it.” Her phone buzzed then and she removed her fleece mitten to grab it. “I gotta check this, in case it’s Riley.”

  But her face scrunched up when she checked the number and she didn’t answer the call. She shoved the phone back into the pocket of her vest.

  “Telemarketer?” I asked.

  Her face was pinched. “Something like that.”

  I hadn’t seen Charlotte in years, but I could still read her expressions. Right now they were showing strong signs of landing somewhere between pissed off and afraid. “Is there something wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  I knew she was holding something back, but I let it go for now. “So… Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?” The words were out of my mouth before I could think them through. It just seemed like a natural thing to ask. And it would have been, if she hadn’t been my ex-girlfriend, who’d broken my heart and stomped on it so many years ago.

  Charlotte opened her mouth and then closed it. “Dinner?” she asked finally. It sounded like a foreign concept coming out of her mouth, like she’d never considered eating dinner bef
ore.

  I groaned inwardly. She so did not sound excited. “Yeah, dinner. Because it’s almost dinner time…and I was going to grab some takeout from La Familia Posto…and we could catch up,” I finished lamely. Oh, for the love of God. My capacity for suaveness around Charlotte had not evolved at all.

  “Oh, uh… Okay.” She sounded as if we’d made an appointment to extract several of her teeth.

  “If tonight’s not good, no problem. I just thought—”

  “No, I’d love to. Really.” She looked down at her running tights. “I’m just kind of sweaty.”

  I nodded, snapping out of it and into action like the good mercenary I was. “Go home and take a quick shower—I’ll pick up the food. Do you and Gypsy want to meet me in an hour at my house? It’s over on the Quinn property.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you still not eat meat?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “The pesto’s my favorite thing on the menu…”

  I smiled. “Got it. See you in a bit.” Remembering I had no car, I texted Matthew. Pick me up on Main in 15. Then I called and ordered dinner and ran over to Luca’s to pick up some red wine. I noticed, as I scanned the wine rack, that I was relatively calm. I wasn’t sweating and I wasn’t shaking.

  Maybe I was more suave then I thought.

  Matthew was idling his jeep by the time I got outside. He stuck his head out. “What am I, the hired help?”

  I shrugged and handed him the wine. “If you say so.” I headed down the road toward the restaurant.

  “Where are you going?” Matthew called.

  “To get dinner. One second.”

  “You better be getting something for me!” he yelled.

  I wasn’t going to, and he wasn’t going to let me live this all down, but I needed a ride and Matthew was always there when I needed him. I paid for the takeout, grabbed the bag and headed back down the sidewalk.

  “La Familia? You shouldn’t have.” Matthew beamed at me as he the threw the jeep into drive. He started his windshield wipers to clear the thin dusting of snow.

  “I didn’t—I mean I did, but it’s not for you.” I clutched the paper bag to my chest, worried he would try to pry it from me.

  “Then who the hell is it for? Your other best friend, who isn’t giving you a ride home?”

  I didn’t want to tell him, but he’d find out anyway. “It’s for Charlotte. From the bakery.”

  “Horizontal Charlotte from high school?” Matthew did a fist pump as he maneuvered through the falling flakes. “Woo hoo!”

  “Shut up,” I moaned. “She’s vertical Charlotte now. And we’re just catching up.”

  Matthew nodded as he pulled up the drive to the estate’s gate, which was metal with a big star emblazoned on the middle. “As your friend, I feel it’s my duty to tell you something.” He punched in the code and the gate swung open.

  I rolled my eyes, bracing for it. “What’s that?”

  “You’ve been seriously grim since things went south with Megan. I know what she did sucked, but you’ve had some time now. You need to lighten up and have some fun. Clean the slate, dude. Get horizontal with someone new.”

  I groaned as he pulled up outside of my house. “You’re so romantic, Matthew.”

  “Hey.” He looked at me as I climbed out of the car. “There’s always time for romance. But you need to start somewhere. Seriously.”

  I grabbed the wine. “Thanks for the ride. I’d say thank you for the advice, but…”

  “But you’re too proud. I get it.” Matthew grinned at me. “Have fun tonight, even if it’s vertical—it won’t kill you, I promise. And save me some cookies!” He peeled off down the drive, snow and gravel flying underneath his over-sized tires.

  I laughed to myself as I went into the quiet house. Matthew drove me nuts, but he also cracked me up. I set the food down, opened up the wine to breathe and turned on all the Christmas lights. I started a fire, then took a quick shower, brushed my teeth and used mouthwash…because…because…

  I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I knew full well why I was using mouthwash, but I needed to remind myself of a few things. Charlotte was going to be a friend, I hoped, but that was it. It’d been months since my divorce was finalized, but I was still raw. And Charlotte broke your heart, dude, back in the day. As a kid, that break-up had crushed me—I had to be careful about letting my feelings for her resurface. So use mouthwash if you must, but stay sane, my friend. I said that to myself in the “Dos Equis”-commercial-guy voice; I needed to keep a sense of humor.

  Because bitches be crazy. At least, the ones I seemed to fall for.

  The doorbell rang two minutes later and Charlotte and a wet-pawed Gypsy came in. She grabbed the hound gently by the collar. “I gotta wipe your paws, buddy! Sean has nice clean floors!”

  I got paper towels and sat on the floor with Gypsy, drying his paws. He laid down obediently and let me clean him. He had beautiful reddish-brown fur. “What kind of dog are you, anyway?”

  “He’s a Viszla,” Charlotte answered for him. “A type of bird dog. He’s very fancy.”

  “Yes he is.” I scratched him behind his ears and stood up. “How old is the handsome guy?”

  She smiled at me, her dimples showing, and my stomach flipped. Stupid stomach. “He’s six. He’s my longest relationship.”

  I patted Gypsy on the head. “He seems easy to get along with.” I took Charlotte’s coat and noticed that she’d put on a snug black sweater and some makeup. Damn. She’d only gotten prettier in ten years, which didn’t seem fair.

  “He’s easy to live with. He just wants food, water, to go for a run and put his head in my lap at the end of the day. If only every relationship was that easy,” Charlotte joked. She looked around the house. “This is beautiful, Sean. Wow. Is everything brand new?”

  I nodded. “Yep. I just finished it this summer. It’s nice to have something…all my own.”

  “I totally get it. Riley wanted me to move in with her and Mom, but I couldn’t hack it. I had to have my own place.”

  I held up my hands. “I remember how independent you are.”

  She shrugged. “You don’t have to say it like it’s a bad thing.”

  “I’m not.” I smiled and motioned for her to follow me into the kitchen. “Let’s have some wine and get all of the awkwardness over with.”

  Charlotte laughed. “I figured we were going to have to do that.”

  “I know. It’s been a long time. We have a lot of awkwardness to cover.”

  She smiled. “In some ways it doesn’t seem like that long, though. Right? Although I’m sure there’s still a ton of awkwardness to cover.”

  “I know.” It had felt, since I’d seen her, like we’d picked right back up where we’d left off. “I think it’s like that with friends from growing up. It’s like it’s been ten minutes, not ten years.” I watched her as I poured the wine, her long brown hair spilling over one shoulder, and felt a pull deep in my belly. Ugh. Down boy.

  “So…how’ve you been?” I asked.

  “Good. Sort of good. Sometimes, I’ve been good.” Her face flushed.

  I handed her a glass of wine and she relaxed, a little. “Um, can you go first? With answering the whole ‘how’ve-you-been’ thing?”

  I had a sip of Pinot, enjoying how the warmth slipped through me, enjoying that I was feeling something besides being uncomfortably attracted to Charlotte. “Sure. So I told you, I just got divorced…” Might as well get it out of the way.

  “What happened?”

  I had an unceremoniously large gulp of wine before I answered. “My wife cheated on me. With a dude I knew.” I shrugged, leaving out the part where I’d found them together in our old house, in my old bedroom. Ugh. I didn’t want to be pitied, but I also wanted to be honest. Divorce had never been part of my plan, but I just couldn’t stay with Megan after what she’d done.

  Charlotte’s mouth dropped open. “Well she’s crazy. To do that to a good guy like
you.”

  “She is sort of crazy.” It’d taken me too long to figure it out, but it was true. Megan wasn’t ever going to be happy. Well…maybe she’d be happy with her new boyfriend. But I’d heard they’d already broken up and gotten back together twice. Like I said, bitches be crazy.

  Charlotte had a gulp of wine that rivaled mine. “Go ahead,” she said, “you can ask me anything.”

  “Why’s Gypsy your longest relationship? I’d like a relationship rundown, please.”

  “Since you last saw me?” She looked a little panicked.

  “Since I last saw you,” I said.

  “Oh, jeez…There was Freddie from college. He was a trust-fund baby, but he was also a hippie who wore the same pants every day. Like, every day. And patchouli. Lots and lots of patchouli.” She wrinkled her nose. “I thought he was nice, but he ended up being sort of a jerk. He was rude to my Dad because he was a Republican it was just…bad. Nobody ended up liking him. Not even me.”

  Charlotte had another sip of wine. “Then there was Ian, who was a lying cheater who couldn’t keep his hands off other women…”

  “Gypsy’s looking better and better,” I said.

  She nodded and scratched his head. “And then there was Troy, but that didn’t last long, and then the last one was Chris. Chris was really a douche.”

  “How’s that?”

  She shook her head, looking troubled. “He was just obsessive-creepy. I broke up with him in California, but it’s like he can’t get the message, even though I’m on a different coast.”

  “He’s still calling you?”

  She nodded. “He called me earlier. And he texted me just before I came here.”

  “What did he say?”

  She had some more wine before she answered. “That he wanted to come see me for Christmas.”

  I had no right to be jealous, but I was. “And?”

  “And I told him absolutely not,” she said, her eyes crinkling as she shook her head. “Why the hell would I want to see him? I moved across the country just to get away from him!”

  “I thought you moved back because you didn’t want your mom to be alone.”

  “That’s right.” She jutted her chin out a little, which reminded me of when we used to fight and she’d be so stubborn. “But I also wanted to get away from Chris, aka Mr. Douchepants.” She laughed. “Sorry. That’s just what I’ve been calling him lately.”