by Nella Tyler
“Made me up?”
Kate smiled wryly. “Her father and I have been kind of pushy about her settling down; maybe she’s mentioned it to you?” I chuckled. Mack had mentioned her parents’ interest in her love life on a couple of occasions, and I’d suspected that she was trying to play it down—especially after what my sister had said about women trying not to scare men off.
“She said something about that, yes,” I confirmed.
“Well, we kind of thought—and obviously now we feel like idiots—but we thought that maybe she’d made up some new guy she was dating.” Kate pressed her lips together, looking almost as mortified as Mack had looked. “So I thought it might be a good idea to try and guarantee her a midnight kiss.” Kate shrugged, still looking embarrassed but starting to regain her composure. “I called one of her exes to catch up during the holidays and found out that he was single.”
I’m not sure if staring at Mack’s mother in shock was the best thing to do, but her level of meddling stunned me. I couldn’t believe that even if they had assumed that their daughter had been lying about meeting someone new, they would go so far as to invite someone without her permission—someone who, I would think, Mack would almost certainly not want to see. People are always exes for a reason, I thought, glancing around until I saw the guy. “
That seems a little…” I couldn’t finish the sentence in any way that wouldn’t have sounded judgmental.
“Obviously it was a mistake,” Kate said, shrugging again and trying to smile. “But we’ve been worried about her being single for so long.” She took a deep breath. “Of course, since you’re real, and you’re here, I’m sure Noah will just find someone else to get his midnight kiss from.”
“Tell us about yourself Patrick,” Mack’s father said, walking up with a glass in either hand. “I hope you’re okay with whiskey and coke—I ordered for you.” I shrugged and took the glass that he offered me, taking a quick sip. I still couldn’t quite believe that Mack’s parents had thought it would be a good idea to invite her ex to their party.
“I have a beautiful, five-year-old son named Landon,” I said, trying to put the awkwardness of the situation behind me.
“That’s wonderful!” Kate said, sipping a glass of champagne. “Did something happen between you and Landon’s mother?”
“She passed away,” I said, taking another quick sip of the cocktail Mack’s father had brought me. “Joanne found out that she had cancer shortly after she got pregnant, and delayed treatment until after she’d delivered Landon. She passed away when he was a few months old.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Kate said, sighing. “It must be difficult for you, raising your son alone.”
“It’s very rewarding,” I said, starting to relax a little bit. “I don’t get as much time with him as I want—I have to work, after all—but every minute I have with him is precious to me.”
I managed to find a few moments to snag a bite to eat while I chatted with Mack’s parents, answering their questions about my work, about my lifestyle. I relaxed more and more, reminding myself that I knew for a fact that Mack was in love with me, and that the fact that her parents were asking so many questions meant that they were interested in getting to know me. It was awkward for Mack’s ex to be at the party, but I didn’t have any doubts about who she would rather be with of anyone in the room.
The doorbell rang and Mack’s parents went off, leaving the living room to answer it and greet their new arrivals. I looked around for Mack and realized that somewhere along the line, she’d disappeared. I spotted the woman she’d been talking to when her parents cornered me and made my way over to her. “Hi,” I said, smiling as warmly as I could. “I saw you talking with Mack earlier—and you two look so much alike. I was wondering if you’re her sister Evie?”
“I am!” The woman beamed at me, raising her champagne glass. “I wanted to introduce myself before, but I saw you were getting the third degree from Mom and Dad, so I hung back.”
“I came prepared,” I told her, chuckling. “I figured that Mack’s family would want to know as much as possible about the new boyfriend.” I looked around again and failed to find Mackenzie. “You don’t happen to know where she went, do you?”
“I’m not sure,” Evie said, frowning slightly. “She’ll probably turn up in a few minutes; maybe Mom wanted her to take the next round of appetizers out of the oven or something.” Evie’s face cleared. “Mack said you have an absolutely wonderful little boy? I have kids, too. Mack is just amazing with them.” I settled in to talk with Evie while I waited for Mack to reappear, reminding myself that it wasn’t like she was going to leave the party altogether; I had a claim for a kiss with her in a few hours, and I was sure I’d run into her again before that.
Chapter Seven
Mackenzie
When my parents took Patrick aside to start talking to him, I found my way to Evie’s side and immediately started venting—as quietly as possible—about how horrifying it was to show up to a party with my new boyfriend only to find my old boyfriend attending the same party.
“Mom invited him,” Evie told me lowly as we stuck close to the food table.
“I can’t believe her,” I said, my stomach twisting around in knots inside of me. I kept looking around, seeing Patrick talking to my mom, seeing Dad join them, everyone except for me and Evie apparently clueless that anything was wrong.
“You’d think he’d know better than to take the invitation,” Evie had pointed out, “considering how things ended between the two of you.”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” I poured myself a glass of champagne and knocked half of it back right away. My gaze fell on Noah and the anger just rose up in me hotter and faster. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“Is that a great idea?” Evie looked at me doubtfully. “Just avoid him. Go save your new boyfriend from Mom and Dad.” We argued about it for two or three minutes; but just as I was starting to decide that Evie was right and that I shouldn’t even dignify Noah’s presence with any attention from me, the subject of our conversation appeared.
Noah looked good in the suit he’d worn, even if it was a little on the rumpled side. When he popped up at my elbow, smiling and looking just as confident as ever, I wanted to slap him right away; but I took a deep breath.
“I knew you’d be surprised to see me,” Noah said, snagging one of the bacon-wrapped dates from the platter in front of us.
“Surprised isn’t the word,” I told him lowly.
“Don’t get tetchy, Mack,” Noah said, reaching out and touching my arm. “I just wanted to catch up a little bit.” I looked around; Patrick was still talking to my parents.
“What do you need to catch up on? We aren’t even friends anymore.”
“Can’t a guy change?”
Noah gave me a sleek, charming smile. My cheeks burned and I could feel the anger rising up inside of me again. Don’t make a scene. Just because he decided to be an asshole doesn’t mean you should humiliate yourself any more.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing at his arm and pulling him along with me as I hurried out of the room. I brought him into the kitchen where we’d at least have a little bit of privacy.
“Oooh, I was hoping I’d get a kiss at midnight, but if you want a little preview…”
“No Noah,” I said, my whole body going hot with anger and embarrassment. “I came in here to ask what the hell you were thinking coming to this party!”
“Your mom said you hadn’t been dating anyone for a while, and I thought it might be a good time to revisit what we had together,” Noah said with a shrug.
“I am obviously dating someone right now,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “And how could you think that in a million years I’d want to see you again?” Noah and I had broken up five years before; it had taken me months and months to finally get over him.
“I’d hoped you might remember the good times,” Noah said, giving me that charming smile again
. “Yeah, sure—things ended poorly. But that was five years ago, Mackie.”
“Which makes it even weirder that you would come here,” I said, my arms tightening across my chest.
“Hey—all I wanted was to reconnect, maybe talk about the way things were, and have a good night with one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known,” Noah said. He took my glass from me and found one of the stray bottles of champagne hanging around to fill it. “You have to admit that we had some good times, right?”
“That’s in the past Noah.” I sighed. I took a sip of my champagne and shook my head. “I haven’t even thought about you for years.”
“You do realize that just makes you even hotter,” Noah told me, grinning again. “Not that you don’t already look stunning tonight.”
“It’s not going to work, Noah. I’m in love with Patrick.”
“Your mom didn’t even know for sure if he was a real person; you can’t have been dating him for that long.” Noah reached out and touched my arm. “You can at least hear me out, can’t you?”
I took a deep breath and another sip of champagne. “You have fifteen minutes,” I told him.
“I’ve been doing really well—really well,” Noah said, pouring himself a glass of champagne as well. “You’d be proud of me, Mack.”
“I’m glad you’re doing well,” I said, without any real enthusiasm.
“You remember how I wanted to start my own business? I managed to save up and I’ve got a really great app I’m developing.”
“That’s great.” I said, and smiled as brightly I could manage, hoping that I could get out of the conversation as soon as possible.
But in spite of the obvious signs, Noah didn’t seem to care; he started chatting about his life, asking about mine, and as I drank more of the champagne I began to relax. “I’ve really missed you, you know,” Noah told me at one point. “Come on, Mack—you have to admit that you and I had some good times together.”
“We did,” I said.
“Like that time that we found the hot spring at the campground? Oh man, I was thinking about that just the other day.”
I shivered, remembering that night with Noah. He started to remind me of other times we’d spent together, and I had to admit that before everything had gone so horrifically wrong between me and Noah, we’d actually had some very good memories. It had made it that much harder for me to break things off with him, even when I’d known that things weren’t ever going to be the way they’d been at the beginning of our relationship.
Noah had been a good guy at first; he’d been charming and sweet, thoughtful and funny, and I’d been blown away at the fact that he’d actually wanted to date me. Every weekend we’d gone out, and even a few times during the week—and I’d loved the fact that I was dating a guy who could party it up all night and then go to class the next day without missing a beat, even if I couldn’t always match him.
I kept to the champagne, but Noah switched to whiskey, sipping from a half-full glass with a little ice in it while we talked. I started to think to myself that at least if my mom had been enough of an idiot to invite a long-time ex-boyfriend of mine, it was nice that we could just talk like this. Obviously enough time had gone past that we could maybe even consider being friends, though when I thought about Patrick in the next room with my parents, I decided I should probably ask his feelings about that first.
“Oh god—it’s been ages since I thought about Tracy and Ken,” I said, when Noah mentioned he’d spoken to the couple we’d gone on so many double dates with. “Did they ever get married or anything?”
“They have a kid together,” Noah said, chuckling. “Still not married though. They say that they’re waiting for baby number two, so they can have both a ring bearer and a flower girl.” I laughed and rolled my eyes; it was exactly what I would have expected of the couple.
Noah started really knocking back his drink, and I started to feel uneasy again. It was too easy to remember just how things had started to go wrong between us; Noah’s partying had gone out of control so many times towards the end of our relationship together that I’d gone from fearing for his safety to fearing for my own.
“Just as a friend,” I said, gesturing to the glass in his hands as he added more whiskey to it, “you should probably slow down.”
“I’ve got a great tolerance,” Noah said, shrugging. “And since I’m obviously not going to get you in bed tonight, it’s not like I have to worry about whiskey-dick, right?” He smirked at me, his eyes bleary.
“I’m sure that I’m not the only single girl in this house right now,” I said; while we’d been talking, I’d seen more and more people coming through, going into the living room to mingle with the rest of the party. “Come on, Noah. Switch to water for a little while so you can make it to midnight, how about that?”
“I can make it to midnight anyway,” Noah told me with the sleek confidence that I had both loved and hated about him.
“Let’s get back out there before my mom starts rounding people up for the stupid party games then,” I said. “You know she’s going to make absolutely everyone participate.”
“I already put my resolution in the fish bowl,” Noah told me. He leered, leaning in closer. “Do you want to know what it is?”
“That would be cheating,” I said, trying to keep my voice light in spite of how uncomfortable I’d started to feel.
“Just between you and me. Besides, it’s only one…my New Year’s resolution is to get back into your bed.”
“You didn’t seriously put that in there, did you?” I felt my cheeks burning at the thought of someone reading that out, of everyone trying to guess who had written it, and how Patrick would feel when he knew that my ex-boyfriend had “resolved” to sleep with me again.
“Nah—nah, I’m just kidding,” he said, wagging his finger in my face. “But I had you there for a minute, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I admitted.
“I should’ve put that in. It’s totally true. I do want to be back with you, Mack.”
“That ship sailed a long time ago,” I told Noah. “And the way you’re acting right now doesn’t really make me want to try and bring it back.”
“Your new guy got you flowers, big deal,” Noah said. He pointed at the corsage pinned to my dress, rolling his eyes. “Do you still have that necklace I got you when we were going together?”
I shook my head. “No,” I told him. “I took it to a pawn shop and got all of twenty bucks for it.” It wasn’t entirely true; I’d taken it to a thrift store and donated it, hoping that someone who wanted a nice piece of jewelry would enjoy it since they didn’t have any memories like mine attached to it.
“That’s cold, Mack.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? You burned the bridge, Noah. I just managed to get to the other side.” I shook my head again. “I’m going back to the party before my date thinks I’ve abandoned him.”
Chapter Eight
Patrick
I had started to actually worry about Mackenzie as I spent more and more time talking to first her sister Evie and then her brothers, Alex and John; while none of them gave me the third degree quite like Mack’s parents had, it was obvious that they were curious about the guy dating their sister. They asked me about Landon as soon as they confirmed that I’d met Mackenzie through my son being one of her patients; they all agreed that Mack had always been good with kids—and John even went as far as to say that they’d all always thought it was a shame that Mack didn’t have any kids of her own.
Mackenzie’s mom announced that it was time for the annual “awards”—and handed out ballots; I took two, and looked around for Mack once more. She appeared almost out of nowhere—I definitely didn’t see her approaching before I saw her—and smiled up at me. “I was starting to worry that someone had stolen you away,” I told her, leaning in to give her a quick kiss. “I grabbed you a ballot for the awards.”
“Oh god, this is going to be humiliating,�
� Mack said, grinning and shaking her head as she took my extra ballot and one of the pens.
“I know we have some new people with us tonight,” Katherine was saying, talking into the DJ’s microphone. “So here’s the deal: I’ll announce each of the categories, and you can write in the name of anyone at the party for that award. David will take up your ballots, and we’ll tally up the votes—and then announce them after midnight.”
“I’ll tell you who to put in for some of them,” Mack told me, grinning wryly. “Please—whatever you do: do not write me in for most likely to get knocked up.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I told her, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
“All right! Here we go. First category: Most Likely to Go to Jail!” I glanced at Mack; she was scribbling something on her ballot.
“Put in John for that one,” she muttered to me, grinning.
“Oh? He’s like that is he?”
“The fact that he’s never been to jail is evidence of the existence of luck,” Mack explained. I wrote in her brother’s name for that one.
Everyone got into the activity as Mackenzie’s mom announced each of the categories: Most Likely to Get Knocked Up, Most Likely to Get a Raise, Most Improved Life, until I wondered if Mack’s parents had come up with a category for each person at the party. Mack and I joked while we filled out our ballots; she explained why it was funny for me to put down who she told me to put down, and I did nominate her for one of the awards without telling her: Prettiest Member of the Family.
We turned our ballots in and the DJ started up again. I’d been looking for Mack ever since she’d disappeared in part because however much her parents had made things awkward for me, they had definitely managed to find one of the better DJs in the city—he wove together David Bowie, Notorious B.I.G., Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, B52s, and more without missing a beat, and I’d been wanting to dance with her all night. When the DJ started playing The Strokes, I turned to Mack.
“Dance with me?”