“Tabby just knows?” I flop back on the bed. “Okay. It gets worse.”
“It’s not the brother, is it?”
“Definitely not. It’s the brother’s roommate.” Collin. Eyes. Writer. All huggable sweaters, long limbs and broken in khakis.
“You like, really like him.” Tabby’s whole voice has changed.
“I just met him.” But the potential is definitely there.
“Don’t you watch movies girl?” She laughs. “I swear people can just look at one another and know, you know?”
“It’s not. I mean.” Crap. How to explain. “He just split with a fiancé he’s had forever. Brady said they were still maybe working things out, and—”
“And have you asked the guy yet?”
“No. Not yet.” How on earth do I go about asking him if he’s through with his fiancé?
“Well, I wouldn’t take Brady’s word for it. He probably wouldn’t like the idea of you moving past his brother, you know?” I can picture one of Tabby’s dark brows rising toward her hairline.
“I guess not.” I hadn’t really thought of that. “And I’m in his room, Tab. Jacob’s room. I swear it’s barely different at all.” I let out a sigh.
“Why are you still there, then? Come back down to Denver. Be with my family. You already know this brand of crazy.” She chuckles.
“But . . .”
“I know. You’re one of those tough girls, who just jumps in by doing stupid things like spending Christmas with the family you thought would be yours.” I can picture Tabby frowning on the other end because she really pushed for me to go with her this year.
“It’s not just that. It’s—”
“You stayin’ for the guy?” she asks. “Because you might just want to exchange numbers and email and try this whole thing after Christmas.”
My whole chest lightens. “Tab! You’re a genius! I’ll just pretend he doesn’t exist until after Christmas. I mean, I can pretend we’re friends and it’s all cool and no big deal until then. Easy. Then I’ll ask him to call me or something next week, and we can just see.”
“Maybe.” There’s a moment of silence.
“I miss falling asleep in someone’s arms.” The sad weight rests on my chest again. “And I kept thinking that if I liked someone again, it would be because I was lonely, but—”
“This feels like more?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I exhale. “It seems like it could be more.”
“What’s his name?”
“Collin. He’s a writer, but is just getting started, and he’s also an adjunct professor. Brady rents a room in his house.”
“Collin Green?”
“I . . . I think so.”
“Wow. Download his book tonight and read. But you’ll never want to let him go. I can tell you that much.” Tabby’s voice is a warning, but also maybe a bit daring.
“That good?” I lean forward, a bit in disbelief that I didn’t think to pick up his book right away.
“That good. The boy can write an epic love story like no one’s business. You will want to get your hands on that.”
“The book or Collin,” I tease.
“Both.” She laughs again. “Look, I gotta run because my mom’s giving me the evil eye for being on the phone, but you know she loves you and you’re welcome any time.”
“Thanks. If I screw up here, I’ll be heading your way.” I sit up and let my feet fall to the floor.
“Read the book. We’ll talk soon.”
“Thanks.”
“Hands on both. Don’t forget.” And her end clicks.
Okay. I can do this. Collin is just another anybody, and I can wait until after I’m out of Jacob’s parents’ house. It’s like a few days. Anyone can control a minor flirtation issue for a few days.
I scoot further down on the bed and the springs creak again. Trying to destroy me, I swear.
But the life I was going to have with Jacob is already gone. This is it. I can move forward. I’ll take a few days and maybe it’ll be Collin, and maybe it won’t be. But no matter what, I can move past this.
The simple fact that I can now say I’m moving on while in Jacob’s room is really the biggest point of all for me, and the exact reason I came here.
“Norah! Dinner!” Jean calls up.
“Coming!”
Now I get to put my new plan into action. I need to not notice Collin, treat him like just anyone. Like Brady. Like someone I’m not intrigued by. Like someone whose eyes aren’t as kind, and whose hair isn’t as floppy.
I grab my cardigan to slide over my blouse on my way out the bedroom door and down the stairs. Just as I hit the bottom, I get a text. I stop in the doorway between the entry and the living room and slide the phone out of my jeans’ pocket.
TABBY: Hands on book yet?
I start to type a response when Brady walks by. “Mistletoe.” And kisses my cheek before continuing on. Instead of moving, like a smart person, I lean against the side of the doorframe and hit reply.
“Mistletoe.” Collin’s way too sweet, puppy dog, kind eyes are on me, but when he leans down, and he really has to lean, my stomach goes all crazy and my chest gets all fluttery, and even though I don’t mean to, I turn my head slightly and catch half his lips. Not an actual kiss on the lips, but a nearly kiss on the lips.
His eyes don’t leave mine. Maybe he’s as worried as I am that we don’t feel the same. Wait. Maybe he feels the same.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he whispers.
“What?” What is he talking about?
“Your phone.” He points. “See you at the table.”
“Oh.” And then I immediately flush. Right. Got my hands on him, but not the book. Now to answer Tabby.
Not the book. Just him. Almost lips. Blame the mistletoe. The lovely, lovely mistletoe . . .
I grin as I hit send and move toward the dining room.
Jean and Scott glance between Collin and I a few times, which is weird. It’s not like they saw the kiss. And anyway, Brady started the whole mistletoe thing.
“So, my friend read your book,” I say. That seems safe enough. Normal dinner conversation.
“One of the hundreds?” he teases.
“She loved it.” I scoop a huge pile of mashed potatoes onto my plate. I’m a mostly vegetarian, and this house doesn’t know how to cook without meat. I get my vegetables in any way I can.
“Very cool.”
“She said I had to get my hands on... Well, that I had to read it.” Now I’m concentrating solely on not letting my cheeks heat up from that stupid slip.
“Don’t waste your money. If you want a copy, I have one in my car.”
I open my mouth to ask him if he’ll sign it, but the rest of the table is silent, and once again, I feel like I’m moving too fast too far, or something not good. In front of Jacob’s family.
Dinner creeps. In near silence.
It’s close to midnight. I can’t sleep, again, and now I’m on the couch, a third of the way through Collin’s book, and can’t put it down. Can’t. Does he know how talented he is? It’s true literary fiction, like every page has something I want to highlight and remember. And Tabby was right. The man can write a love story.
“Oh.” Collin stops at the end of the couch before completely entering the room. “I should have known you’d be awake.”
And here I am with the butterflies mocking my decision to keep him at a distance for the weekend. “You have to know this is good, right?” I hold up his book.
He rubs his forehead with both hands before sweeping them over his head. “It’s always so weird when someone’s reading my writing.”
“Really? Because I’d think it would be awesome.”
“How do you feel the first time you show your photos?” He raises a brow.
Right. It feels awkward and naked. “Point made.”
“So, now I have to ask, where are you?”
“What?” My heart starts hammering. Is he about to ask me w
here I am, like dating? Ready? Not ready? What do I say?
“In the book. Where are you at?” He loosely points before dropping his arm.
I’m an idiot. And then the scene hits me again. “I’m just after where they’ve talked on the phone, and it’s the middle of the night for him, but not for her, and she rambles on and on about how she’s afraid that he’ll move on, or that they’ll forget what it’s like to be close to each other, or that they’ll fall out of love simply because they’re far away . . .” And I’m so wrapped up in the moment that my voice hitches.
“And he says, ‘We’ll be okay, because it’s us.’”
“Yeah.” A sigh escapes. “It was perfect.”
“I’m glad you think so, and maybe it’s not terrible when someone’s reading my book.” Crooked melt-me smile again—straight from him to me.
“When they’re loving it, right?” I ask.
“It definitely helps.” He gestures to the couch. “Will I bother you if I sit down?”
“I’d love it.” Whoa. Too much. I really could have just said, fine. That would have worked, too. What happened to my whole—treat him like anyone else in the house thing?
He sits, and I pull my feet up to make room. Definitely no need to be pressing my feet against him. That kind of flirtation is saved for days from now when we’re no longer in this house. If he’s interested.
“Will I bother you if I’m clacking? I have a scene in my head that I really want to get down.”
“Clacking?” I ask.
“It’s what Madeline called it when I wrote. My clacking, because she couldn’t concentrate.” He wiggles his fingers in the air above an imaginary keyboard.
“Wait.” I sit up and rest his book in my lap. “You were engaged to a girl who didn’t get your writing and also got annoyed when you did it?” One thing I could say about Jacob was that he was so supportive of the things I did. I couldn’t imagine not having that.
He chuckles. “Sometimes it just happens, you know? She’s into books, I guess, but you know when you come home from work and you listen to the clacking all day. I’m just saying that I get it. Or I understood it at the time.”
“You’re not over her.” The words just come out.
“Um . . .” He shifts a few times. “I’m past the point of wanting her back. She wants to talk, so I guess she has things to say, and I said I’d hear it, but for the first time, I really don’t want her back.”
A lump formed in my throat as he spoke, and now I’m not sure if I’ll be able to ask what I want to ask. I swallow once, and then again. “What changed?”
“Just connections.” He shifts again and doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Connections?”
“You know. To people. They’re there, and then, I realized my connection to her wasn’t there anymore, and that I didn’t miss it.” His eyes don’t waver from mine, and I can feel the nervous tingles of something new starting to spread.
“So, you are over her.” Please say yes. Please.
“Are you over Jacob?” He tilts his head as he continues to watch me.
His name still brings that twinge. “It’s so different.” I look down at my lap, away from the eyes that draw me in. “I think I’m getting used to the idea that he’ll always be this sad thing, but I no longer mourn the life we could have had together.”
“That seems huge.”
“It is huge. It’s a whole future I had laid out where he finished his engineering degree, and I took pictures, and we lived in a pretty house and raised children, and . . . everything. You know you daydream about everything when you know you’re getting married.”
He nods. “I remember that part.”
“But after mourning not only him, but our lost future together, I don’t know . . . I feel like I could be ready for something else.” My chest tightens again, which is a bit inconvenient because my heart’s beating so hard.
“Hmm.” Collin rests his head against the back of the couch and stares at the ceiling for a moment. “I think my split with Madeleine was rough because I had so many ideas about what our life would be like. I don’t miss her in the everyday stuff, I’d just never really thought about it before.”
“This is the everyday thing I miss the most,” I say.
“What?”
“This.” I gesture between us. “Only . . .” My cheeks are heating up because I’m worried he’s going to take this wrong. “Only when you know each other really well, and can finish—”
“Sentences?” He jumps in, chuckling.
“Good one.” I smile back.
Our eyes are locked, and there’s definitely another moment happening between us, only now it feels so much different. More relaxed, less frantic and strange. I must be settling into the idea that I like him. Or at least that I could really like him.
I glance back down at Collin’s book in my lap, and he flips open his laptop.
Collin starts ‘clacking’ and I continue to read. And it doesn’t feel like just anyone else in the house, but I’m pretending that he is. Because sitting with him feels like the comfortable part of being with the same person for a long time. We’re both into our individual projects, but sharing the same space. It’s warm. Nice. Actually, if I could rest my feet against him without worrying what he’d think, this would be pretty near perfect.
He pauses once in a while, and I realize that he’s sitting next to me writing a book. It’s very cool to know that’s what’s happening at the other end of the couch. And I think about what it would be like to be married to a writer. Would your little personal jokes end up on the page? Little things you say to one another? Small moments you’ve shared?
Would I know him well enough to see the parts of the book that were all him? That no one else would know?
His writing has slowed again, and I’m guessing he’s reading, because he’s only hitting keys once in a while.
“Get stuck?” I ask.
“What?” His head snaps toward me.
“Your clacking slowed down.” I point to his computer.
“I thought you were immersed,” he teases.
“I was, until you destroyed my rhythm.” I chuckle, and rest the book on my lap.
“I googled you.”
“What?” He was curious about me?
“I wanted to look at your pictures, without you knowing that’s what I was doing. I finished my scene already.” His eyes don’t meet mine, and I’m wondering if he’s embarrassed that he got caught.
“Oh.” I readjust to sit up, a bit flattered. “And?”
“You’re insanely good. I was looking over these photos, and there’s so much feeling in your art shots. Like they each evoke an emotion, and I was wondering what it would be like to know someone well enough that I could look at a photograph, and know why or how it was taken, or the thought process of the person taking it.”
“Oh.” The same thing I wondered about him only moments ago. Am I supposed to feel this way for someone this fast?
I imagine him folding his computer closed and leaning over to kiss me, and I know I’d want it. Him. And his weight on me. I can almost feel myself leaning against his chest, because I wouldn’t reach any higher than that. And the whole thought of it makes me happy. His lips on mine, and it would be perfect because he has nice lips, and a fabulous sweetness about him, and—
“You okay? Did I cross a line or something?” His forehead is all wrinkled in worry as he stares at me over his laptop.
“You crossed a good line.” Crap. Crap. Not until I’m out of this house. No extra feelings until I’m out of this house. I stand up and roll my shoulders a few times, hoping to release some of the tension that’s been building. “I should go to bed.”
Those perfect eyes are on me again. “You sure?”
Is he asking me if I’m sure it’s a good line to cross? Or asking me again if he did something wrong? Or if I’m sure about going to bed?
“You’re fine. You did fine. Nothing wrong.” I’m an
idiot. Don’t mind me. And if I keep blabbering, I won’t have to worry about anything weird happening between us, because you’ll run screaming.
Like a moron, I pause in the doorway. Just for a moment. Just to see if he’ll stand up and kiss me under the mistletoe again.
“Good night, Norah.” His voice is almost as soft as his perfect eyes. “See you tomorrow.”
“Night.” I suck in a breath as I tiptoe up the stairs.
IT’S OFFICIAL. I’M A COMPLETE AND total chicken. She was right here. Right here. She stood under the mistletoe again, a situation I could have easily taken advantage of, and I didn’t take advantage of it. I’m stupid.
If I could be half as suave as the characters I write, I’d never be in this position.
Maybe I just need to get past my talk with Madeline tomorrow. Maybe that’s it.
What I wanted to tell Norah was that her photographs are incredible. That I want to turn her into a character in my book. Or my life, really. But I barely know this girl. People don’t just meet and fall in love.
And there’s that word. Love. No way. I don’t know her. I’ve sat with her for a few nights and run an errand to a bookstore. No one gets love from that. No one. But I could imagine being in love with her, and that’s more than enough for me to want to do something.
When she watched me talking as I told her about how cool it would be to know someone who was a photographer, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her like I haven’t wanted to kiss a girl since high school. When I would get all sweaty-palmed and desperate to feel my lips on those of the opposite sex.
What happened to my determination to move forward? Why can’t I put myself out there for her? Is it because I’m just a hopeless wimp or is it because I’m starting to feel so much so fast that I’m terrified?
In my experience, it’s not one thing or another thing—it’s the combination of things. I’m determined now that if I’m able to create a chance tomorrow, I’ll make it happen. Whatever “it” is.
I haven’t slept long enough to want breakfast. But breakfast there is. Christmas Eve, and enough breakfast to feed an army.
All I Want (Three Holiday Romances) Page 4