by Dani Collins
“We have a grown-up game,” Wendy said, rising. “One for couples that might test Kristen and Finn once and for all.” Wendy brought out a box still in its plastic wrap. “Do you want to be a team?” Wendy looked from Kristen to Finn and back again.
“I do,” Finn said to Kristen in a way that made her butterflies swirl behind her breastbone.
They joined everyone around the coffee table.
The kids ran up to the loft to play while the adults brought their tea and toddies, finding seats on the sectional and carrying chairs across.
Wendy opened a board that looked a little like snakes and ladders. It was called Pardon my Partner. She handed out pads of paper with pencils to each player.
“We had some guests here in the summer who were telling me about this. It sounded fun so I ordered it. Part of it is straight-up questions on how well you know your partner, but there’s strategy. You have to decide how much you trust them. And before you say which color you want to be—that’s the first test—you’re going to guess which color the other one prefers and whoever matches starts first. If there’s a tie, we roll.”
Kristen tapped her pencil end against her lips. She knew Finn liked green. His first car had been green, but a horrible shade. He had told her it had ruined his favorite color.
Would he know that hers was indigo? She couldn’t remember if it had ever come up.
She tentatively wrote, ‘Green,’ and waited for her moment to see if they matched.
One of the other couples suffered the pitfall of writing each other’s favorite color. They were both correct, but their answers didn’t match so they lost that round.
“I begin to see how tricky this might be,” Kristen said, apprehensive as she held up her pad. “Green.”
“Yes!” Finn showed his answer and high-fived her. “I was pretty sure your favorite color is dark blue or purple. That’s why pansies are your favorite flower, right?”
“Hey! That might be one of the questions later,” Wendy warned. “We need a penalty box for these two.”
Ted and Wendy also matched.
“It’s true. We both like shades of brown,” Wendy said with a laugh. “In fact, we have to consciously try to choose other colors for pillows and rugs because we both go straight to creamed coffee and chocolate whenever we’re looking at swatches or paint samples.”
The game carried on with questions like, “Which relative is your partner closest to?” And, “What is your partner’s least favorite housework task?”
When they landed on a ‘carry over the threshold’ square, they could try to match both of their answers or agree to go with only one or the other. If they matched both, they would ascend to ‘anniversary’ level. If they failed, they would be sent to ‘counseling’ and miss a turn. ‘Threshold’ questions were more complex, though.
“You really think you can name all of my grandparents?” Kristen asked, skeptical because her maternal grandparents had divorced and remarried.
“I saw them all at Carson’s wedding,” Finn said with complete confidence.
“That was years ago!”
“I can do it. And I know you can name all of mine,” Finn insisted.
She could, but did he also remember that her father’s father went by ‘Bill’ but his birth certificate read, ‘Berle’?
Kristen looked at the board. This was where the trust—and strategy—came in. Ted and Wendy were in the lead. Ted’s parents were on a streak that had put them in second. If she and Finn got this one, they could jump to the head of the pack.
“We’ve got this,” Finn coaxed.
“All right,” Kristen agreed, and began writing.
Moments later, they matched all the names right down to the brackets around ‘Bill’ after ‘Berle.’
No one could catch them after that. They won with the question, “What is your partner’s hidden talent?”
“For the win, Kristen’s talent is…” Finn glanced to the loft. “Are you listening, kids? You’ll want to hear this.” He held up his pad. “Balloon animals.”
“What?” Sarah cried as all the faces appeared at the loft rail, lighting up with excitement. “Wendy, do we have any balloons?” Sarah asked with anxious anticipation.
“I’m sorry, Sugar Bear.” Wendy held up her hands. “How could I have known?”
Kristen showed her matched answer on the pad, then scratched her brow before she looked up at the kids.
“Maybe if you all close your eyes and wish very, very hard, some might appear.”
Sarah squinched her eyes shut with the others. “Please, please, please…”
Kristen shot off her chair and ran up to her room where she had wrapped her gifts for Sarah.
Coming back a little breathless, she said, “I snuck this by you when we were at the mall. I thought I could put in your stocking and surprise you on Christmas morning, but since Finn has outed me…”
“Yay!” The kids started down the stairs.
“Wait,” Kristen called, halting them. “Who won the markers? If you let me use them, I’ll let you go first.”
Devon said, “Yes!” and shot back up the stairs.
Chapter Eleven
Finn watched the kids gather around Kristen as she began to stretch balloons.
“Let’s go to the zoo. What will we see first?” Kristen asked.
“A tiger?” one little girl asked.
“I can make a tiger.”
“Good night,” one of the guests said, offering his hand to Finn, forcing him to drag his attention from Kristen. “Are you skiing with us tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid not.” Finn stood to shake. “I’m spending Christmas with my parents. They’re going to send a posse if I don’t get on the road first thing tomorrow. Enjoy yourselves, though. It was great meeting you.”
Ted’s parents were also retiring for the night. He said goodbye to them as well, then took a few of the abandoned coffee mugs over to the tray in the dining room.
Ted was there, picking up the last few crumpled sticky notes and wiping crumbs.
“I know you have commitments, but you’re welcome to stick around for whatever Sarah has planned in the morning.”
“Does Sarah have something planned?” Finn pasted on his most unconvincing innocent face.
“You and I will play poker someday,” Ted warned with a nod. “Your shirt will fit me just fine.”
“I wager right now that I will lose mine. I know I would win that bet,” Finn said dryly. “And thank you. Sarah also invited me and I have very regretfully declined. I’ve really enjoyed my stay here, though. I’ll leave my email on your board at the shed. I’d like to know how things go.” With the baby, he meant.
“Of course.” Ted made a noise between amused and perturbed. He leaned in to say under his breath, “Although, given how crafty the first one turned out, I’m growing concerned. She’s recruited my brother into running the cat tomorrow. She said I get the day off. It feels like a coup.”
“If you’re fishing for details, wrong pond.” Finn twisted his hand by his mouth, as though turning a key in a lock. He threw the imaginary key over his shoulder.
Ted made a disgruntled noise. “She told me to sleep in. Then put on a suit. I don’t know how to do either of those things anymore.”
Finn chuckled, aware of a green flame of envy flickering in his chest. Ted and Wendy worked hard. They deserved everything they had. Finn didn’t begrudge them a bit, but the covetous hunger for something similar would no longer be satisfied with an internal promise of ‘someday.’ That was becoming ever more clear to him.
He even understood now why he had put off ‘someday’ for so long.
He glanced at Kristen. She was twisting a black balloon with a white one, the squeaky noise drowned out by the kids battling to guess what it would become.
“A zebra.”
“No, it’s a killer whale.”
“They’re called orcas,” Devon’s little brother said, standing on his knees in hi
s excitement. “Is it an orca?”
“You’re getting warmer. Or rather, think colder.”
“I know, I know!” The little guy’s hand shot in the air. “It’s a penguin!”
“It is a penguin. Paul wins Percy the Penguin. He might even waddle if we stand him up and blow on him just right.” Kristen set the balloon bird on the coffee table. The kids blew from every direction, making the airy statue bounce and toddle.
Kristen was laughing, her expression so familiar to him, it made his heart clench.
She caught him watching her and stilled. Her smile stayed in place, but turned shy. And so pretty and full of awareness, his whole body grew hot and tight.
A shadow passed behind her eyes. “Are you heading out?”
“I should get to bed, yeah.” He felt pulled in every direction. “I want to be up early. I won’t see you kids tomorrow so I’ll say goodbye now.”
“You kids should head to bed, too,” one of the moms said. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and Sarah has big plans for the morning, before we go skiing.”
“I’ll make more animals tomorrow night,” Kristen promised them.
“And show us how?” Devon asked.
“Of course.” Kristen picked up the handful of broken balloons that were the collateral damage of her sculptures.
With a babble of excitement and groans and good nights, the kids picked up their animals and went their different directions.
“I’ll, um, meet you downstairs in a sec,” Kristen said to Finn when they walked into the kitchen. She ran up the stairs to her room.
Devon was staying in Sarah’s room with her, but Ted’s brother and his wife were heading out to a cabin with their son. Finn exchanged a few words with them at the downstairs doors, expressing his regret that he had to leave in the morning.
“Do you know what the big reveal is?” Ted’s brother asked.
“I’m sworn to secrecy,” Finn said. “But I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Hopefully, I’ll see you all again sometime.”
The family trekked out into the night and he hovered there another moment, genuinely torn in the same way he’d been twice before in his life—once when he’d picked med school over a sport that promised him a bright future and once when he’d put Kristen’s bright future ahead of his selfish desire to drag her into his undefined one.
Now his choice was between his family and the woman he needed in his future, some way, somehow.
*
“That better be for my mom,” Finn said ominously as she came down the stairs with his gift in her hand.
“I saw it when I was in town with Sarah. It’s—Please don’t think—Ack! I can’t even finish a sentence. Here. Merry Christmas.” She thrust it at him.
“Kristen,” he admonished.
“You drove out of your way to come see me. You’ve been here days, not a few hours like you planned.”
“I’m glad I came. I haven’t enjoyed myself like this in a long time.”
Something in that remark niggled. Was this seeming reconnection of theirs simply him pulling his head out of his books after years of studying?
“Well, I’m glad we’re friends again,” she made herself say.
Some of the warmth in his expression banked. He looked to the box.
“Should I open it?”
“If you want.” She made herself keep her hands still even though she wanted to wring them with nerves.
The tape snapped off the end and the paper crumpled. He made no ceremony of tearing it off, then peeled the lid from the box.
“Kristen!” His smile returned, wide and pleased, which made her smile on reflex.
She took the paper from him and crumpled it. “You like it?”
“I love it.” He held the jersey against his chest. It looked like it would fit perfectly. “You gave me a sweater like this for my sixteenth birthday. Do you remember? I was still wearing it my first year of college. I had to stop when it began to self-destruct from too many washings. It’s probably still in a drawer in my old dresser at home.”
“Are they still your team?”
“Heck, yes, they are.” He set his hand on her shoulder and leaned to brush his lips against her cheek. “Thank you.”
He stayed close. Looked at her mouth.
They swayed another inch closer.
His hand on her shoulder tightened. He drew back, taking in a sharp breath as he did. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” She blushed. Swallowed back her disappointment.
He gave her shoulder a final squeeze and dropped his hand away, looking into her eyes so deeply, she completely lost her voice.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make a point of tracking you down and talking this out sooner. That’s what I’m sorry about,” he clarified.
“You’ve been busy,” she murmured. “I get it.” She peeled the bow off the discarded wrapping paper so it could be used again. “I don’t resent you for making it a priority. Being a doctor is more of a calling. I’m proud of how hard you’ve worked to achieve something so important.”
“Thank you.” He swallowed, visibly moved. “But I’ve also let it cause me to put off things that are important to me. People who are very important to me. I thought I was doing the right thing, back then. Now it feels like the stupidest move I ever made.”
“It wasn’t,” she said firmly. “I was very young. We both had things we wanted to accomplish. You did me a favor, even if it hurt.”
“I’ve missed you, Kristen.” He took the bow and stuck it to his sweater over his heart, ever silly, yet there was something sentimental and sincere in the gesture that affected her. “I don’t want this to be goodbye.” He picked up her hand.
She forgot how to breathe.
“I don’t mean we should text and catch up online more often. Although, that’s fine if that’s what you would prefer.” He ran his thumb across the back of her hand, rippling it in a caress over the points of her knuckles. “But I was hoping… I know we’re both in a state of flux, not knowing exactly where we’ll end up. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we can spend the next few months figuring out how to meet in the middle?”
She turned her hand in his so they were holding on to each other, but hesitated.
“Long distance didn’t work for us last time,” she reminded him. Her chest felt tight. She wanted to tumble straight into the promise gleaming in his eyes. “I’m not casting blame, but I don’t want to believe and wind up heartbroken again. A lot could change in the next few months. Maybe right now you’re…I don’t know. Seeing brighter colors because you’re finally coming out of your cave. Things might look different once we’re apart again and you have time to think.”
“This is real, Kristen.” He frowned, seeming to press the words into her hand with his firm grip. “We have something that’s—”
“Oh. Sorry!” Ted had started to trot down the stairs and quickly spun to start back up.
“No, it’s fine, Ted,” Kristen called, loosening her grip on Finn’s hand, forcing him to drop his own hold. She didn’t want Ted to think she was down here making out or something. “We were just saying goodbye.”
Ted came back, but he looked really uncomfortable. “I thought you’d both, uh, gone to bed.” He cleared his throat. “I was just going to lock up.”
Kristen didn’t know where to look any more than he seemed to.
“We’re having an early Christmas.” Finn held up his new, mostly orange football jersey. “This one won’t be in the pot when we play that hand of poker you promised.”
“I’d fold if you anted with it,” Ted scoffed. “It’s nice, but we wear blue and red in this house, on account of Dad going to school in New England.”
“I look forward to trading insults with you over that misguided choice for the rest of our natural lives,” Finn said, his good-natured smile only a little forced. He offered his hand to shake, saying sincerely, “Thank you again for having me.”
“Our pleasure.” Ted returne
d his shake with gusto. “Anytime.”
Finn touched Kristen’s elbow. “I’ll text you once I get to Mom’s.”
She nodded, trying not to put too much store in his promise.
“Will you send me some photos from Sarah’s surprise?” Finn asked.
“Of course.” She smiled. They would always have this memory between them. She would cherish it.
“I’ll talk to you soon.” He gave her the quickest hug, his strong forearm clamping across her back as he squashed her into his chest before he released her, nodded once more at Ted, and left.
Her heart went into free fall, tumbling through space with nothing to hang on to.
“If you—” Ted began.
“Thank you,” she said, cutting him off with a grateful squeeze of his forearm and a smile that overrode the anguish trying to take hold in her. “But it’s okay. I promised Sarah I would help her tomorrow.”
And she had a lot to think about.
This is real, Kristen.
But he was leaving, the way he had once before.
She bit her lip, wanting to believe in him. In them. But bracing herself for disappointment.
Chapter Twelve
Kristen woke before it was light and glanced at her phone, which had a text from Finn that said, Arrived safely at the shed. xo.
She glanced out to the darkened building, heart heavy with something like homesickness. She was due to check in with her parents and brother, but had a feeling she would still feel this same melancholy afterward. This blue mood wasn’t about her old hometown or her family. She missed Finn. Already.
At least she had plenty to keep her busy. On Sarah’s request, she was starting the morning routine by herself, allowing Wendy to sleep in.
Sarah’s aunt was up and eager to help. She was already pouring water into the coffee maker when Kristen arrived in the kitchen. They exchanged sleepy, but cheerful good mornings and easily worked in tandem.
“Is that the cake the girls made?” Kristen asked, pointing at the giant cardboard box on the kitchen table with the ominous ‘Top Secret’ and ‘No Peeking,’ scrawled on it.