Page 37 of A Love Like Christmas Time
“By the way, Kieran, did you ever figure out who that girl from Caleb’s is?” They might have kept their whispers among boys, but when Kieran asked us if we knew her, we wouldn’t answer him until he told us why.
“Oh, you’re not even together yet and you’re already getting jealous?” he asks in a singsong voice and pokes my cheek playfully.
“That’s not it,” I correct him and reach for my forgotten coffee mug on his coffee table, taking a quick sip of the lukewarm liquid. It’s good. You can tell that he has one hell of an expensive coffee machine. But it’s still not the same as Caleb’s. It’s missing that little tang of general hatred for the world.
“I’ve never seen her before. I guess that means for once, I’m not the one being stalked,” Nic chimes in.
“Nothing yet.” Kieran puts Bertie on the ground, where he immediately sniffs the carpet for forgotten treats.
“Is there anything you’ve got so far?” Nic asks, but he shakes his head again.
“Nope. Hell, I didn’t even catch her name.”
“That would make stalking quite difficult,” I say with a slow nod.
“I’m sure if she were here to cause trouble, she’d have already done it,” Nic adds with a shrug.
“God, I hope she doesn’t. With your sister and your ex, we’ve had enough of that for at least the rest of the year. But then again, when does the universe ever give us a break?” I ask her with a pointed gaze, and she lets out a deep sigh.
“Let’s hope for the best. And in the meantime—” Kieran claps and jumps up from the couch. “I have work to do.” He suddenly has a scream mask in his hand and pulls it over his face. “And you two promised to help. Alright, Lauren, you go over there, and please hold the light. Turn it off when I give you the sign. Nic-” He hands her a small bottle. “When she does, you’ll splatter some of this stuff on me. Alright?” He picks up a very real plastic knife and weighs it in his hand.
Nic and I shoot each other a look.
“Sure,” we say in unison and take our positions.
It’s surprisingly refreshing to, for once, be behind the camera.
Chapter 15
Caleb
“So, what is new with you, Caleb?” Christina, Henry’s mother, asks as she’s cutting into the late Thanksgiving dinner’s dessert. It’s a pumpkin pie I whipped up this morning, after Henry reminded me about the invitation to his parents’ late Thanksgiving dinner.
Henry might say I don’t need to bring gifts every time I come here, but even though my presence here is more at their insistence than mine, I can’t turn up empty-handed. Bobby taught me better.
“Oh, you know, same old, same old,” I say noncommittally and take the plate that Ben, Henry’s father, is handing me.
“He decorated the café for Christmas,” Henry chimes in with a wide grin.
“That’s not exactly newsworthy,” I mumble, but Christina shakes her head.
“Why not? That’s wonderful, Caleb.”
“Lauren didn’t give me much of a choice,” I explain, my fingertips nervously digging into my jeans.
How did I get here again? Right.
In the first year after I took the café over from Bobby, I made the mistake of opening on Thanksgiving.
It was a mistake because one, only one person came in, and two, that person was Henry. He was shocked to his core that I had no family obligations on Thanksgiving. I had been livingin the flat above his clinic for almost a year at that point. We’d met each other in passing, but that first Thanksgiving — that’s when we became friends.
I have no idea how he puts up with me, truly. He invited me to his family’s dinner, but obviously I declined. Even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been comfortable intruding at the last minute.
I was stubborn as heck. He was stubborn as heck. And long story short, three hours after he begrudgingly left the café, he and his parents turned up at my flat with their whole dinner, and we had a lovely Thanksgiving meal in my tiny apartment.
The next year he approached me a week before Thanksgiving and told me: “You can either come to dinner with me, or we’re going to knock on your door again. Your tagging along would make things easier on a logistical level. So, what do you say?”
Like I had a choice.
