Page 61 of Eight Days of Christmas
“I don’t know, Nor, this is big.” She swiped the napkin over her wet cheeks.
“Well, I do know. Leo is a reasonable guy. And I can see the way he looks at you. Everyone can see.”
Isabella didn’t really know how to respond to that, and thankfully she didn’t have to. Nina shuffled into the dining room, her hair a mess on top of her head, and still dressed in pajamas.
She held up a palm. “Remind me to never go out drinking with you girls again.” She dropped onto a chair and smashed her forehead against the dining table.
Isabella and Norah shared a look.
“Not feeling great, huh?” Norah asked quietly.
“I only had that one shot of tequila and two beers. I used to be able to drink all night long,” she muttered. “Now I have Mom Blood. I can’t handle this.”
“If it makes you feel any better, we’re both dragging today too,” Isabella said, tossing the tear-stained napkin onto the table. She grabbed her coffee, happy to drown her sorrows in coffee and caffeine.
“Where’s Ava?” Norah asked.
“Outside.” Nina lifted her head, resting the weight of it in her hand. She looked like she might slump over any minute. “Finn took her to play in the snow.”
Isabella’s phone rang, the sound and vibration making her jump.
She glanced at the screen.
Harrison. Again.
She still hadn’t talked to him but knew she needed to. Yet since she’d just come clean with Leo about everything, he was the only person she wanted to focus on right now.
“Ugh, make the ringing stop,” Nina whined.
“Sorry.” Isabella snatched her phone off the table and hopped out of the chair. “I’m gonna take this outside.”
“Good luck,” Norah whispered.
Isabella pressed her phone to her ear and slipped out the back door. “Hello?”
“Isabella? My God, I was beginning to think something happened to you.” Harrison sighed, and she could just imagine him tearing off his glasses and scrubbing his eyes.
“Nope. I’m fine. What do you want?” She realized too late her mistake of coming out to the deck when the biting cold sliced through her pajama pants and sweatshirt.
“Haven’t you been getting my texts?”
“I have.”
“So you should know what I want.”
Silence.
She took a deep breath and stared into the snowy tree line behind her parents’ home. “And what made you change your mind?”
“I don’t know.” His voice came out softer than she’d heard it in a long time. “Maybe our time apart has given me the space to think. Or…or maybe because our place doesn’t feel like “our” place anymore. Not without you. Your things are gone. Your scent is gone.”
Isabella shut her eyes tight. His words should’ve been a comfort. They were the kind of words that screamed commitment, that told her he was ready to take their relationship to the next level. The very words she’d been waiting for him to say for so long. And yet, now, listening to them from over 1,800 miles away, they felt all wrong. Something had changed since he’d broken things off. And even more had changed since she arrived in Colorado.
She felt different.
Shewasdifferent.
“Maybe,” Harrison continued when silence remained on her end of the phone, “it’s the thought of not spending Christmas with you for the first time in four years.”
