Page 31 of Home for the Holidays

We eat breakfast at the kitchen bar, her legs over my lap as I feed her berries.

“I was thinking of going home,” Rachel says out of nowhere.

My eyebrows go up. “To New Hampshire?”

She nods. “Chanukah starts next week. My mom is alone and, well… it feels like I should go home.”

“But do you want to?”

She chews her lip. “Not really.”

“Why don’t you have her come up here? She can stay in the guest room.”

Rachel blinks a few times. “The guest room I don’t sleep in?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And where am I supposed to sleep?”

“My bed.”

“Jake, we’re not dating,” she says gently.

She doesn’t have to remind me about it.

“I know.” I rub at my chest, trying to take out the sting behind my clavicle. “I can sleep on the air mattress for a few nights.”

“You’re not going to sleep on an air mattress. I’ll do it,” she says.

“Rachel—”

“We can figure that out later,” she says, waving it away. “Why do you want my mom to come visit?”

“You miss her. You want to see her.”

She nods slowly. “And I can go home.”

“You don’t have a car. How would you get home?”

“I’d take the Greyhound.”

“No.” I shake my head.

“No?” Her eyebrows go up. “You don’t get to say whether I do or don’t do anything,” she snaps.

I take a breath to cool down. “I’d drive you, or I’d get Jeremy to come down and drive you back,” I tell her. “I don’t want you taking some sketchy bus.”

She relaxes. “I don’t want to take a sketchy bus, either. I’m a grown-up. I can deal with it.”

“I don’t want you to deal with it. I want you and your mom to have a fun weekend in the city. You can get a massage and go out to the theater and all sorts of things.” That’s what my mom likes to do when she visits the city. I’m guessing her mom likes similar.

Rachel cocks her head, staring at me.

“Why don’t we invite my parents, too? We can make it a little Chanukah party.”

Her eyes go wide. “You want to invite your parents?”

“And your mom.” Her dad passed a few years ago and she’s an only child. “My brothers, too.”