Oh my goodness is he a sexy sight? Looking like he walked out of a lumberjack catalog. The beard, of course. But also the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up to show off the corded muscles in his forearms. And that ass, in those jeans, cuffed over his heavy work boots. Chef’s kiss.
“Or should I say afternoon?” he asks.
“Oh, shit. Seriously?”
With a tray of freshly baked cookies in his oven-mitted hand, he points to the clock on the stove with the other. It’s after two in the afternoon.
“I’m so sorry. Did you even get any sleep? I totally monopolized your bed,” I ask him.
“I took your place on the couch after I moved you into the bedroom. However, I skipped the whiskey.” Killian winks, obviously teasing.
There’s the hot blush of shame. Right on schedule. “I guess I owe you a bottle, don’t I?”
“That or you could talk to me. Tell me why I found you passed out with whiskey on your breath.”
“How do you know it was on my breath? Did you Sleeping Beauty me? My prince,” I say, folding my hands and holding them next to my cheek as I bat my eyelashes.
“Aimz. Don’t avoid the question.”
Dropping my hands with a huff, I answer, “I told you why. I got fired. My dad’s going to be pissed.”
“There’s more to it than that. Spill it.”
All this time, Killian still knows me better than anyone. I want to be mad at him for making me face this stuff. Reveal to him all the things I’ve been hiding and why I’ve been hiding from him for so long. It’s been years since anyone has given me this kind of tough love but as I look at the gentleness and concern in his eyes, it’s what I’ve been missing. That might be why I’ve floundered for so long. Directionless in everything I do.
Knowing full well he’s not going to let this go until I tell him everything, I take a deep breath. “It’s just another in a long line of disappointments. Dad hated that I spent years floating from part-time job to part-time job, wasting my degree. I didn’t have my own apartment until I got the corporate position. He hated that I shared rent with a couple of my college friends so I didn’t have to get a full-time job. In his eyes, I’ve been wasting my potential.”
“You don’t think you have?”
“No? Yes? I don’t know. I guess, when I look back on it, I wish I’d never gone to college. I wish…” I want to say, I wish we never would’ve broken up.
If I hadn’t gone to college, maybe I could have gone with Killian. We could have gotten a little apartment off campus. He could’ve done the college thing while I tried to figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life. At this point, still not knowing what I want to do with my life, I’m not sure that would’ve worked out so well. What if he had gotten sick of me not having any direction, just like my dad, and kicked me to the curb?
Maybe he wouldn’t have. There’s no judgment in his eyes now. He gives me the softest smile that tells me he wishes things turned out different too. It warms me better than any whiskey.
“You can’t go back,” Killian says, sweetly, handing me a snowflake-shaped cookie with red and green sprinkles melting into the dough. “So, you have to decide what you want to do going forward.”
I huff a laugh through my nose. “If I haven’t figured that out by now, almost thirty years old, I’m not sure I ever will.”
As I take a bite of the delicious Christmas cookie that melts on my tongue, Killian throws his oven mitt on the counter. “Enough of this moping about. It’s Christmas, damn it.” He turns around and turns off the oven. “Get dressed. And make sure to bundle up.”
“Why? Where are we going? Can we even go anywhere? The snow—.”
“They’re still working on the roads but we don’t need them.”
“Where are we going?” I ask again as he shoos me out of the kitchen, and back to the bathroom.
“Ice skating.”
* * *
Killian
I wish I’d never gone to college.
Her words were both a knife in my heart and music to my ears. I hate that she’s living with regret but I selfishly hope part of her regrets breaking up as much as I do. I’d have been happy to take her with me if that’s what she’d wanted. If she’d told me that she didn’t want to go to college, I’d have insisted she come with me. But like she said, she thought she had to go to college. She never questioned it. It’s what we were supposed to do.
We can’t go back to change the past, that much is true, but we can move forward. If I have my way, Aimee will move forward with me.
