Page 5 of The Best Christmas Choir Ever

He checked his watch and started down the hall, lifting his hand in farewell. “It was good bumping into you.”

Another lie. Charlie watched him retreat until he disappeared into the stairwell. She only realized she was staring when Gram took her by the arm, steering her after Erin.

“Julian is great,” Erin said as they passed the common room again. “The residents love him.”

“How long has he been working here?” Gram asked.

“Oh, it has to be six…no, seven years almost? Longer than me at any rate. He really gets to know all the residents and their interests. I think that’s why he’s so good at arranging activities—”

“Lord, he’s even more handsome than that summer you two dated,” Gram said, leaning over to whisper.

“Gram,” Charlie hissed, not in the mood to talk about how handsome Julian was. She was still too busy being annoyed. And even though Gram wasn’t wrong, the last thing Charlie needed was Doris Bender getting involved in her love life. Because when Gram wanted something, there was nothing and no one that was going to stop her. But Charlie wasn’t looking to get reacquainted with Julian, especially after that interaction. All she wanted to do was get Gram settled, get the house sorted and then get the hell out of here. “Don’t start meddling.”

“I never meddle.”

“Oh please, it’s your middle name.”

Gram tutted. “You can’t just turn down every good thing that comes your way. Especially when he’s practically hand delivering you an opera.”

Charlie scoffed. She had, in fact, made quite the habit of turning down anything that came her way lately, especially when it came to music. It just wasn’t the same without Tom by her side. “It was one aria with a side of couldn’t-be-bothered-to-remember-my-name.”

“We all need a little memory jog every now and then,” Gram said.

“I don’t need anything jogged.” She was perfectly fine letting this blast from the past come and go. The past only linked her to Tom and the grief she’d been outrunning, and she knew better than to open those floodgates again. Locking it all away, including her ex-flings, was the only way to keep herself from drowning.

Two

Julian

Julian practically tripped down the stairs in his haste to get away from Charlie. Away from the blood rushing in his ears and his pulse jumping at the base of his throat and his chest tightening as she’d glared at him with those familiar hazel eyes. Eyes that he swore used to take his breath away when he caught her staring at him from the steps of her grandmother’s porch.

But that wasn’t what was happening now. Nope.

He was out of breath because he was rushing, not because of Charlie. That would be ridiculous.

Julian made his way across the building, sheet music (to an aria, apparently) tucked under his arm. He hadn’t planned on bringing the aria to his meeting, but now he was running behind, replaying that disastrous interaction on repeat like an unfinished melody. He wanted nothing more than to scrub it from his mind.

And the look on Charlie’s face.

And…well…the look of Charlie’s everything. Because he’d be lying if he said she wasn’t still gorgeous as hell. But that was not how he was supposed to be looking at family members of residents. Or thinking about them. Or wondering…

God, what had it been? Eight years since he’d last seen her? Since they’d… Well, hooked up wasn’t quite the right term, though there’d been a lot of that.

Julian shook his head, banishing those thoughts. What did any of it matter? It was only one summer. And clearly three months of flinging hadn’t meant anything. Because at the end of it all, Charlie had set off for Juilliard, he’d returned to college, and eventually she’d stopped returning his calls and his texts… He sighed. None of that should have surprised him because he was a pro at being left behind. But it had surprised him. And the hurt that came from being left behind by the people you cared about stung somewhere too deep to forget.

He knuckled the space between his ribs as he dragged his thoughts back to the safety of work. To the job he was good at, a job he loved—the longest and most reliable thing in his life. Every day he counted himself lucky that he got to wake up in the morning and truly enjoy what he did.

“Afternoon, ladies,” he said, nodding as he passed a group of elderly residents in matching pastel jumpsuits. The paint splotches told him they’d just come from the art room. “Looking snazzy as always.”

They tittered at him the way they usually did. Being fortyish years younger than most of the residents relegated Julian to the status of endearing and adorable and even, on occasion, cute. Those kinds of comments never ceased to make him feel like a ten-year-old playing at adulthood.

Julian had only grown up with one grandparent. His grandma Sofia. She’d been the one to take him in while his parents dragged out their messy divorce, but she’d also battled dementia for a lot of his life. Moments like these reminded him of her: patiently enduring the overzealous compliments about his dimples and the nosy investigations into the status of his nonexistent love life.

Which brought his thoughts back to Charlie. Exactly where he didn’t want them to be.

Seeing her again, his first reaction had been to panic, to pretend he didn’t recognize her. He thought maybe she’d let it go. Then when she’d pressed, he’d doubled down and pretended like that summer had been a blip hardly worth remembering. I’m sure I asked out a lot of girls… God, what was wrong with him? He should have just said, “Hi, good to see you, too.” Her grandmother had moved into Glendale. It wasn’t like he was going to be able to avoid them.

Plus Charlie had to know he was lying. It must have been obvious in the way he’d looked at her. At the disbelief written into his features and the confusion that wavered in his voice. Because beneath that, somewhere deeper, a flicker of betrayal had ignited.