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Diana laughed from the spot she’d taken in front of me, sitting with her legs crossed. “We would run home after school and watch them, didn’t we?” She made a wistful noise. “It seems like forever ago, huh?”
It really did. I nodded. They were some of my fondest memories before I’d been moved across town and never experienced them again. While living with my mom had left me with a handful of good memories and a dozen terrible ones, it had still been everything I’d known.
Di seemed to brush off whatever distant memory she was thinking of and asked, “What are you gonna do then?”
“With what?”
“With your husband. Who else?”
She could have been talking about my sister. Smart-ass. “Nothing.”
Diana gave me this expression that said, ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ “Don’t ‘nothing’ me. You’re still goo-goo with him. I can see it.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t goo-goo over anybody, but she did her hand thing again, stopping me.
“You’re really gonna try and lie to me? I can see it, Vanny. Hello. You can’t sneak anything by the master.” I’d snuck my marriage by her, but why bring that up? “Seems to me like he likes you too. I don’t think he’d spend so much time with you if he didn’t.”
All I could do was let out a restrained grunt.
“You’re gonna be together for the next five years. Why not make the best out of it?” she brought up.
I wanted to mess with my glasses, but I kept my hand lowered. “We made a deal, Di. This was supposed to be business. It isn’t his fault I’m an idiot.”
“Why are you an idiot? Because you want someone to love you?”
“Because he doesn’t love anything. He doesn’t want to. How awkward would it be if I did or said anything? I’m not going to back out on our deal now. He cares about me, but that’s all.”
If there was anyone in the world who knew me almost as well as I knew myself, it was her. And what she said next confirmed that. “Vanny, I love the hell out of you. You’re my sister from another mister, you know that, but you have a messed up conception of what you’re willing to work for and risk. I don’t know if he’s capable of loving you or not, but what’s the worse that will happen? You guys are married. He isn’t going to divorce you now.”
What was the worse that would happen?
I’d lose my friend.
Diana reached forward and tugged at the hem of my jeans. “Do whatever you want. I only want you to be happy. You deserve it.”
I scrunched up my nose, not willing to talk about Aiden any longer, every time I did, especially when it was with the L-word in the subject, it made my entire body hurt. I’d loved enough people in my life who didn’t love me back and didn’t bother hiding it. So I guess Diana was right—there was only so much risk I was willing to take.
That was depressing.
Clearing my throat, I pointed at the Christmas tree behind her, ready to talk about something else. I couldn’t believe the holidays were less than a week away now. When I’d worked for Aiden, time had gone by fast, but since I’d quit, it went by even faster than before. “When are you leaving for your parents?”
“I’m leaving Christmas Eve. I have to be back at work on the twenty-sixth,” she explained. “Are you staying here?”
Where else would I go?
“I’m takin’ off,” Zac said from my doorway a few days later.
Spinning in my chair, I blinked over at him before coming to my feet. “Okay. I’ll walk you down.”
“Aww, you don’t have to.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed at his shoulders when I was right in front of him. “I want to give you your Christmas present.”
“In that case, lead the way, darlin’,” he said even as he took a step back and let me walk ahead.
The Christmas tree lights were turned off when we got downstairs, and I pushed the gifts underneath it aside to find Zac’s. Picking the two perfectly wrapped boxes out from the corner where I’d stashed them, I handed them over. “Merry Christmas.”
“Can I open them now?” he asked like a little boy.
“Go for it.”
Zac ripped the paper off each box and opened them with a grin on his face. Inside were sleep pants and slippers. What do you get a man who had everything? Things he really liked, even if he had a dozen other of the same stuff.
“Vanny,” he gurgled, holding his arm wide with one gift in each hand.
“You’re welcome,” I said, stepping into his embrace.
He squeezed me and rocked me from side to side. “Thank you.”
“Sure.”
He took a step back and put his things into his bag before shoving half his arm in and yanking out what looked like a card. “For you, my girl.”
I took the card from him with a big smile on my face, touched that he’d gotten me one. I tore it open and pulled the card out, opening it to find a gift card inside for one of the local sporting goods stores. But it was the horrible scrawl inside that really caught my eye.
To my closest friend,
Merry Christmas, Vanny. I don’t know what I would’ve done w/o you the last few months.
Love you
-Z
“I’m not good at buyin’ presents, so buy yourself some new shoes for the marathon, ya hear? You better have ‘em by the time I come home. Don’t go buyin’ somebody else somethin’,” he prattled.
