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“It’s Christmas tomorrow,” I said, staring at my silver tree. I’d bought all purple ornaments this year, including purple lights in the shape of stars, and they sat in the plastic bag by the tree. I’d put it up but I hadn’t decorated it. Instead I’d gone up to Christmasland in Salt Springs.
“Mom? You want to decorate my tree with me?”
She looked stunned to be asked and then she smiled, the real wide smile she never smiled because she had a crooked tooth she said made her look like a witch.
“I would, honey. Yes.”
I put some Christmas music on my phone and we strung the lights and hung the purple glass balls and then we turned off the rest of the lights in the house and just looked at it glow.
“It’s very pretty,” Mom said.
“It is. Thanks for helping me.” I yawned so hard I almost fell over.
“Why don’t you go to sleep, honey?” Mom said. “I’ll clean up. Take Baby Girl for her walk.”
“Mom,” I sighed, suddenly exhausted. “That would be awesome.”
She kissed my forehead and I hugged her tight, and it didn’t escape either one of us that this was probably the nicest Christmas we’d had in a dozen years.
I fell into my bed and checked my phone. No messages from him. Which I should have expected, but still it stung.
There was one from Henny, though.
Have you seen this? she asked and there was a link to a video.
Probably a dog farting and surprising itself. She loved those.
Tomorrow, I thought and let exhaustion take me.
Ethan
Her address was still in my Uber history, which felt like a minor miracle. And when I got dropped off in front of her house after midnight, the lights were on. Another minor miracle.
Two miracles. It seemed like this might go my way.
But when I knocked, it wasn’t Lexie who answered. It was a beautiful dark-haired woman with an empty pizza box in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m looking for Lexie.”
“Who are you?” she asked. Baby Girl came running and instead of growling she got to my feet and started jumping. Surprised I picked her up and she licked my chin.
“You’re the fucking husband,” she said.
I blinked at the anger, even though I knew I deserved every bit of it. “I am. I’m Ethan.”
“You can get the fuck off my daughter’s property,” she said. “And give me back her dog.”
“I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than I can actually convey. And I’m here to convince her of that.”
“Oh, she knows you’re sorry.”
I hung my head, exhausted and…well, sorry. “I messed up so bad and I just want to make it right. I just want her. However I can have her.”
Baby Girl licked my chin.
“That dog hates everyone,” she said, watching us.
“I know. She hated me for a long time. I left her my number the first time we met and Baby Girl chewed it up.”
“Sounds like her. You left your number?”
I looked up at Lexie’s mom and realized I didn’t even know her name. “I’m sorry, I’ve done this all wrong. I’m Ethan Kringle and I love your daughter. I made a mess of things but I’m here to win her back.”
She looked at me for a long time. “Trudy Colfax,” she said. “Come on in.”
Lexie
I woke up to the smell of coffee brewing and something else…roses? Strange. Mom must have slept on the couch, which was seriously above and beyond. She did not sleep on couches. Or make coffee, as far as I knew. But maybe we were turning over a new leaf.
Pizza for dinner? I mean, I never thought I’d see the day.
It was hard work trying to feel happy about that when all I felt was the crushing absence of Ethan. Three weeks with the guy and I’d grown accustomed to his bed. The smell of his sheets. The touch of his hand.
Ugh. Lexie. Grow up. Lying around pining for a man who wanted you to fit into a completely narrow and boring slot in his life is beneath you.
Except nothing about Ethan was narrow and boring.
I pulled myself out of bed and didn’t bother checking my hair or face because it was just my mom out there and why in the world would she care if I was a puffy mess? I stepped from my bedroom down the hall and into my living room and gasped.
It was a sea of white roses. An absolute sea. Vases of them all along the floor, on the table. The TV. Into the kitchen.
Bruno Mars’ “I think I Wanna Marry You” came on over the speaker set up on my kitchen island, but the instrumental version. Slowed down to be extra romantic.
And it took me a second to find him, standing in my kitchen in the red sweater he’d been wearing at the Christmas Eve festival, holding my dog and looking so fucking tired.
