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“Where’s your dad now?” I ask, even though I have a suspicion about the answer.
“Died of a heart attack while he was shoveling snow when I was twelve.” She dips her head, and her hair falls forward, shielding her expression from prying eyes. It’s been a while, over a decade since she lost her father, but it still hurts her. My chest tightens.
“Is that when you learned reindeer were real?”
“Yeah, I was kind of mad and determined to prove that Santa wasn’t real. I mean at twelve, I should’ve already known that, but Dad was so good at the pretense.”
“How come you love Christmas so much?”
“I don’t know. I feel close to him during this time, I guess. I can’t hate anything.” She shrugs and lifts her gaze to mine. “I’m just not built that way.”
And it’s then that I vow that this year she’ll have the best Christmas ever.
eight
KAYLA
My mood shiftsthinking about my dad. Sometimes it feels like yesterday since he left us and other times it feels as though it happened forever ago. We always did Christmas up big before he passed. Now the holiday brings a bit of sadness with it for Mom and me.
I have a feeling it’s why she went on the month-long cruise with her girlfriends this year. She’s skipping it this year. I encouraged her to go. She sacrificed so much of herself after my dad passed to make sure that I was always taken care of. I wanted her to do this for herself.
It might have been too hard on her this year. More so with me having moved out now. When she brought up the cruise, I pushed her to go. She needed to get back out there. Even though I knew it meant that I’d likely be alone for Christmas, I still wanted her to go and have a good time. So far she is having the time of her life.
I’m supposed to go to my Aunt Milly’s for the holidays, but in truth I wanted to skip. Staying at home with my tiny tree and reading sweet romance holiday books while drowning myself in hot chocolate doesn’t sound too awful.
“I think I should order food,” Nathan says abruptly, pulling me back from my thoughts.
“We ate two hours ago.” I glance at the time on my computer screen. Not to mention the other food he forgot he ordered. He sent it all to the breakroom. I bet he’s popular around here if he’s always doing nice stuff like that.
“You pushed your food around your plate. I wouldn’t necessarily call that eating.” I’m noticing that Nathan notices everything about me. Is he like that with everyone? He’s smart so I’m sure it’s not hard for him to recount everything.
“I’m sorry. I can only get a little down when I think about my dad.” It doesn’t help that I’m pretty sure that Nathan was ignoring me the entire way to lunch. It definitely didn’t do anything for my mood. I was starting to think I was already losing his attention.
I go from thinking Nathan notices everything about me to then thinking he doesn't pay attention to anything I say. It is becoming exhausting. He stares at me.
“No food. Got it.” He shifts on his feet.
“Are you okay?” I would almost guess he’s uneasy right now. With the way his moods shift, this could really be a number of things going on with him.
“I’m okay?” It comes out like a question.
“Okay.” I turn back to the computer screen. I'm entering notes he’s made so they will be saved to a document in a dropbox so he can access them from anywhere. I enjoy doing it. He’s so brilliant. I’m getting more out of this than I’ve ever gotten out of any of my classes.
“There’s cake in the breakroom,” Rachel says, popping her head in the door. “It’s Jack’s birthday.” I pop up, never being one to turn down free cake.
“I’m a sucker for frosting.” I make my way around my desk and head toward the door.
“Me too.” Nathan stands from his chair.
Rachel laughs. “Oh, you’re serious?” She gives Nathan a puzzled look. “You normally would give me a reason why one shouldn’t eat cake before complaining about the breakroom. Again.” My eyes dart between them. They are having a stare-down.
“Are we going? Because I really want a corner piece and those are the first to go. They have more frosting.”
“Her mind is amazing,” Nathan says. “I’ll make sure you get a corner.” Rachel shakes her head before we follow her out of the door.
“Any plans for the holidays?” Rachel says, making small talk as we head toward the breakroom.
“Not this year, but I do have a date—”
