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“You loved Nick Collins,” she told her reflection. “You loved him with your whole heart and mind and spirit. And he rebuked you.” She took a deep breath. “Stay strong. Remember all you’ve learned over the past few weeks. You’re different.”
Growth was the only thing that mattered. And Maya had grown in spades since her drive up from Manhattan.
Maya reached the Italian restaurant at seven-twenty-eight, two minutes before Nick had told her to come. The ambiance of the restaurant was warm and inviting, with nearly every table filled with Hollygrove locals sipping red wine and talking about their days. Cheeks were ruddy from the chilly air, and candles flickered. Just as Maya approached the hostess to ask if Nick was there yet, she heard his voice, animalistic and louder than anyone else’s in the restaurant.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have a chianti on the entire wine list?” Nick demanded.
Maya peeked around the hostess table to see Nick at a table near the corner. He glared up at his waiter, a guy no older than twenty-two, who sputtered with fear.
“Do you have any recommendations? Something from the Aix-en-Provence region, perhaps?” Nick blared.
The waiter had probably never heard of the Aix region, let alone been to France. Maya’s heart went out to him.
But privately, she was grateful to have seen Nick like this again. It cast her back through the previous five years of her life when Nick’s “occasional bad temper” had been like the weather for her. She’d just had to deal with it when things got bad. She’d had to take his insults. She’d had to watch him ridicule other waiters and staff members across the world. She’d once been kicked out of a Tokyo restaurant because Nick had had an issue with their way of life and food preparation.
It suddenly felt poisonous to ever speak to Nick again. And she didn’t want to give him the opportunity to convince her otherwise. That was the thing with these overwhelmingly handsome, manipulative guys. If you gave them an inch, they took a mile.
Maya smiled to the hostess, who smiled back nervously. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
“You can,” Maya said. “I’m supposed to go on a blind date with that man in the corner. The one who’s being terribly rude to your colleague.”
The hostess wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t help it. It seemed likely that she’d had a negative interaction with Nick already.
“I don’t think I’m going to make it,” Maya went on with a small laugh. “Would you mind passing him a note from me?”
The hostess smiled conspiratorially and produced a notepad and a pen. “I normally don’t condone standing people up on dates,” she said very quietly. “But I’ll make an exception in this case.”
Maya hid on the other side of the hostess stand so that Nick couldn’t see her. On the pad of paper, she wrote simply:
“Never again. M.”
Maya folded the note and handed it to the hostess.
“I’ll deliver it myself,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”
“And to you,” Maya said before whipping back into the darkness.
On the other side of the street, she paused for a brief moment to glance back toward the restaurant. Nick was still at the table near the corner, staring down at the note in his hand. He looked flabbergasted. His cheeks were white as snow.
It was probably the first time anyone had turned down Nick Collins. Maya had never been so proud.
Maya directed herself toward Brad’s little house. As she raced, her feet crunching through the snow, the Christmas lights that hung downtown blurred. She tried and failed to practice what she might say to him. How could she articulate how important the previous few weeks had been? How could she explain how completely she’d already fallen for him?
Maya appeared on the front porch of Brad’s home. The front window was aglow with light from the television and a small Christmas tree. Maya imagined Brad decorating it by himself, perhaps listening to a podcast, wrapping Christmas lights around the base, the middle, and the top. She imagined he’d done this with his young wife so many years ago. They’d had traditions he’d unfortunately been forced to carry alone.
Maya walked slowly up the steps and knocked. She listened as Brad’s footfalls grew closer and closer. When he answered, he did so with a curious expression, a little wrinkle forming between his brows.
“Maya?” He sounded incredulous. Immediately, he hardened his expression to the same he’d worn earlier. It was clear he didn’t want her there.
“Can I come in?” Maya asked.
Brad rubbed the back of his neck, then hesitantly opened the door. Maya stepped into the warm foyer and glanced toward the living room, where Brad had paused a movie.
“Die Hard,” Maya said. “Everyone says it’s the best Christmas movie.”
“I don’t say that. But it’s fantastic.” He sounded stiff. “You’ve never seen it?”
Maya shook her head. Again, she felt as though she spoke to a stranger.Brad continued to look at her incredulously. She suspected he wanted to throw her out.
