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“What about them?”
“My folks used to have us all make a wish on the angel at the top of the tree after we got it up there. Then she’d…well, make it come true,” Angelica admitted. “Mostly I’d wish for something I’d already asked for on my Christmas list.”
“What about as an adult?”
“I’d stopped until…this year,” she said, realizing she was going to make a wish and send it to the Christmas angel. She’d been given so much already, in December it seemed almost greedy to ask for more, but she knew in her heart of hearts she wanted Max to be with her next Christmas.
*
His dad textedthat they’d landed at Devil’s Rock private airport and were in the car that Max had hired to drive them to Whiskey River about the time Angelica’s party was wrapping up. She was saying her goodbyes to her parents and as soon as they left, he caught her hand and pulled her aside.
“My folks are heading to the house. I’ve got to go and meet them,” he said. “I really enjoyed your party.”
“Thanks for your part… Do you want me to come with you?”
No. He needed to assess his parents and how they were before he introduced Angelica to them. If fact there was a scenario where she didn’t meet them at all. “I don’t want to pull you from your party and I need to leave now.”
“I don’t mind coming over after,” she said.
“Angelica, baby, I’m sorry but not tonight,” he said.
“Oh, sorry. I should have realized you want some time alone with them and not be overstepped.”
She pulled back one arm around her waist and turned to say goodbye to Ollie and his new wife Colby who were staying the night with Mr. and Mrs. Rossi. He’d hurt Angelica, which he hadn’t meant to, but there was no way around it. His parents were either going to come off as the nicest and most social couple she’d ever met, which hey, not a problem. Or they were going to have had a fight on the flight and not be talking or his mom might be down and not sociable.
He waited until she said goodbye to her brother and then pulled her into the powder room off the entryway, closing the door behind them.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I need a minute alone with you and there isn’t a spot in this house that’s empty,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t want you to meet my parents, okay? I want you to know it’s not you. It’s just that my parents and I have been estranged.”
She gave him a look filled with empathy and he hated how it made him feel. Given what he’d seen of the Rossi family her sympathy was understandable. But he hated that she saw him as needing her…kindness. He was invincible and confident. That was all he wanted the world to see.
“I had no idea. Was it your brother’s death?” she asked.
“It was. To be honest we weren’t really a super-close foursome before that. Dad and I like always working, and we talk a lot…I’m the most like him. Mom and Cal were the social ones always going to parties and openings. She misses him. She and I hadn’t talked in two years when she messaged me about Christmas,” he said.
Why was he telling her all of this? A part of him wondered if he shouldn’t have just kept quiet and let her think the worst of him. That would have been one way to put an end to the relationship. But here he was telling her things he’d never said to anyone else.
And the worst part was he wanted to tell her more. If Cal was here he’d tell Max to keep talking, but it felt weird. Like he was raw and exposed. And the only time he let his guard down with a woman was during sex and then just for the brief moments that he needed to.
He shook his head. “Anyhow it’s not you.”
He turned to open the door but she stepped in front of him, her back against the door as she ducked under his arm. “Stop. I know you have to go and I get that, but you have given me a lot to process.”
He stared down into her wide brown eyes. Eyes that he wanted to lose himself in because when he was with her, he felt somehow as if all those jagged broken pieces of himself didn’t matter.
As if those rough edges weren’t visible. He had a decent upbringing so he was very good in social situations, but he knew from past relationships that he sometimes left his partners cold by his unwillingness to share. So why had he tonight?
“We can talk later. I didn’t mean to start this now,” he said.
“Max, I’m not going to keep you here,” she said. “It means a lot to me that you explained what was going on. I hope you and your parents have a nice visit. Text or call me if you need me.”
She hugged him and then went up on tiptoe to kiss him. He let himself be comforted by her body but knew that one kiss wasn’t enough and this wasn’t the time or place for anything else. He lifted his head and stepped back.
He hated this feeling, he realized. If this was what love felt like then he didn’t want it. He was vulnerable and felt weak, almost fragile. Was this how Cal had felt all the time?
His brother had once said he needed to use to keep the pain away. If this was what he’d experienced, then for the first time in his life, Max might understand what had driven Cal to keep using.
