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“Popular,” Noelle said, rolling her eyes. “Seriously, what difference does any of that make now?” She leaned forward and looked at Faith. “Seriously.”
“I lied.”
The two words popped out before Faith even realized she was going to say them. She certainly wouldn’t have planned to make a confession. Not here. Not tonight.
Holden spoke up then. “Faith, I don’t think—”
“No, I should get it out,” Faith said. “These are our friends. Old friends and new. I don’t want to kick off the new year on a lie. Holden and I lied.”
The room had gone suddenly, eerily quiet. They probably could’ve heard a pin drop. But it was too late to back out now.
“I cared so much what everyone thought, I made up my engagement, and I pulled Holden along for the ride,” Faith said. “I asked him to pretend to be my fiancé. I was just too embarrassed to have been dumped by my fiancé after only being engaged for a couple of months. I was coming home, shunned and embarrassed. I just wanted… I wanted people to respect me.”
Silence. Faith couldn’t look at anyone. She just stared down at the hardwood flooring, wishing a hole would open up and swallow her.
“I can’t let you take all the blame for it,” Holden said. “It was my idea.”
Was it? She certainly didn’t remember that. She knew they’d concocted the plan together, but she couldn’t recall at this point who’d mentioned what first.
“I’ve been hiding for a long time around excuses,” Holden said. “I had a whole plan in place. No dating until my daughter was grown. I didn’t want her to lose someone again. But what I didn’t face was thatIdidn’t want to lose someone again. I wasn’t even still married to my ex when she died. Nobody knows that. It’s something I don’t talk about.”
Silence. Faith lifted her head and looked directly at Holden. He was staring straight at her, looking more awkward than ever with that moose-shaped mug in his hand. For some reason, that alone made her want to go wrap her arms around him.
“I cared way too much what the town thought,” Holden said. “I’d never lived anywhere like this. I assumed the gossips had malicious intent. Really, they just…well, most of the people around here want nothing bad for us. They just like talking about us.”
“You can say that again,” Enzo said with a dry laugh. Then, seeming to realize everyone was staring at him, he added, “Oh. Did I say that out loud?”
“You did,” Noelle said. “But Holden’s right. I think we’re all guilty of worrying what the Josephine Strongblossoms of the town are saying about us.”
“Hey!” Jordan said. “My mom’s not the only gossip in town.”
“Not by a mile,” Charity said. “The town’s full of them. And every single one of them would give her last dime to help one of us if we needed it.”
“The men too,” Nic said. “They can be just as bad about gossiping.”
“Wait a second,” Noelle jumped in to say, staring directly at Holden. “I just heard what you said about Faith a few minutes ago. You’re in love with her.”
“You knew you loved her from the second you saw her,” Charity said. “But the mistletoe made you realize you’ve never loved anyone more.”
“That’s what you said,” Enzo jumped in to say. “I heard it.”
“Me too,” Jordan said.
“Me too,” Charity added.
Faith started to ask whose side they were on, but her gaze had locked with Holden’s from across the room. His mouth pitched into a slight smile, telling her that he had no plans to retract his words from earlier. He’d meant them.
“I can say that I felt the same about him,” Faith said. “I knew it from the second I looked at him. He was seated next to me on the flight from London to Chicago—”
“Wait a second,” Charity interrupted. “You didn’t meet over there?”
Oops. Another thing they hadn’t been upfront about.
“We met for the first time on the plane,” Holden said. “We were seated next to each other in first class. She was crying...”
He broke off there, probably wondering if he’d revealed too much. Since it was all on the table tonight, though, Faith didn’t mind.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Faith recalled. “We started talking—we talked all night, actually. It was the best eight hours of my life.”
