Page 1 of Back Home For Christmas

Chapter One

“What the…” I said, stopping myself just before the curse left my lips. I stood in stunned silence in the doorway to my childhood kitchen that hadn’t been updated since the early 2000s and still had the rustic roosters to prove it. My cheeks flushed red as I remembered my frumpy plaid pajama pants, my braless, ribbed, well-worn tank, and my disheveled hair, fresh from being destroyed by a pillow, as the man who I had spent the last fifteen of my twenty-two years on the planet hating, eyed me up.

Just last night, I vowed to put on my happy face for Christmas despite not wanting to be there, but his presence in my kitchen tore that to shreds. He sat casually on the corner of a stool at our island where I once upon a time shoveled spoonfuls of Captain Crunch into my face before rushing to catch the bus. One hand held a steaming cup of coffee, while the other scrolled his phone. He wore a tight-fitting shirt and a pair of Christmas pajama pants. The combination of which highlighted a tapered waist and trim, muscular biceps. He stared at me with his piercing hazel eyes. One eyebrow lifted as if he had any right to be surprised by my presence. I felt judgement wafting off him like the stench of two-day-old milk left to rot. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t crack a smile or even nod his head in greeting. He just stared at me as I floundered, trying to make sense of it all.

“Morning Kitty Cat, sleep well?” He asked, after we both took several seconds to appraise each other.

“What are you doing here?”

“Drinking coffee,” he said, as if he never spoke to someone so stupid before. “Would you like some?”

My heart pounded as I tried to slow my breath and not commit murder in the kitchen. After another heartbeat of waiting for something, anything, but preferably an explanation, I threw up my arms, huffed out a breath, and turned tail to run back upstairs. I pulled out my phone and texted Jenna.

OMG! I have to talk to you! Coffee, please.

Morning to you too. Yes, I would love to meet for coffee. The usual place?

Yes. See you in 5

I grabbed an elastic and pulled my long, straight black hair into a messy bun while sliding my feet into my fluffy, multi-purpose inside/outside slippers. As I reached for the door, I thought better of it and put a sports bra on under my tank, then I rushed back down the stairs as quickly as I had gone up them. I pulled my long puffy black coat off the hanger by the door before leaving, closing the door with more force than was strictly necessary.

Once outside, the cold winter air caught me in the face, making it hard to breathe. I waited a second to adjust before I walked down the porch covered in twinkling Christmas lights onto the lawn, overflowing with decorations.

For a few years, I tried to find the strangest, least Christmas like decoration I could and sneak it in with the overflowing yard to see if my parents questioned the goblin wearing a Santa hat or the half-naked woman with blinking lights for tassels, but they never did. My collection of Christmas oddities just got swallowed, finding their way back out front each year without question. For all their faults, I kind of appreciated that about my parents. All of my Christmas misfits became part of the family.

Once my body had woken up enough, I started speed walking to the coffee shop. I had lived in Cape Shore my whole life, so the habit of walking just about everywhere, except the cheaper grocery store outside of town, was deeply ingrained. When I moved out for college, I had looked at universities that didn’t require a car. I found one with lots of walkability, but hadn’t been prepared for the sheer size of the campus. It felt overwhelming for the first year, but now that I was back home after four and a half years, Cape Shore felt downright tiny. Although, I guess it always had been. The one thing I missed and didn’t realize until I had stepped out of the car last night was the smell of the ocean on the air. I had yet to find a replacement for that.

Christmas was huge in town. Summer may have been the biggest boom in tourism and sales, but Christmas was a close second. The shop owners and local residents went all out with the street fair, parades, and a town wide Christmas party on Christmas Eve. I hadn’t seen it in years, and I had to admit it warmed even my frozen over heart.

The Magic Cafe, while uniquely named, had been a staple through my formative years. There wasn’t a chain coffee place for miles outside of our quaint beach town. It would have ruined the aesthetic and feel, plus I didn’t think anyone would have gone there since we were all staunch supporters of local businesses. More than half of the locals owned shops of their own that depended on avoiding a big business take over.

Our favorite spot was exactly what a little coffee shop by the beach was supposed to be. It had mismatched seating, a shelf full of well-read books and board games, large windows that let in the sun and a menu full of drinks you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

Outside of the season, it remained blissfully empty aside from high schoolers looking for a place to be after school. During the on-season, the line could snake out the door and down the sidewalk. People loved their coffee. I walked in, waved to Jenna, who had already gotten her drink and brought it to a seat, then I got in line. Luckily, it wasn’t peak hours, and I got my drink quickly enough. The menu board was covered in chalk drawings of holly leaves and Christmas trees, and I couldn’t just get a regular coffee.

“What kind of coffee is that?” Jenna asked when I sunk into the leather seat across from her.

“I had to get a peppermint cocoa. Don’t judge me.” Jenna just shook her head and held up her arms in innocence.

“I wouldn’t dare.” Although we hadn’t seen each other much since I left for school, aside from an annual visit on her part, she was still very much my best friend and knew all the ins and outs of my life. I had met a lot of people in college, but I didn’t connect to any of them in the same way I connected to Jenna. She was a part of my soul from now until eternity.

“Well, are you gonna tell me what the emergency was?”

I leaned forward over the table, and whisper yelled at her. “Jay is at my house!”

Chapter Two

“Jay Crowely? Why?”

“How should I know? I went to bed last night in a mostly empty house aside from my parents, and when I woke up, there was Jay, sipping coffee like he owned the place, and I was the intruder!” I took a careful sip of my peppermint cocoa. My nose dipping into the whipped cream before I scrubbed it with a napkin. I was in no mood for cute cocoa moments.

“Did you ask him why he was there?” She had the decency to sound adequately scandalized, but her question was ridiculous.

“Of course, I did,” I said, my hands nearly slamming on the table as I leaned even further forward. “He is incapable of answering anything with a straight answer. He just gaslit me about coffee.”

“Maybe he’s changed?”

“Men like that don’t change! It is pathological asshole syndrome or something. I’m sure someone has written about it somewhere.” Jay Crowely had moved into town when I was in first grade, and he was in third. He became best friends with my brother and mortal enemies with me, which sort of made sense since my brother and I weren’t exactly bosom buddies. But still, he didn’t have to go so hard on the make Cat’s life miserable front. Eventually, I could go toe to toe with him, but it was never fun having to defend myself whenever Darren had his friend over.

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