Page 14 of Back Home For Christmas

“Hi,” Jenna’s voice right behind me startled me. When I turned, her eyes conveyed about a thousand questions as she stared a hole into my brain. “What brings you two in here?”

I remembered with a start why I had come into the bar in the first place. I hadn’t updated Jenna about anything. She must have thought that I had been taken by the body snatchers if I was willingly sitting, having a drink with Jay. I tried to tell a story with my eyes, but I doubted anything got through her shock.

“Hi Jenna,” Jay said. He turned in his seat, wrapped an arm around her shoulder in a half hug. “How have you been?”

“Same old,” she said.

“Any movement in the bakery department?” He asked. She gave a small shrug.

“You know how my parents are,” she said. What the hell was going on? Had she been friendly with Jay every year that he came to visit and didn’t say a word to me? What a little traitor. And what was the movement on the bakery front? Had I been so focused on my own shit that she hadn’t even bothered to talk to me about something as important as her dreams of opening a bakery? As much as I thought I was joking about the traitor part, it felt like a punch in the gut that she had this weirdly close relationship with Jay that she didn’t have with me. Maybe we hadn’t stayed in touch as well as I thought we had. Maybe never coming home had damaged the best, if not only, genuine friendship I had.

“I have to run to the bathroom,” I said, swallowing back tears that threatened my vision. “I’ll be right back.”

I felt their eyes on my back as I hurried through the restaurant, feeling unsteady on my feet. Once the door was closed behind me, I studied my face in the mirror and blinked hard, willing the tears away.

Chapter Twelve

A minute later, Jenna was pushing through the bathroom door.

“What was that?” I asked, with a little too much emotion in my voice.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said. “Did you have a change of heart about Jay?” I shook my head and waved a dismissive hand.

“I just didn’t get a chance to update you,” I said. “I had no idea you guys were best friends now. So, when I told you that he was at my house, and you acted shocked, you already knew?”

“Cat.” I had hurt her. “You haven’t been home.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to cozy up to Jay!” Then a terrible thought occurred to me. “Do you…like him?”

“Stop being crazy. You always get crazy when you drink,” she said. “I have no interest in Jay, and he certainly doesn’t have any interest in me.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. But you can’t expect me to hold up your personal vendetta for four years when he is here and you aren’t. I have to at the very least be polite.”

“That seemed like a lot more than polite.”

“Only to you,” she said. “You can’t stand when anyone so much as looks at Jay.”

“With good reason!”

She shrugged. “I guess. It isn’t my place to tell you how long to hold on to a grudge, but you can’t expect everyone to do the same. He’s a pretty decent guy.”

“To you. I’ve been home for two days and all he has done is make fun of me, laugh at me, talk to me like I am stupid and argue with me.”

She sighed, “Then why are you here having drinks?”

“I didn’t mean to be here. Well, I did, but I came to see you. My brother is being a royal ass. First, he is insisting that Jay and I decorate the booth together.”

“Well, he has been doing it for years.”

“A good job?”

She shrugged noncommittally. Which meant yes, she thought he was doing a good job. I shook my head. “Then we walked in on Darren making out with Aubrey!”

Now Jenna truly gasped. It was a relief to know that she hadn’t secretly known about that too. “Aubrey Bates?”

“Yes, can you believe it?”

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