Page 25 of Holiday Tides

“I wouldn’t classify that as a kiss.”

I barely sleep that night and continue feeling like a sleazeball throughout the next workday. Ivy asks what’s wrong four times when I don’t laugh at her Tinsel Thursday joke before giving up. Instead of texting Cooper I’m coming over, I just show up. He works from home and usually stays in on the weekdays.

My intestines twist into four distinct knots as I wait for Cooper to answer his door. When he does, he’s shirtless, his dirty-blond hair mussed like he’s been running his fingers through it. Cooper only does that when he’s stressed. A powerful wave of guilt that I’m going to break up with him atop of a bad day makes me sag against the door frame.

“Summer.” His eyes fly wide before briefly darting behind him. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I begin to pick at my cuticle before forcing myself to stand up straight and act like the responsible adult I am. “Could we talk?”

As I move to let myself in, Cooper blocks the doorway, using his hand on the door to close it behind him. “Sure. What did you need?”

I left my coat in the car, and my thin blouse does as much for the nippy, forty-degree day as Cooper’s nonexistent shirt.“Could we talk inside?” I wrap my hands around myself when a spontaneous shiver shakes my shoulders.

Cooper looks at the door and then leans against it. “It’s not bad out, and I’m waiting on a DoorDash delivery anyway.”

“Oh…okay.” This is going to be painful either way, might as well make it cold too. I pause, rolling my lips. “I know it’s close to Christmas, so the timing of this really stinks, but—”

“Why are you talking to the delivery person when I’m starving?”

The whiny voice comes from a redheaded woman who’s wearing purple overalls and nothing else. I dart my gaze away from her ample cleavage to catch Cooper’s pinched face.

“You’re cheating on me?”

The whole scene is so similar to what happened in July that painful needles spike over my skin. Except, in that incident, I’d been walking in on my best friend’s fiancé with his personal trainer on Kayla’s wedding day.

I’d had food poisoning the day before, missing the rehearsal dinner, but felt better in the morning. Not well enough to join Kayla on our longstanding Saturday run, however. Instead, I bought her favorite pastries and let myself into her condo with my key to surprise my friend with a sweet treat before we began bridal prep. I didn’t think to announce my presence because Andrew was supposed to have an early tee time with his friends since men—unfairly—have drastically less to prepare for on their wedding day.

That morning, I’d been able to backtrack before Andrew or the other woman saw me. I didn’t have the cheating twosome staring at me as I do now.

“Oops.” Purple Overalls slams the door.

“Summer,” Cooper begins while reaching for me.

I yank out of his grip, stumbling into the mulch bed beside his unit. Freezing wood chips scatter over my snowman sock andslip into my black leather clog, but I barely register their icy bite. The shocked numbness slipping down my spine is too similar to how I felt over the summer.

“This wasn’t working out.” Cooper’s voice drags me back to the present. “You could feel it, right? You knew this was coming.”

“What?” I barely hear him over the blood sloshing in my ears. “How could I have known—”

My sentence cuts off when I remember that I was in almost the same situation last night—though without the level of nudity. The tension I felt all day sinks its claws into my exhausted shoulders.

Cooper’s right on one account, though. We haven’t been working for a long while. The overwhelming need to be done with this—him, this relationship, this situation—has me lifting my hands, palms up.

“You know what? It’s fine.”

“It is?” His arm drops heavy at his side before his relieved expression sullies. “Do you want to come in, then?”

I turn my back to him before the bile rising in my throat can make me gag. “Goodbye, Cooper.”

sixteen

Summer

Instead of driving home, I numbly weave through city traffic until I arrive at my parents’ house. The single-story brick ranch is the same as the rest in our neighborhood. Little houses with mold-speckled gray roofs packed tightly among the tall maples that shade each one in the summer. I keep my keys out, but the garage side door is unlocked, as usual.

The divine scent of my mom’s cream cheese chicken chili makes the congestion crowding my nose finally blur my vision. A bag of tortilla chips sits on the Formica counter. Growing up, we always had bags of chips instead of bread with our chili because it was cheaper.

My mom walks into the kitchen and jumps, her hand slapping her chest. “Pumpkin, I didn’t know you were here.”

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