Page 42 of Blame It On the Secret Santa

Twenty-Five

Cassidy

“Ididn’t know Declanhad kids,” I said as Sean came up to the front to pay for his stuff.

“I didn’t either. Not until a few days ago.”

He handed me his credit card after I entered his employee discount and gave him the total.

“How did you not know?”

“I haven’t talked to him in twelve years.” He shrugged as if this was a totally normal thing to do.

I held his receipt in between us as I pulled my brows in, confused.

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story that I don’t feel like getting into right now,” he replied, his tone a little short.

It wasn’t like I didn’t know what had happened betweenustwelve years ago, but I never heard anything about something happening between them. I always just thought that they both moved away and went to college. No one ever said anything about there being a feud between them.

“Okay,” I said, sighing heavily as I handed him the bags.

He attempted to smile, but it fell flat as he turned and walked away. We were both supposed to be taking our lunch break, but suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

I sat in the breakroom, playing on my phone, when I saw Sean come in. It wasn’t like I expected him to sit with me and talk to me about what happenedjustbecause we had sex not that long ago. But I couldn’t help the feeling that gnawed at me that I needed to know what had happened between him and his brother all those years ago. They had always been close, best friends even, so for them to stop talking entirely must have meant that something terrible had happened between them.

He sat at one of the empty tables in the corner and started eating his lunch.

I didn’t want to make things awkward between us, but it felt inevitable now. Maybe I was wrong for thinking that we could hook up and then go back to how things were before. The problem wasn’t that Sean had done anything wrong. It was that I felt my guard slipping, and I was afraid of what would happen if I let him in again.

“Hello, sorry to interrupt your break,” Melissa said, stepping into the breakroom. She was the HR manager at Waldon’s and was always cheery and pleasant. “I just wanted to remind everyone of the holiday party tomorrow night at Sugarplum Suites. As you all might remember, the discounted rooms we had secured there sold out very quickly, however, I just got word that someone needed to cancel theirs. So, if anyone wa—”

“I’ll take it,” I said quickly, raising my hand like a kid in the classroom.

Sean looked up and arched an eyebrow at me.

I had no idea why I just volunteered to take the room, especially since I was attending the party by myself and wasn’t planning on drinking, so there was no need to stay there. But for some reason, I just wanted to.

“Well, that was quick,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll let them know you’ll be taking the room. You can check in anytime after 3:00.” She waved goodbye to everyone and made her way out of the breakroom while I sat there, wondering why I just did that.

A few other employees finished their lunch and left, leaving Sean and me alone in the breakroom.

“Are you taking a date?” he asked, catching me by surprise.

“No.” I shook my head, lowering my phone to the table to give him my attention.

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