Page 28 of If This Was a Movie

“It wasn’t very grown up of me, but…I have some previous baggage that kind of bit me in the ass when I saw that. My dad left my mom and started a new family when I was young. I saw history repeating itself, and I didn’t want to deal with it. I didn’t know you had a daughter, so seeing her with you and me—” I start, but he cuts me off.

“I should have told you about Sophie,” he says, a sigh of his own.

“Probably,” I say with a shrug. “I get why you didn’t, though.”

He looks up, shifting his gaze from his feet to my eyes, clear shock on his face.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“I’m sure dating is hard. I’m assuming you’re the only one raising her?”

He nods. “Her mom signed her rights away two years ago.”

I sigh, irritation brewing under my skin because I’ve barely spent more than a single meal with that girl and can’t imagine wanting to give her up, much less being her mother and feeling that way.

“So I can imagine being her father becomes a part of your identity. You had a chance to introduce yourself as Nate, not Nate and Sophie. I get it.” I shrug before laughing to myself. “Itprobably would have saved me a lot of heartache and tears if you hadn’t, though,” I add to break the ice, but regret it almost instantly when his smile tips down with my words. “Nate, really, it’s not a big deal. I was kidding.”

“I hate that I spent an entire year not knowing what went wrong, knowing somewhere deep down I fucked it up but no idea how to fix it. I should have…I should have found you. Reached out,” he says, words drifting off. “I regret it. Especially now, seeing you again. It’s all coming back.” My heart skips a beat, and he shakes his head, eyes directed at his boots before he looks at me again. “I won’t stand here and lie and tell you I have no interest in seeing where this could go.” He stares at me, waiting for me to fill in whatever blanks I can.

“I…” I start, and for the smallest moment, I contemplate telling him it’s a clean slate, that we could pick up where we left. But that girl, the hopeless romantic who believes love can find you at any turn, is gone. She’s been put in a cage and boarded up to keep her soft heart safe. I’m coming to terms with the fact that what I saw was a miscommunication, but the pain I felt was real, and I don’t want to feel that again. I’m more guarded than I was a year ago, regardless of if what caused it wasn’t what I thought it was.

“I, uh, I’m not dating. I’m focusing on my business and my friends and…other things,” I say, suddenly realizing my life truly isn’t much more than those two things. “And considering what just happened with my place, that’s something I need to do even more. So while I appreciate your words and, even more, I appreciate the closure and knowing I wasn’t a total idiot homewrecker, it would be best if things stayed…platonic,” I say, and I hate how the lie feels on my tongue, even if it is the safest option for me.

He waits a long beat, reading me before he nods. “All right. Got it.” The disappointment he’s clearly fighting back covers hisface before he gives me a wide, if not a bit forced, smile. “Got it. But I still want you to stay here until your place is fixed up, Jules,” he says, suddenly looking serious, and I shift at the abrupt change in topic.

“What?”

“Stay here until your place is fixed. Let me make it up to you. I fucked up by not telling you from the start, and that clearly impacted you. Let me give you a safe place to stay, no strings attached. Plus, with Claire gone, this place is going to sit empty, and it’s ridiculous to spend money on a hotel your insurance probably won’t cover.”

“I don’t know. One night is kind enough. I can’t?—”

“You can. You don’t have anywhere to stay, and your home needs work before the township allows you back in.” I groan at the reminder I wish he hadn’t given me. “And if you won’t accept my doing it as an apology for hurting you last New Year, do it as a favor for a friend. Sophie is fully convinced you're her wish come true, and I don’t know how to handle that without breaking her heart.”

The words remind me no one has told me what this Christmas wish is.

“What does that mean exactly?”

Nate steps further into the tiny cottage before flopping back on the bed, running a hand over his face as he does.

“We were at the mall today to see Santa. She told him she wanted me to fall in love with the real-life version of her Ashlyn doll. I was gearing up some kind of way to rationalize with her, to break the truth to her easily, but when we walked out…” It becomes clear the sticky situation he’s in.

“I was there.”

“You were there, and she sees it as some kind of sign or holiday magic. She’s stubborn as all hell, so she’s not going toback down from it. She thinks you’re her Christmas wish come true.”

“Does she ask about things like that frequently? You getting a wife or whatever?”

“No, so I don’t know where it came from. I can only assume it’s that she’s a little girl who has friends with two-parent households, sees my parents who have been happily married for decades, sees my sister falling in love and moving away, and hears my mom and sisters jab at me for being single and never dating. But if that’s all she wants, it’s the one thing I can’t just give to her. I know it’s cliché, but she’s been let down a lot, so I try to make sure she can have whatever she wants. She doesn’t ask for things much, so it hasn’t been much of an issue until…now.”

I think about how when I was her age, I wished and wished my mom would find a new husband who would make her happy, someone who would make us feel like a family again. That was all I wanted, though I never verbalized it. Something in me breaks a bit for this little girl—a shared longing I wouldn’t ever wish upon her.

“I don’t know what to do, but I believe in signs, and I believe in things happening for a reason. The world did not put you on that sidewalk just minutes after she made that wish because I wasn’t supposed to help you out, mend that fence. You can stay here, and I’ll do everything I can to help speed up the work at your place if you help me give her this, if only for a month. We’ll sell Sophie on this little romance and convince her that her Christmas wish is coming true. In the meantime, you’ll stay here while I fix up your place until you can move back home.”

I shake my head. “It seems a little one-sided to me,” I say with a half-assed laugh. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“You can help me with babysitting when you can. Claire usually helps get Sophie on the bus and watches her occasionallywhen I have to work late.” I think about how, with the recital next week and classes mostly shelved for December, for once, I don’t have much on my plate. It’s almost like my calendar is open just for this reason.

“Let me…” I say with a sigh. “Let me just double-check my calendar, make sure I can help out before I offer.” I move to grab my bag, reach in to grab my old-school calendar, and flip through to find the dates I’m busy and when my next classes are.

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