Page 51 of A Very Bossy Christmas
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. Right now. I will do that. For you…my long-suffering assistant.”
She nods. “And newly suffering fake girlfriend.”
“Right.” I stare down at her mouth, her quivering lower lip.
“Declan.”
“Right. So that’s anore. the quickie?”
“It’s anore. me ever getting these jeans off again, I think.”
I stare down at those curves. “I can focus on the top front quadrant and get you out of here in three minutes.”
She tries to laugh and gives me a playful shove. “Ooof. I need to lie down. Go deal with your emotional baggage.” She slips away from me, opening the door.
“You coming too?”
She presses her back against the wall, trying to breathe. “Just leave me here. Save yourself!”
I manage to steal two kisses before going to deal with my emotional baggage. Because kissing my assistant and my fake girlfriend is more fun than dealing with my ex and my former best friend.
I stand in the doorway to the family room and wait for Hannah and Brady to notice me. Everyone’s still writing things down on scraps of paper. Hannah and Brady are on the same team, of course. I guess they always have been. Not that they were cheating when Hannah and I were together. I believed my brother when he told me that. But they look like they’ve been a couple forever.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at pictures of Hannah and me for months after I got the news. But I looked through old photos of us about a month ago. We were a good-looking pair of people, that’s for certain. And I did love her. And I know she loved me. But I look at them, and I think about what we looked like together, and it wasn’t what I’m seeing before me now. We were two people who loved each other and were trying to make a relationship work. Hannah and Brady are a couple. Simple as that.
I finally catch Brady’s eye when he drops a few pieces of paper into the bowl. I point back and forth between him and Hannah and then to myself and then gesture down the hall. He gives me an incredulous look and mouthsDude.
I roll my eyes and then mouth to him,Not a three-way. Idiot. Talking.I make the international sign of talking with my hand.
He looks so damn happy I could cry. He gives his fiancée a little nudge and nods in my direction, whispering in her ear. She nods, tells Casey to start without them. I go to the living room to take a seat in the armchair. The power seat. I sit like Al Pacino inThe Godfather II.
And then I hear Maddie’s voice in my head, reminding me that this isn’t a negotiation, and I reassemble myself in a more friendly pose.
They walk in together, side-by-side but not hand-in-hand, which was thoughtful of them. They take a seat on the loveseat near me but don’t sit too close together. As if that makes them any less engaged. They don’t have to bother trying to make things easier for me now.
Everything hurts a little less since last night.
Everything except the thought of what will happen when the holidays are over.
“Hi, Dec.” Hannah is the first to speak. Hannah was always the first to speak. I could always rely on her to keep the wheels spinning, even when I was so busy working that I forgot we had wheels. “Thanks for finally talking to us.”
“I know you both tried to get in touch with me… Iwasbusy.”
“I understand why you didn’t want to hear from me. I won’t speak for Brady.”
“You can speak for me, babe,” Brady says. And he isn’t even being sarcastic. “You’ll probably swear less, so that’s good.” He doesn’t grin or smirk.
Hannah proceeds to say every single thing that she already said half a year ago, in voice mail messages and emails that I didn’t respond to. She tells me what she wants me to hear. I let her talk because it makes her feel better. It’s what I always did, back when we were together. I thought it was enough.
Brady’s four years older than me. When I first found out they’d gotten engaged, I felt betrayed, sure. But I also couldn’t believe Hannah would want to marry a guy who teaches anthropology at a liberal arts college in Ohio instead of a corporate lawyer in Manhattan. It didn’t make sense. Unless I was a total failure of a human being who didn’t deserve love from Hannah or anyone else.
I figured Brady’s everything I’m not. I figured I was the put-upon hero in this story. The guy who was trying to become someone better for the girl. And then I wasn’t given the chance to make things right, and that’s what sucked. But I was in another story all along. He’s everything she needs. Hannah deserves everything she wants. I know now that I was saving my everything for someone else. I just needed to meet that person. And now I need to figure out how to give it to her.
Hannah finally stops talking and waits for my response.
