Page 49 of Rebel Without a Claus
I exhale through my nose. “Don’t start, Gemma.”
Her expression shifts—goes oddly serious.
“Just… be careful, Luke,” she says, voice dropping. “Eve’s always been the big-dream girl. Holly Ridge was never supposed to be permanent for her. You know that.”
I bristle. “And yet here she is, moving back to Holly Ridge full time.”
Gemma gives me a look like I’ve just proven her point. “Exactly. You don’t think her giving up her dream job to stay in the exact town she ran away from ten years ago isn’t a little suss?”
I’m about to tell her I’m not in the mood when she adds, “That’s a lot to live up to with a partner. Every fight you two have, every disagreement you two get into, you’ll always be the guy she gave up her dreams for. Or worse… she’ll wake up in a few months and realize she gave up everything for a life she onlythoughtshe wanted because she was too scared to go for more.”
My stomach sinks. “I didn’t?—”
“I know. But that’s how these things go, Luke. People make sacrifices thinking love is enough. Then one day, they look around and wonder why they feel so damn small. Eve isn’t like you and me. And her life isn't a cheesy holiday movie where she’s going to discover happiness here in her hometown all along. She was never meant to stay here in Holly Ridge.”
Her words hit harder than they should.
I hate the idea of Eve ever feeling that way—having regrets. Especially because of me.
As a man who feels his own regrets over the life I’ve fallen into here, the reality of what Gemma is saying to me twists my stomach.
Gemma softens. Just a little. “She’s got a spark. Don’t let this town snuff it out.”
She grabs her latte and disappears out the door with a breezy little wave, leaving me rooted in place with the peppermint mocha cooling in my hands.
Damn it. I want Eve here. I want her to stay in Holly Ridge. God, I do. I want mornings like today and evenings like last night, tangled under flannel and whispering old regrets into laughter. I want reindeer disasters and storytime miracles and kissing her like the world might stop spinning if I don’t.
But I don’t want her to stay solely for me. I also know what it’s like to look back on a choice and feel it rot inside you.
What if she wakes up six months from now and resents me for it? What if some magazine spread flashes across her phone screen and she remembers the life she could’ve had? The life I kept her from?
My stomach knots.
What if this is the beginning of our quiet undoing?
She didn’t eventellme about the job offer.
Not one word.
Not after everything we’ve shared. Not after I laid every damn feeling on the line the other night with my heart open and my lips on hers.
She turned down LA and kept it to herself.
Why?
Even though I don’t want her to leave, she’ssupposedto chase what sets her on fire. That’s what makes her Eve. That’s what I’ve loved about her since the first time she stormed into my life wearing glittery earmuffs and quoting Brontë.
If she gave that up for me—without even talking to me about it, then we’ve got a bigger problem than snowstorms and runaway reindeer.
I stare down at the coffee like it might offer me an answer; something to hold onto.
It doesn’t.
Just a swirl of whipped cream and crushed peppermint. Sweet and simple.
She thinks she’s doing the right thing. That staying is the answer. That Holly Ridge and me and this messed up little Christmas experiment is worth her whole future.
But love—real love—doesn’t ask you to shrink.
