Page 66 of Holiday Unscripted
“No,” I say honestly and shrug, “I have a life there.”
“But do you?” he asks me. “Because everything you’ve said to me since you’ve been here is that you miss home. I mean, not in those words, but everything. The way you live your life, it’s like you live there but you want to live here.”
“I can’t just move home,” I declare.
“Why not?” He asks me the question I’ve never been asked. So many people have just said move home, and when I said I couldn’t, they would just drop it. But not Nate. Nate is the one who would always ask me the questions that everyone else was either scared to ask or didn’t care to ask.
“Because,” I answer him and he just laughs.
“Solid answer.” He turns back. “So you have thought of moving back home?”
I’m thinking about what to say to that. “I mean, all the time, but what would I do?”
“You’re a doctor, you can work anywhere,” he points out. “You can even work with your mother or Jack.”
“But then it’s like I’m giving up.” My heart hammers in my chest.
“What the hell are you fucking talking about?” He looks at me as he flips the pancakes. “How is you coming home and working with your mother, you giving up?” He shakes his head. “It’s not like you didn’t go to med school and your mother just gave you a job. You literally are a doctor.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be me taking a handout,” I tell him. “Look at you.”
“What about me?” he questions, putting the pancakes on the plate and doing three more.
“You built a whole fucking vet clinic,” I say, my voice going higher. “No one did that but you.”
“Are you nuts?” He looks at me. “My grandparents left me a shitload of money and so did my parents.” I roll my eyes. “If it wasn’t for them, you think I would be able to have my own clinic?”
“Yes,” I answer wholeheartedly. “You would have still had the clinic, you just would have been in debt for a bit longer.”
He snorts. “I worked sixteen hours a day for four years straight. Took any animal I could. Did house calls. You name it, I did it. The same way you did it. You didn’t just wake up and get the shift you wanted or the department you wanted.” I have this tightness in my chest when I think of all the struggles he had and not knowing or being there for him. The last seven years have been lost to us and it’s half my fault.
“Yeah, but it’s still different,” I refute, letting his words settle, “you did it by yourself.”
“No one does anything by themselves, Elizabeth,” he says my name and finishes breakfast. “At least not if they don’t have to. My parents, my grandparents, your parents, they all helped.” I look at him and I’m about to say something to him when the front door opens.
“You really need to start locking the front door after you come inside,” I remind him as we both look to the side to see who is going to be coming in.
“I smell food,” Joshua says and I put my head back and groan.
“For thirty-six hours,” I say, looking at him, “I forgot all about you and this wedding of yours.”
“Well, happy to break it to you, but there are only a couple days left.” He pulls out the stool and sits down. “There is the rehearsal dinner tomorrow and then the wedding.”
“Put a finger down if you are counting down the hours until I never have to hear about this fucking wedding again?” I deadpan and hold up my middle finger. “It’s me.”
He laughs. “I have to say the snowstorm was a blessing in disguise.” He looks at us. “Don’t say anything to Macy but I’m so done with all of this, I just want to be married already.”
I slap the counter. “I’m telling everyone,” I tell him. “I’m getting a billboard in Times Square. I’m getting one of those planes that fly overhead with a long whatever it’s called. I’m putting an article in the newspaper.” The two of them laugh at me.
“Anyway, I’m here to talk about Christmas.” The minute the words leave his mouth, Nate and I groan. “Relax, it’s nothing big.”
“I just changed my flight,” I tell them. “I’m leaving Christmas morning at six a.m.” I try not to smile but the look on both their faces, I can’t help myself. “Kidding, I’m kidding,” I say. When I look back at Nate, a new look fills his face, and it’s not a look I’ve ever seen before. I hate it.
CHAPTER 26
Nate
SILVER BELLS
