Page 31 of Mistletoe & Magic
“Are you sure you’re okay with my dog staying at your house?”
He glances over at me and says, “Will she eat my kid or pee on things?”
“No, she is a very good and sweet girl,” I promise.
“I love dogs!” Junie pipes up from the backseat with a grin. “Maybe she’ll sleep with me.”
“She loves to snuggle,” I promise Junie with a smile. But my stomach turns in knots as we pull up, and Remy puts the truck in park. I don’t want to see Derek again.
It looks like Derek has just pulled up and is checking his mail. Black wool coat pressed sharp. Scarf knotted with precision. Shiny black Audi parked like a mirror. He could be posing for a Boston magazine spread. When we ease to the curb, he looks up. The smile he gives me is all teeth and no warmth. It is not a smile. It is a warning.
My stomach drops the way it does on a bad elevator. Heat skims my face, then drains, leaving me cold under my coat. For a second I am back in that kitchen that does not belong to me anymore, watching him slide his phone facedown, telling myself not to make a scene. The phantom weight of Lola’s leash burns in my palm. I hear her nails on the hardwood that last morning, the way she whined at the door when I could not take her with me.
Anger lifts first, clean and bright. It hits my tongue like copper. Nerves come right after, a thin, mean flutter under my ribs. There is a smaller voice that I hate, the one that asks if I look like someone who had to start over with two suitcases and a defeated heart. If I look like a woman who lost the couch and the bed and the dog and still somehow kept her soft parts intact.
I straighten. I make myself breathe. The glassy calm I used to wear for him slides toward me out of habit, and I push it away. I don’t need it. Not here. Not with Remy’s truck warm at my back and his steady presence like a weight in the world.
Derek’s eyes flick over me. He smiles again, that knife-flat line, and tucks his mail under his arm like he is winning. My hands shake once on my lap and then go still. I lace my fingers together, so I don’t ball them into fists.
I hear Remy’s breath, a slow drag in and out. He does not touch me, but I feel him anyway, the way the cab gathers around his quiet. The way he becomes a place to stand. The shame that used to curl me small does not find a home this time. It burns off in the heat of my anger and the steady thud of my own heart.
“Ready?” Remy asks, voice low.
I lift my chin. “Yeah,” I say. My voice holds. “I am ready.”
Derek takes a step like he might come over. I open my door first. The cold hits my face, sharp and clean, and I climb out into it like it belongs to me.
For a second, Remy doesn’t move, just stares at Derek likehe’s measuring the distance between him and deciding how he wants to do this.
“I can do this,” I say quickly. I’m more convincing myself than I am stating a fact. It’s not working.
Remy’s eyes cut to me, one brow lifting. “Wait here a minute. I’ll be right back.”
It’s not a suggestion. Not patronizing either, it’s protective in a way that makes my pulse jump. And normally I’d argue, but something tells me he’s right, and I should wait.
He gets out, shutting the door with a slam that echoes across the small yard. No gloves. Coat unzipped just enough to see the flannel underneath. His shoulders roll as if he’s getting ready for a fight.
Junie watches and asks, “Who isthatguy?”
“That’s my ex-boyfriend, Derek.” I murmur.
“Is that the one Uncle Finn calls Temu?” she asks, confused.
“That’s the one,” I say, biting my lip nervously as I watch.
“Well, you definitely got an upgrade with my dad,” she mutters.
“Hey! Your dad and I are just friends,” I blurt. I roll my window down and listen; Junie leans in, too.
“Bennett,” Derek says with fake surprise, straightening.
Wait. Do they know each other? I rack my brain trying to remember if Derek had met Remy at a family dinner or something, but Derek mostly made me go alone to those.
“Here to get Ivy’s things,” Remy says flatly. “You gonna move, or do I need to go through you?”
Derek laughs, but it’s thin. “This is between Ivy and me. Maybe you should go back to your little tree farm. Couldn’t hack it here as a lawyer, right?”
Wait, what?
