Page 86 of The Santa Rules
“I forgive you. I know it’s not easy to admit all this.”
“And then you and Jake divorced, and I felt even worse, but again the focus wasn’t on me and my crappy marriage.”
“No, it was on mine.” I let out a sardonic laugh. “But Jake and I didn’t end our marriage because of all the stuff Chuck said at the bar that night. It was a long time coming. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that either.”
“He drinks a lot, ya know. And I told him that I was done.”
“Good for you. You deserve better than that. No one deserves to be around that.”
“Right. Well, he didn’t like that. Once Hardy dropped him at home, he drank more. And when I didn’t come home, he stayed up drinking all night and ended up in Santa’s Workshop when he came looking for us at school the next morning.”
“You are not responsible for his actions,” I say, looking into her eyes. “And it takes guts to admit all of this to me. It’s brave, and you should be proud of that.”
“It doesn’t feel brave. I feel like a hot mess. I feel like everyone’s talking about me and what a total shit show I am.”
“You wanna know a secret? We’re all shit shows. Some days we’re a massive dump, and then other days we’re all backed up and it just looks like we’ve got it together. And some days smell worse than others. But at the end of the day, everyone poops. And we can point out the size, shape, and color of each other’s turds, but we all make turds.” I smile to myself, kinda proud of my profound poop analogy.
“Okay, why does that make so much sense?” she says, laughing.
“Because everyone poops.” I wiggle an eyebrow at her, and she smiles.
“You’re really weird.”
“Thanks?”
“But I like you.”
Before we can braid each other’s hair around the proverbial campfire, Isaac walks up behind her and clears his throat.
“I’m coming,” I jokingly grumble before turning back to Amber. “Are you going to be okay? Do you need a place to stay? You’re always welcome at our place.”
“We’re good, actually. We’re staying at my mom’s, but that’s really sweet, especially after I’ve been so awful to you.”
“We still have six days till Christmas. It’s never too late to make it onto the nice list.”
CHAPTER 29
HARDY
“Daddy! Daddy, wake up! It’s Christmas!” Avery shouts as she climbs on the bed, jumping up and down, before crawling between me and Bella.
Since Avery decided she wanted Giraffe and Bella to celebrate Christmas with us, they spent the night. They’ve actually been staying over every night since Christmas break started. We were able to clear some space in the finished part of the basement for Isaac to set up an air mattress so he could have his own area too.
“Coffee,” Bella grumbles sleepily, curling up tighter. I roll out of bed, pull on some sweats, and head downstairs with Avery.
Isaac is sitting at the kitchen table when we walk in. “I already started the coffee for Mom. Hey, Butterfly, did you see what Santa did? Go look.”
She runs over to the front room with the tree and is stopped by a giant wall of paper blocking off the room.
“He did it!” Avery squeals as she jumps up and down.
“What’s happening now?” I ask, looking very perplexed at the wall of wrapping paper I definitely didn’t put there. When I look over at Isaac, he just gives me a wink.
“I asked Sprinkle to wrap up the whole room. Bella said you have to ask Santa, but I forgot, and then Isaac said I could ask Sprinkle on Christmas Eve. And he did it!” she says, bouncing up and down.
Bella stumbles downstairs in a pair of flannel pajama pants and one of my old fire station T-shirts, her hair thrown up in a messy bun on the top of her head. She’s never looked more beautiful, and I can’t help but stare as she walks over and reaches into the cupboard behind me for a mug.
“Why are you staring at me like that? Do I have something on my face?” she asks through a yawn.
