Page 6 of Saint Nick
She softened at that—not backing off, just easing the pressure a bit. “I get that,” she said. “But sometimes, saying it out loud takes the sting away.” Nick didn’t respond. He didn’t have a good comeback for that one.
“You wanted to know about me. Well, here’s the short version. I moved here because I was looking for a place to call home after my mother passed away. I had to watch her wither into nothing, and I felt some sick relief when she finally died. What kind of person does that make me?” she asked. “But I’m telling you this because it takes away some of the disgust that I feel about myself for feeling that way about my mother’s death.”
Nick stared at her, her words sitting between them like the steam curling up from their mugs. He hadn’t expected that—hadn’t expected her to open herself up like that. She was supposed to be a reporter with too many questions and not enough boundaries. But right now, she wasn’t prying. She was just a woman with cracks of her own, talking about loss in a way that hit him square in the chest. He felt it—more than he wanted to.
“I’m sure that’s normal,” Nick said. “I mean, I’ve never had to watch one of my parents die, but if I did, I’m sure that I’d want them to find peace instead of living in pain.” He left out the part about not having parents to watch them die. He didn’t tell Sandy that he was bounced from foster home to fosterhome, and that he didn’t care about any of his foster parents enough to be there for them when they died.
She leaned back against the booth, shoulders dropping as if telling her story had worn her out. Her voice had cracked a little when she talked about her mom and losing her. It wasn’t practiced or polished; it was real. Nick tapped his thumb against his coffee mug, debating with himself. Normally, this was the part where he shut it down. People talked, he listened, and he gave them nothing in return. It was cleaner that way, and much safer for him. It avoided the messy feelings that he hated putting out into the world. But something about the way she looked at him—steady, soft, and not a hint of pity—loosened something tight inside his chest. Because he hated pity more than he hated the fucking truth.
“My foster homes—” The words came out low and rough, like they’d been buried for too long. “They weren’t big on holidays. Some of them tried with plastic trees in the corner of the family room, and tinsel that looked like it had been dragged through the dirt. But it always felt fake. I knew the score—they were temporary homes for me, and that made Christmas feel temporary too. Kind of like the kind of Christmas you could pack in a box and shove in a closet when you got bored.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. She didn’t give him the wide-eyed sympathy he usually got when people learned he’d grown up in the system. She just listened, which made it easier for him to keep going.
“I used to wait for someone to show up,” he said, his throat tightening around the memory. “I thought maybe my mom would come back and surprise me on Christmas morning. Or maybe some family I didn’t know that I had would just appear and say they’d been looking for me all along. But no one evercame. Year after year, it was the same—no family, no presents, nothing.” He forced a breath out through his nose, sharp and controlled. “After a while, Christmas just stopped meaning anything at all. I learned not to hope for anything. It was just another reminder that I didn’t belong anywhere and that no one wanted me.”
The quiet that followed didn’t make him want to get up and walk out of the diner, the way silence usually did. It wasn’t heavy or sharp. It just sat there with them, and no one felt the need to fill the quiet space between the two of them. Then she reached across the table and slid her hand over his. It wasn’t a dramatic move, just warm, and steady contact. Her skin was soft. Her touch—unshakable.
“You do now,” she said softly. The words caught him off guard. His breath snagged before he could stop it. He didn’t do promises. He didn’t believe in them. Hell, he didn’t make them, but the way she said it wasn’t like a promise. It was just a truth she’d decided to give to him.
“You don’t have to like Christmas,” she added. “You don’t even have to put up a tree. But maybe it doesn’t have to hurt so much anymore.” His gaze dropped to their joined hands. No one had ever said something like that to him. Not like they meant it, and he could tell that Sandy meant every word she was saying to him.
He huffed out a quiet laugh, rough around the edges. “You’re stubborn, you know that?” he asked, trying to avoid all the feelings that were currently plaguing him.
Sandy’s smile was small, but it hit him like a punch to the ribs. “Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. Comes with being a reporter.” She seemed to know that he needed a break from their serious conversation and didn’t seem to mind shifting thefocus back to herself. He shook his head, but the sharp edges in his chest loosened just a little.
Outside the window, the Christmas lights were still there—blinking, bright, too damn cheerful. But they didn’t feel like an enemy tonight. For the first time in a long time, Nick didn’t feel like Christmas was something that he had to survive. It was just there—another day, and maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t completely alone in it anymore.
Her words dug into his soul—not because they mirrored his own pain, but because she said them out loud like she wasn’t ashamed of them. He’d spent years keeping his words locked up tight, convinced that if no one heard them, the truth couldn’t hurt him anymore. Sandy didn’t push again right away, and he appreciated that. But the silence wasn’t heavy this time. It was shared and easy. This time, neither of them seemed to be in a rush to fill the quiet.
“It’s not that I don’t like Christmas,” he finally said. “It’s that I never really had one, I guess. Foster care isn’t big on family traditions, you know? Some years, they gave us donated toys, and some years, there was nothing. I used to lie awake and imagine someone would show up—someone who gave a damn, but no one ever did. After a while, it was just another day. A reminder that I didn’t belong anywhere. And then, when I got older, I just decided that if the world didn’t want to give me Christmas, I didn’t want it either,” he finished with a shrug, like the years of pain behind that statement were nothing.
Sandy reached across the table, covering his hand with hers again. “You know, Santa, you can hate the holiday all you want. But that doesn’t mean it can’t change.”
Nick huffed out a laugh, low and rough. “We’ll see about that.”
Her fingers lingered over his knuckles. Warm and steady. Sandy seemed to be unafraid of the sharp edges he’d spent years building up around himself. And for the first time in a long time, Nick didn’t pull away, feeling the need to protect himself, because with Sandy, he already felt safe.
SANDY
Sandy hated pushing people. Normally, she didn’t; it was why she usually stuck with editing and didn’t actually write the new stories. She was good at sensing when someone wanted to keep their walls up, when backing off was the kinder thing to do. But Nick was different. The way he sat so straight, shoulders rigid, eyes flicking toward the glowing Christmas lights outside like they were a threat, told her there was something underneath his carefully constructed silence. Something real, and for some reason, that made her want to pry further.
“You don’t have to tell me everything,” she said gently, tilting her head, trying to keep her voice soft instead of intrusive. “But you should know, I get it. Starting over. Trying to outrun something—that’s hard to do.”
That made him look at her, really look at her, for the first time since she’d sat down across from him. His gaze was steady, but guarded, like a man trying to decide whether to open a door or keep it bolted. “Yeah?” he asked quietly.
She nodded, running her finger over the rim of her coffee mug. Talking about her mom still felt like pressing on a bruise that hadn’t fully healed, but she forced the words out anyway. “My mom died a year ago,” she said, her voice softer than she intended. “She raised me alone. I never knew my dad—she always made up stories about him. Said I was brought down to her by an angel, and I used to believe her.” She chuckled at the memory of her mother saying that to her. Nick didn’t interrupt. He didn’t glance away like most people did when conversations turned uncomfortable. He just watched her and listened.
“She made Christmas big,” Sandy continued, her throat tightening. “Tacky lights, carols on repeat, hot chocolate with way too much whipped cream. She tried to make everything feel magical because she didn’t have much else to give me. And when she died, all of that just vanished. The house, the beach, the people I grew up around—it all felt wrong without her. So I left.”
“Just like that?” he asked. His voice was low, but there was no judgment in it.
She gave a small laugh. “Yeah, just like that. I packed up my life and drove until the ache didn’t feel like it was going to swallow me whole anymore. I ended up here, and I’m still not sure if it was brave or stupid. At first, I was living off the money that my mother left me, but then I decided that I needed to earn my own way in the world. So, I found the job at the newspaper and started working as an editor.”
His hand tightened around his glass, and she saw something flicker in his eyes—recognition, and maybe even understanding. “An editor who sometimes works as a reporter,” he corrected.
“Yes, and sometimes, I work as a reporter. I usually don’tlike having to do interviews or write stories, but there was something about your story that made me want to. Maybe it had more to do with the article being about Christmas,” she admitted. “Christmas used to mean something,” she said softly. “Now it’s just so complicated. At least for everyone else in the world. People like us—who have no one left in our families to spend Christmas with, well, it’s a bit less complicated.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The low hum of the diner filled the space between them—an old country song playing through dusty speakers, the clink of silverware, and the murmur of private conversations. “How about you come to the holiday party with me at Road Reapers?” he asked. Sandy didn’t breathe. She didn’t want to scare the moment away. “Then neither of us will have to spend Christmas feeling so alone.”
