Page 81 of The Holiday Ex-Files

I hemmed and hawed a bit. “I do love a good snow angel. And it is a first snow tradition.”

That’s my girl, Miss Sparkly sang.

You win this time, but don’t get any ideas about the C-word. Also, do you think I’m a skank?

No, no. Not at all. She didn’t sound very convincing. And Annika did say you were good for Noah.

That’s true. And Noah and I can stay friends, right?

Of course, honey. You have nothing to worry about.

Did that sound like she was leading me to my death, or was that just me?

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dear Ex-Filers, I heard that remodeling is like pulling a loose thread on a cheap sweater. I should have listened. I’m accepting prayers, thoughts, and/or burnt offerings on my behalf, whatever you got.

Lots of love,

Cami

In the last few weeks following my cabinet choice it seemed like it was one thing after another. I went with a muted shade of gray, by the way. Well, that’s what I thought. Noah had placed the order two weeks ago, but we found out yesterday they are no longer making that style. This is after I was told all the pipes need to be replaced in my kitchen and I have mold. Not the bad kind that will kill you, which I guess is good, but all the drywall in my kitchen had to go. If that wasn’t bad enough, one of the subcontractors Noah had hired helped himself to all my wine. Needless to say, he got fired.

I now lived in a demolition zone. I blame Noah. He promised this would be fun. He lied. Well, not exactly. It has been fun hanging out with him most nights. I never knew you could get so much pleasure using a sledgehammer to take out drywall. I would have bought a sledgehammer a long time ago, had I known. Or invited Noah over to use one in front of me. Oy vey, was he attractive.

Of course, this was creating a huge internal conflict. I was becoming more and more of a skank. Noah had also been spending a lot of time with Annika doing “home improvement” projects. They had now moved on to polishing her wood floors and building shelves. He could have just said they were having sex. I knew what that was, and I was a big girl. I could handle the truth. Well, sort of. I felt as if I were desperately clinging to my friendship with Noah, knowing all this time together would eventually come to an end. The writing was on the wall. Noah had even quit doing photo shoots. That meant he had quit dating other women. He’d said it was time. He’d been awfully hopeful since Halloween night.

Yet there I was, feeling things for Noah that I shouldn’t. Things that scared me. I was blaming the snow and hanging out with Jaxon and Liam, making toilet paper roll turkeys and candy cornucopias. Add in some pumpkin and apple pies for their mommy, who was still dutifully and restlessly on bed rest. All this cozy cheeriness made me want to snuggle. And not just anyone—Noah. I started to wonder if this was how it all began with Claudia and Ben. Claudia had become his client, his very needy client, wanting his opinion on everything from how she should rearrange her furniture before I took the freaking pictures for her listing, to analyzing every last number to come up with the asking price. Did I question all the phone calls and Ben’s attentiveness? No, because I blindly trusted him. It didn’t matter that he had made me question who I was—I knew he would never betray me like that.

Now here I was having cuddling thoughts about a friend’s lover. I assuaged my guilt by telling myself that Noah wasn’t married, he hadn’t even made his relationship with Annika Facebook official—or official in any sense of the word. And we had done nothing inappropriate. Nor would we ever. I was the single guru, after all. And for Noah’s part, I was sure hanging out with me was like hanging out with his guy friends, minus the beer and incessant sports. I mean, I could out-burp any man.

“What did you tell your ever-loyal followers?” Noah shook me out of my thoughts.

I turned and smiled at him, well really Luna, who had her head between us in Noah’s truck. She went with us a lot now on our hardware store runs. I’d never been to the hardware store more in my life than I had the last few weeks.

I rubbed Luna’s head; we had become besties, even though she was trying to steal my baby. My baby who still refused car rides unless he was sedated. We had tried, but it wasn’t pretty. I was happy Neville was still somewhat psychotic. That was normal. However, as soon as we got back with Luna, he would be acting like Barry White showing his lady to his pad. I’d gotten him a bigger bed so they had more room to cuddle.

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