Page 35 of Secret Santa

“Fitzy?” I asked, “Where is everyone else? Where is Declan, and whomever has me, and the rest of the people who agreed to participate this year?”

“Oh, you haven’t figured it out?” Presley asked, with surprise in his voice.

Hearing his voice was like a dagger tipped vise to my heart. As much as I wanted to hug and be hugged by him, part of me still felt betrayed.

“Figured what out?” I asked, looking toward Fitzy whose rosy cheeks seemed to lend more toward a blush than an alcohol flush.

“We’re each other’s Secret Santas. Until you gave me that picture of my brothers I honestly didn’t know. Not even the slightest inkling. But that picture was too intimate, it hit too close to home to have been from someone who barely knew me.”

He smiled and reached out to pull me into a hug, but I couldn’t. It was too much. It all seemed so…contrived.

“Fitzy.”

The word choked me. It held too many questions. The light that danced in them seconds ago suddenly widened in realization that her little scheme might not produce her desired result.

“How could you?” I asked.

Betrayed. That’s what I felt. From both of them for different reasons. Him for using me and my diner for a good publicity stunt. Her for taking my heart and making me believe there was something between Presley and me. Teasing me with the hope that someone was genuinely interested in me. That I’d been interesting enough on my own to warrant interest from someone like him. Handsome, successful, a total package. But it hadn’t. She’d forced him into my diner under the guise of forced participation in a fake gift exchange.

I needed out. Watching the realization light her eyes and crash down into horror, I knew she saw it. What she’d done. I didn’t wait for an explanation. I turned and bolted out the door. Both of them called after me. They knocked on my door and called my cell phone for a good hour. But I deafened my ears to her entreaties and his requests for me to open my door, to please answer the phone, to do anything so that he could explain. I didn’t need explanations. In fact I didn’t even want them. Once they finally gave up and my front door was mine again, I picked up my bag and walked away from Fitzpatrick place.

ChapterTwenty-Five

Fitzy blamed herself. The woman looked despondent. Every time I’d run into her she’d ask me if I’d heard from Priscilla, which I hadn’t. We found out from Tomás she was in Chicago at her brother’s place for the holiday. Despite Christmas still being two weeks away. An “extended vacation,” she’d told him. From his explanation she didn’t even seem to care if the diner stayed open for its full schedule. She told him to work when he could, find coverage where he couldn’t and if there were times the diner was closed, then “oh well.”

That was definitely not like the Priscilla I knew. The university went on break the second week of December, and since then I’d taken shifts at the diner myself. Even though she was mad at that moment, eventually she’d come around and the last thing I wanted was for her to be worried about making ends meet with an under-operating restaurant. And, maybe I hoped one time when she called to check in, she’d get me instead of Tomás or Rylan.

“Gimme a Legend sugar and make it a double.”

Fitzy came into the diner while I worked the counter. The more time that passed with she and Priscilla not talking, the more her age she looked. I hadn’t known Fitzy nearly as long as the rest of the town but seeing her almost frail in stature worried me.

“Fitzy you’re lactose intolerant. If I make you a double milkshake, you’ll be in a world of hurt. How about I split one with you?”

“I don’t even like peanut butter and putting bacon jam in a milkshake seems sacrilege. I’m so out of my mind with worry I just said the first thing that came to my head. I’m gonna skip the milkshake. How about just a Coke and a burger?”

“That I can do.”

While Rylan got her burger started, I took a seat next to her.

“I’m really worried, Presley. We’ve never gone this long without talking.”

“I know. I’ve been going over it in my head more than I probably should. But I think the two things go hand in hand. Priscilla doesn’t think she’s good enough to be part of this town. She believes people judge her still because of her dad. She even called herself the townduffand said it was the only reason people forgot who she was.”

Fitzy’s lips quirked up on one side, her nose crinkling in disgust.

“Designated ugly fat friend,” I clarified. “I had to Google it too. But that she honestly believes that the town just simply ignores her existence rather than appreciates the fact that sheexistsand brings light to people’s lives every single day. I am just flabbergasted that she doesn’t see that. The town loves her. I know they do. They wouldn’t be lining up to buy her cakes and pies and place catering orders with her if they held any ill will toward her. But I think you creating a fake Secret Santa may have poked into that wound. Maybe she thinks I was tricked into falling in love with her.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop and inspect them. To consider their weight and how I felt with them. But once they were set into the universe, I felt free. My whole being felt lighter with that knowledge.

“I just can’t believe.” Fitzy’s voice was barely a whisper. She looked over my shoulder to the picture I’d given to Priscilla. She’d hung it in a place of pride, on the wall behind the cash register. “Most of those old biddies have been in the ground at least ten years. The rest of them are too old to remember why they’re mad. I know all the town gossips. There isn’t a single person who has ill will toward our girl. This place isn’t even the Bourbon City it was when she was growing up. Not by a longshot.”

Our girl. The sound of that title filled me with hope. It renewed my determination. I would double down on my efforts to bring Priscilla around from this exile she’d shoved herself into.

ChapterTwenty-Six

I shouldn’t have ran. I knew that. Burying my head in the sand like an ostrich would solve nothing. But every time I picked up my phone, I chickened out. I don’t know what I thought either Fitzy or Presley would say that deserved this kind of behavior from me but I also was frozen in fear of finding out.

“There’s another one today.” Jesse came into the living room with his phone in hand.

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