Page 54 of Home for the Holidays

Heidi slid her hand down so she could take Iris’s in hers. “We’ll figure it out, won’t we?”

“Heidi, my love?” Stanley’s booming voice interrupted Heidi’s question as he glided into the kitchen. “Where is the—whoa, whoa, what’s going on?”

Heidi dropped Iris’s hand as soon as she heard his voice, which caused Iris’s heart to skyrocket into her throat.

“Is everything okay?” Stanley’s question was dripping with accusation.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Iris said. “I was just, um…”

“She was telling me about—”

“My parents.” Iris cringed, and a wave of anxiety washed over her. “They’re on a cruise for Christmas. Just missing them. It’s okay! No worries. I’ll get out of your hair.” And she escaped the conversation as fast as she could, flying out of the kitchen like she was on fire.

CHAPTERNINETEEN

“Heidi, babe, what are you doing?” Stanley was staring at her, eyebrows raised. “Hmm?”

“What are you talking about?” She turned from him, immediately worried that she’d given herself away. He was hot on her tail, though, and when she stopped abruptly, he ran smack into her backside. “Stanley, what the hell? What is wrong with you?”

“No, no, what is wrong with you?” He wagged his finger at her. “Are you trying to scare her off?”

She laughed in his face. “If that’s what you think I was doing, you are out of your mind.” She slipped the last of the sandwiches in their Santa Claus themed baggies into a cooler and handed it over to her ex-husband, then busied herself with the cinnamon rolls she had decided to make, sprinkling flour on the island before she rolled the dough onto the countertop. “Why are you being like this? Did something happen that I need to know about?” She was trying her damnedest to get him on a different track.

His shoulders fell as he leaned against the counter, folding his arms across his chest. “No, no, not at all. Everything’s been great at work. Y’know, Kevin is set to make partner at the firm. It’s just been a lot of—wait a second.” He turned so he was facing her again. “Not so fast, Heidi Nowak. Stop trying to distract me.”

“So close,” she joked.

“Honey,” he said as he grabbed her flour-covered hands. “Are you going to tell them?”

It wasn’t exactly the track she wanted, but it was better than being asked why she had been holding Iris’s hand.

Stanley was the only family member who knew about her newfound discovery. She didn’t know who else to talk to, well, besides Sandy, and that was getting harder and harder. Her ex’s reaction when she had told him was about as anticlimactic as ever. He had had the nerve to say, “Duh, Heidi. I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to figure it out.” To say she wasn’t impressed with his crass attitude was putting it lightly.

Heidi nodded. “I will, but I can’t today. Evan is coming over to hang out with Zac, and I don’t want to steal any of his thunder.”

“Heidi.”

“What?’

“Zac brought agirlhome. What are youdoing?” His voice was laced with irritation. He removed his glasses and rubbed his hands over his face, up to his nonexistent hairline. “Youcannotscrew this up. Do you want him to end up like me? Or like you?” He let out an exasperated sigh before he replaced his glasses. “For Pete’s sake.”

“Wow.” Heidi had stilled all of her movements as she witnessed his dramatic frustration on full display.

“Don’t.”

“No. Stanley,wow.” She rolled her eyes.

“Heidi, I swear to Christ.”

“On the day before Hisbirth?” That, fortunately, got him to smile, for which she was thankful. “Stanley, come on. If you truly think they’re a couple, you need to open your eyes and read the room.” She moved in front of him, and because she knew he would hate her for it later, she placed her flour-covered hands on his arms. “We both know he hasn’t been into women his entire life. If you don’t want him to end up like you or like me—thank you, by the way, for making me feel like I’m so awful that no one should ever want to end up like me—then we need to show him that we support him no matter what. And that means allowing him to be the person he is, not forcing him to be the person he thought we always wanted him to be.”

She searched Stanley’s face as he listened to her. He was such a handsome man. She had fallen in love with him so quickly and without any reservations. She had known the second he kissed her under the bleachers in high school that he was the man she was going to have children with. She also knew he was far more fluid than any person she’d ever met. She had realized that when they were in Paris. Oh, so much happened ingay Paris, to the point that she had chosen to forget most of it.

“Well? Are you going to respond?”

He sighed as she rubbed his arms. “As much as it pains me to say this”—he paused before his eyes locked onto hers—“you’re right.”

“Ha!” She smacked him playfully before shooting her hands into the air. “Yes!”

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