Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
“Yeah, what’s so important?” Jake chimed in, half rising himself.
“You know what’s so important,” I said, looking directly at him.
He grinned, looking so much like Bryan, like a full-grown man, that it made this dinner even more of a charade. I wanted to laugh at us, but then there was Marjorie looking baffled and hurt.
“Is anyone going to tell me?” she asked, looking from me to Jake. A piece of glitter flaked off her hat and landed on her cheek. She didn’t notice.
“He’s going to Mrs. Kloss’s Christmas ball,” Jake said. “And so are we. Come on, Mom. Go get dressed.”
“We?” I repeated. “I don’t think so.”
But Jake ignored me and headed back to his room. “Hurry up, Mom,” he called over his shoulder.
“The Christmas ball?” Marjorie repeated, mystified. “Why?”
“He’ll explain in the car!” Jake yelled from his bedroom.
“I’m not going to explain shit in the car,” I told Marjorie. “But if you want to come, I’m leaving in five minutes.”
Marjorie and Jake were ready in less than that, and Jake explained in the car for me, glossing over some of the details. Marjorie needled the details out of him anyway, and I sat stone silent in the driver’s seat, driving as fast as I could. I slowed down when we turned up Mrs. Kloss’s driveway, but the trees still whisked by in a blur of light. I was too impatient to go the recommended five mph. Selena was at the top of this hill, and I had to get to her.
I felt Marjorie’s eyes on me though as she got the full story. I glanced over at her once, wondering what I’d see. To my surprise, there wasn’t a hint of reproach.
“You can’t help who you fall in love with,” she said quietly. “And you can’t fall out of love with them, even when you think you should.”
She was talking about Bryan. She was still in love with him, even now, almost twenty years after his death. Before, the idea of loving someone that much, even after their death, would have slingshot chills up and down my spine. Now I understood that it was worth it. It was worth anything.
We pulled up to the sweeping front entrance of the Kloss mansion and jumped out. I tossed the keys to the valet and took the steps two at a time, not even pausing to appreciate the show the dancers dressed up as Nutcrackers were doing up and down the steps.
The house was overstuffed with Christmas. Everywhere I looked there were elves and angels and fake snow falling and guests dressed up in sparkling, flashing sequined dresses. Music was playing in every room. A band was in the great room, and all the French doors were thrown open so the party spilled out onto the huge back patio.
“Let’s split up,” Jake called in my ear. “I’ll look for her outside. Mom, you take that end of the room. Text Uncle Nic if you see Selena.”
Marjorie nodded and disappeared toward the end of the room that had the huge, roaring fireplace. Jake was swallowed up by the crowd. I started working my end of the room, looking for the slender figure of a girl with golden brown hair and eyes as big and bright as fog lights. I spotted one–a girl in a sequined dress who was whirling around the dance floor, mouth stretched wide in a laugh I couldn’t hear over the music. It wasn’t Selena, but my heart leapt anyway. If Christi was here, Selena had to be here somewhere.
I started toward her, but before I reached her, I saw Selena. She was standing at the edge of the dance floor looking ethereally beautiful in a dark red dress that made her creamy skin look pale as snow in contrast and brought out the gold in her hair. My heart took another flying leap, but this time, it smacked into a brick wall. Because even as I spotted her, the man standing beside her, the one she was smiling up at, extended his hand.
32
SELENA
I started to lift my own hand, but suddenly, all of my will to move on deserted me. I didn’t want to dance with another man and pretend like everything was normal. Maybe one day, but not yet.
I smiled regretfully and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
He raised one elegant eyebrow, perplexed by my abrupt turnaround, but he was too much of a gentleman to press me. Maybe he could see the reason in my eyes. I was learning that heartbreak didn’t stay in your chest. It broke in your eyes and your smile, too. “I hope you have a Merry Christmas,” he said kindly.
I watched him walk away, wondering disinterestedly what might have happened if I’d met him before Dominic. He checked all of my usual boxes. Could I have loved him? Did it even matter? This wasn’t a movie where I could go back in time and do my life differently and choose the other guy. And this definitely wasn’t the movie where the hero shows up at the climax, a sprig of mistletoe in his hand, an apology on his lips.