Chapter Twenty-Four
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TONI
I don’t realize my mistake until I pull away from the kiss—a very sweet and tender one, I might add—see the expression on Audrey’s face, and realize there is a vacuum of silence in our kitchen.
I have the crazy idea to cover my mistake by kissing Willa, too, and even turn toward her. She obviously reads the panic written all over my face, and somehow has the same idea as me.
“My turn,” she says, and steps forward.
“Merry Christmas Eve, Willa,” I say, and kiss her as quickly as possible. But she won’t let me go and holds me to her for what seems like forever, but is probably only a few seconds, about the length of time I kissed Audrey. Thank God the kiss I gave Audrey was pretty chaste, or I think Willa would go for more.
When she pulls back, she turns to Greta with a big smile and open arms. “Your turn, Greta.”
“I’ve already wished you merry Christmas Eve.” Greta’s voice is as stiff as her expression.
“Oh right. Last night. I forgot. If you would have added a kiss, like Toni, I’d remember.” Willa turns to my mom, whose eyes are wide. “What can I do to help, Ingrid? Dishes are washed. Anything else for your sous chef?”
I appreciate how Willa is trying to brazen this all out, to make it normal so Audrey and I can talk later, but it’s definitely not working.
“Um, well,” my mom says.
She and Dad glance at each other and Dad says, “Ingrid, remember that thing I, uh, wanted to show you in, erm, the workshop?” If this wasn’t the start of a dumpster fire, I would laugh at how comically high my dad’s voice goes at the end of the question.
“Yes, absolutely. Let’s do that now.” And at that my mom, who has never been one to shirk a confrontation, practically sprints out of the kitchen.
Once they’re out of the room, and I hear the back door close behind them, I have no choice but to turn around to Audrey. She’s sitting in much the same position as I left her. That has to be good, right?
“Audrey, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking and…” I trail off. No. I’m not going to say what she wants to hear, I’m going to say what I want, what I meant. “It’s not a big deal. It’s just my family.”
“And that is our cue to exit, Greta,” Willa says.
She starts towards the stairs, but Greta seems glued to her seat.
Audrey stands. “We’ll go.”
I follow Audrey up the stairs and to my room, and close the door behind us.
“Look, I’m really sorry, Audrey. When I saw you and you were looking at me like that I just forgot where I was and who else was there. All I thought was how happy I was to see you first thing in the morning, in my childhood home, on my favorite holiday.” I move close and pull her to me. “How I hope this is the first of many.”
Audrey steps out of my embrace. “OK, stop. This is not taking it slow, Toni.”
“Audrey…”
“No. The kiss, I understand.” She looks at me. “I wanted to kiss you, too. But all the rest of it. I’m not ready for any of that.”
“Which is why we’re going to take it slow.”
“Kissing me in front of your family is not taking it slow, Toni. Talking about future holidays together is the very opposite of taking it slow.”
“I can’t want those things?”
Audrey sighs and looks up at the ceiling, as if searching for the answers. Finally she looks me dead in the eye and says, “I don’t want those things.”
I feel as if I’ve been punched in the solar plexus. “What?” I say, in a voice strangled with shock.
“I thought I made it pretty clear yesterday that I just want to have fun. Like you offered that first night. No strings. That’s the kind of rela— attachments you’re used to, right?”
I’m listening to her but barely understand the words coming out of her mouth. Her expression is so far removed from how she looked at me when I came into the house not five minutes ago I wonder which one is real, which expression is a figment of my imagination. They both can’t be right.
“I don’t want that with you,” I manage to say.
“You don’t want to have fun?”
“I don’t want it to be that…shallow. We aren’t that shallow.” There’s a flicker in her mask, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. “You felt it that night, too, Audrey. That connection. I didn’t imagine it.”
“That night was amazing and fun, but there was nothing more.”
“Audrey, I fell in lov?—”
“No,” Audrey says. “You do not get to say that to me right now.”
I bristle, and Max’s words come back to me. “Oh, I don’t get to say that I love you? That I started falling in love with you the moment I saw you in Dewey’s that night and have been falling further and further every day since?”
“No! Fuck, Toni. It’s too soon.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I can say or how I can feel, Audrey. All I’ve done is be respectful of what you’ve wanted, every step of the way. I was ready to give you all the time you needed after the Christmas party, but you decided that you wanted me. That you were ready. I shouldn’t have given in, but I did. You want to take it slow, and I will. But letting my family know that we’re seeing each other isn’t rushing things. Telling you how I feel isn’t rushing things.”
“Telling me you’ve loved me since you set eyes on me is leveling things up pretty far, Toni.”
“If I was asking you to marry me, or move in with me, then yeah. But I’m not. I’m not ready for that, either. But, yes, I want that with you long term.”
Max’s words echo in my head. There’s nothing wrong with asking for what you want, Toni.
Fuck it.
I inhale. “I love you, Audrey, and I want to grow old with you.”
Audrey’s head jerks back as if I slapped her, and her eyes go comically wide. Any subliminal hope I’d harbored that my declaration would make her melt into a pile of goo and declare her undying love is shattered when her shocked expression morphs into something like resignation.
“I can’t say those words, Toni. Any of them.”
“It’s OK,” I say quickly. “You don’t have to. I just wanted you to know how I feel.”
“But I didn’t want to know,” Audrey says. “I don’t need, or want, that pressure, the responsibility.”
“Responsibility? For what?”
“Your feelings. It doesn’t matter what I feel, it will never live up to ‘I want to grow old with you.’ Jesus, Toni, what are you thinking? Laying something like that on me after I’ve known you a month? Not just me but on anyone? There is nothing about this conversation that goes along with what we agreed to last night. Or did you just agree to whatever would get you laid?”
Now I’m getting angry. “First of all, you came on to me, let’s not forget that. Second, it wasn’t like we had a huge conversation about any of this.”
“We could have if you hadn’t left the room so quickly this morning.”
She had a point, but I ignored it. “You’re blowing this all way out of proportion. We are going to take it slow, I promise. I just wanted you to know how I felt so that…”
Audrey crosses her arms over her chest. “So that what?”
I inhale. I had no idea it would be this fucking hard to ask for what I want, to put myself, if not first, at least on equal standing, with Audrey. “So that you aren’t the only one who gets what she wants out of this relationship, which is kind of how it’s been so far. You’ve set all the rules, and I’ve gone along because I want to be with you. But I’m part of this relationship, too, and you need to get that.”
“You’re absolutely right. That’s what I want in a relationship, too. Eventually. But I can’t give that to you right now. I have to put myself first, professionally and personally.”
“I understand,” I say. “We can?—”
“Stop,” Audrey says sharply. “Will you please just fucking listen to me?”
“I am.”
“No you’re not.” She closes her eyes and rubs her forehead. “I can’t do this again.” She looks me in the eye, her expression hard. “Stop trying to charm me into giving in and going along. Grow up, Toni. Take no for an answer. I don’t want a relationship with you.”
Audrey steps around me, careful to avoid touching me, and leaves the room.