Chapter Five
Beep-beep-beep-beep!
My phone alarm goes off, breaking me out of my pleasant slumber. I reach over and hit the snooze, then roll back over on top of Rhys’s chest.
Wait a second…
Rhys is in my bed. Naked. Shit, I’m naked, too. My hand runs over the smattering of hair as the memory of last night comes flooding back. Rhys and I kissing under the mistletoe. Making out. Fooling around. Having sex.
Three times.
Well, damn.
Everything about it was amazing when we were in the moment last night, but now that I’m waking up in the aftermath of our misguided actions, I’m realizing the gravity of what happened. Our friendship is effectively ruined. Everything is irrevocably changed. We can’t go back from this.
But could we go forward?
I mean, Rhys and I dating would be easy because we’re such good friends. But what if something goes wrong? What if something changes down the line? Then I’ll have lost the best friend I’ve ever had, and I certainly don’t want that to happen.
The problem is, we’ve gone all the way, so we’re already in an awkward position. We could go back to being friends, but it probably wouldn’t be the same.
When my alarm goes off again, Rhys reaches over to turn it off. Then he pulls me in closer, kissing me on the top of my head. “Good morning, beautiful.”
His words cause my heart to both melt and sink. “Good morning.” I leave off adding an adjective because I’m not sure what to do or say yet.
We snuggle in silence for a minute. As confused as I am, I really don’t want to leave his embrace just yet.
But I can’t stay in it for too long, so I untangle myself from Rhys to get out of bed.
I make sure my phone alarm isn’t going to go off again before grabbing my robe to cover up quickly.
Pulling my hair up into a high bun, I start to look through my closet.
“Is everything okay, Hadley?” Rhys asks apprehensively.
Shit. He can tell something is off. “I’m just getting ready to go to my parents’. We don’t want to be late.”
He gets up from the bed. “Okay. I guess I’ll go get dressed then.” The tone of his voice is off and I have a feeling he knows what I’m thinking. He comes up behind me, placing both hands on my shoulders before pressing a peck to my cheek. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”
As he walks out my bedroom door, I don’t watch him leave.
Partly out of respect since he’s naked, and also partly because if I see his butt I may change my mind about letting him go.
Shaking my head, I have to remind myself that it’s better this way.
We can talk it through later, when it’s no longer Christmas.
I quickly get myself ready, making sure I’m wearing my emerald green cable knit sweater over dark wash jeans. It’s the same outfit I wear every Christmas to family dinner for the sake of looking the same in every family photo.
When Rhys returns, he’s wearing his wine red cable knit sweater, the same thing he wore last year. That’s when it hits me that he said he was going to join me in this yearly tradition. My heart flutters, thinking about all the things we share. I put on a smile and say, “You remembered.”
“How could I forget?” His smile is genuine. “Now don’t forget the cookies.”
Always with the cookies.
I grab them, setting the containers on top of the box of presents I’m bringing along. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Would you like me to drive?” he asks.
“Uh, sure. That’d be great.” I hold on to the box with both hands so that Rhys doesn’t try to reach for my hand with his. Something tells me that he knows I’m avoiding the conversation we need to be having.
We spend the drive to my parents’ house in silence.
The tension in the air is heavy; I’m not even sure a knife could cut through it.
Every time I want to say something, nothing comes out.
Maybe it’s because there are too many things I want to say but can’t right now.
If I speak up, it’s just going to come out wrong anyway.
I feel guilty for effectively pushing him away.
We’ve gotten in way over our heads and it feels like there’s no way out.
The second the front door to my childhood home opens, Rhys and I are all smiles, being welcomed with hugs from everyone.
It’s almost as though there was an unwritten rule that we’ve mutually decided to follow for the sake of both family and Christmas.
I have to put on a brave face because if I don’t, my mom will know immediately that something is wrong and stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it.
When I look at Rhys, he again appears to be completely unfazed.
His grin is real and his conversation skills are unmatched.
Either he’s great at hiding how he really feels, or maybe last night actually meant nothing to him.
Not that I want last night to mean anything. It was just two friends giving in to their urges after being tempted by mistletoe again and again.
And then a third time.
Despite knowing that, it still hurts—because shouldn’t it have meant something after all the memories we’ve shared?
I push the negative thoughts aside and recenter myself in the present.
After handing over the tins of cookies to my mom, I take the box of presents over to the Christmas tree.
My mom still decorates it herself. Every year she has the same color scheme of green and blue for the ball ornaments and lights.
However, the rest of the tree is full of all the cheap ornaments us kids have either made or bought at the local dollar store.
She loves how chaotic it looks in the end.
When I return, my mom is talking to Rhys. “So, how was the holiday dinner yesterday? How’s your mom?”
He says, “It was fun. And my mom is good. She baked so many goodies.”
She looks between the two of us and asks, “Did you two have fun last night?”
I freeze as the events of last night flash before my eyes. "What?"
“You know, your annual evening of cookie making,” my mom clarifies. She places a hand on Rhys’s shoulders. “I know how much Rhys loves your cookies.”
Wow. Where is my mind? Laughing nervously, I reply, “Right, he does love my cookies.”
She smiles warmly. “I only hope he left enough for the rest of us.”
“I managed to save enough for everyone,” I assure her.
"She didn't let me lick the beaters, though," Rhys says with a pout.
I did, however, let him lick something else. Damn it! I shouldn’t be thinking about that right now. Hopefully my cheeks aren’t turning red.
My mom shakes her head. “Well, I’m just glad you two are here. We can get the Christmas entertainment started.”
We join my dad, my younger brother Graham, and my cousins Brynlee and Brianne in the kitchen.
They’re stringing popcorn to wrap around the tree.
Despite being twenty years old and in college, Graham loves to do all the Christmas-related activities we did as kids.
He especially likes to do them because of Brynlee and Brianne.
They’re still young enough to believe in Santa Claus, and he likes to keep that spirit alive.
Graham places an arm over my shoulder and gives it a squeeze before getting back to work. “Remember how we used to make these when I was their age?”
I smile. “Mom had to keep making more popcorn to compensate for what you kept eating.”
“Hey,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “You ate some of it, too.”
Shrugging, I admit, “Only a handful.”
“Do you have extra popcorn?” Rhys asks.
“Of course,” my mom says.
“Great.” Rhys grabs a handful and runs out of the room. Brynlee and Brianne jump from their chairs and chase him down the hallway, giggling like crazy.
My mom sighs and gets out the jar of popcorn kernels. “Guess I’d better get ahead of the game before those two girls start eating it all themselves.”
“That Rhys is such a troublemaker,” Graham says while shaking his head. “I don’t know why you keep him around.”
I’m pretty sure I know why I keep him around, but I wonder if he’ll even want to be around after today. He seems to be handling everything better than I thought he would. Which makes me want to get out of here, move out of my apartment, and escape from all these frustrating emotions.
Once dinner is ready, my mom attempts to gather everyone to come into the dining room with little success. When I go into the dining room, it hits me that I’ll be sitting by Rhys like I always do. Why wouldn’t I? He’s my best friend, after all. That’s what everyone believes.
While my mom and dad are wrangling up my cousins, I slip out the back door to get some air.
It’s a little chilly outside, so I pull my hands into my sleeves to keep them warm as I sit on the porch swing.
I stare out into the backyard, my eyes focusing on the tire swing still hanging off of the giant oak tree near the edge of the property.
Rhys and I used to take turns on that swing the summer after we became friends.
More often than not, I was swinging on it while he was climbing the tree and threatening to untie the rope from the branch above.
I’ve spent most of my life with Rhys in it. I would give anything for him to stay in my life forever. Why can’t he, though? Why am I so scared of what could be if we…
“May I join you?”
I look over to see Rhys standing near the back door, hands in his pockets. My heartbeat speeds up at the sight of him. I say, “Sure.”
He sits gingerly next to me, staring ahead like I was a moment ago. “I can’t believe the tire swing is still up.”
I let out a light laugh. “I was just thinking about that summer after fifth grade.”
We sit in silence for a beat, then he says, “You probably don’t want to talk about what happened, but…” He pauses, expecting me to say something, but when I don’t he continues. “I’m sorry for the mistletoe. It was mostly meant as a joke, but it sort of spiraled into more.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” To be fair, it takes two to tango, and I could’ve prevented it from going further. Once we started, I didn’t want to stop.
“I feel like I do, though.” He sighs, running a hand over his head before tucking it back into his pocket. “Clearly, what we did has changed everything between us, and I didn’t expect or want that to happen.”
“But it doesn’t have to change anything.”
“People say that, but I think we both know otherwise.”
Letting out a long breath, I say, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He may be right, but I don’t want him to be. “But I still want you in my life.”
“Just as a friend?” he asks quietly.
I stay silent for a moment. Do I want to just be friends with Rhys? After everything we’ve been through? After what we experienced together last night? I can’t lose him. I refuse to lose him.
When I don’t reply, he blurts out, "I love you, Hadley."
There it is. My heart aches at the thought of our friendship shattering. "I know. I love you, too."
“No,” he replies, shaking his head. “I love you, love you. I'm in love with you.”
My eyes widen. I wasn't expecting him to say anything remotely close to that. The shock causes me to stumble over my words. “You're... in love with me? What... when... how long?”
"Since high school. Well, I started to feel something in high school.
I didn't know what it was. Didn't understand what my brain was telling me.
I honestly thought I just really liked having you as my best friend.
Which I totally do, don't get me wrong." He gives me a goofy smile.
"It didn't really hit me until college that my feelings were more than just loving you as a friend.
But by then we'd both been in and out of several relationships.
And every time one of them ended, we'd still have each other.
" He lets out a long breath. “If we would have dated, I’d have nobody else to rely on if it ended.”
Thinking back on all our years of friendship, it begins to dawn on me how much what he's saying makes complete sense.
Rhys has always meant so much to me. Unlike him, it took a few kisses to make me recognize the depth of my feelings for him.
"Why did you wait until now? Weren't you still afraid of losing what we had? "
"Well, yeah, I was terrified of ruining our friendship.
But something changed this weekend between us.
It wasn't Nora or my dad pushing us to kiss.
It was the way you've been looking at me, the lingering touches.
.. I couldn't keep hiding the way I felt.
So, I hung up that mistletoe as a way of testing my theory.
Whatever the result was would have yielded an answer. "
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if we didn't kiss or only kissed on the cheek, then we were only friends. But if the kiss sparked something more, then I wasn't crazy to think you could love me back."
Wow. All this time, Rhys was hiding how he truly felt about me. And if I'm being completely honest, I've obviously been burying my own feelings about him. I reach over, placing a hand on his leg. "You're definitely not crazy."
His whole body relaxes. "Really?"
"I'm sorry for the way I acted this morning. I care so much about you, I was so scared of losing you."
He touches my face with his hand and says softly, "You could never lose me."
My heart soars hearing those words. "I love you, too, Rhys." We kiss softly, then press our foreheads together. "You know, I never thought I'd fall in love with my best friend."
"The second I laid eyes on you, I had a feeling I would."
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
The butterflies return. “Damn it, Rhys, that’s the most romantic thing I’ve heard in my whole life.”
The biggest grin appears on his face and he leans in to kiss me. We're so immersed in each other that we don't even hear the back door open.
"I knew it!" my mom exclaims.
We break apart and turn to her before looking back at each other. "Here we go," I say to him with a laugh. Before we can say anything to her, she's already back inside, likely telling everyone the good news.
Rhys asks, "Are you ready to go inside?" as he stands, reaching out for my hand.
I accept it and tell him with certainty, "I'm ready for anything as long as I have you."