chapter 16
[Jude]
My alarm goes off at an ungodly hour, and I wake with a start. Disoriented at first, I glance around the dark room while sensing the warm skin beneath my palm. I slept the entire night with my hand tucked around Angelica’s arm.
“What time is it?” she mumbles, her voice groggy and rough when she first speaks in the morning. My head makes a mental note of the sound. My dick is already aware of her presence.
I’m a fucking idiot.
Who turns down an offer of sex from the sexiest woman he’s ever met? One looking at me with soft, eager eyes, silently begging me to make a move on her.
I might have turned down lesser women because I’m an ass, but turning down Angelica took me to a new stratosphere of asshole-ishness.
She wanted me. I want her.
Still, I didn’t act. I couldn’t do it. Not with thoughts of Walt, and then my father in my head, lumping us all together as men who take advantage of women. Innocent, beautiful women.
My frozen heart went cold for good reasons last night.
I didn’t want to hurt her as I said. But I was too late, noticing the sense of rejection in her eyes. The disappointment she felt was so evident. Better to let her down gently, than to shatter her.
Then I went and told her that fucking angel story. She probably thinks I’m a loon.
“Jude?”
“Yeah?” Her voice suggests she’s waiting on an answer about the time. It also breaks into my thoughts, which registers the annoying ring of my alarm.
I quickly shift and stretch for my phone, hitting the off button on the alarm, which illuminates the screen and the time.
“Four-thirty,” I answer.
She needs to return to Chicago by eight for her breakfast with Santa commitment. She explained to me how her Gran volunteered her to host the event at her Gran’s church, where Angelica isn’t a patron or a parent.
“It’s fine,” she’d said, explaining how she was voluntold more than asked to participate. Something in her voice hinted she wasn’t actually fine about her participation, but she’d power through the morning.
Angelica peels herself upright and swings her legs over the side of the bed. As the room is still dark, I can’t make out her features other than a hint of her wild hair. She stretches her arms above her head, and I hear her yawn.
She’s so uninhibited and refreshing. And I still cannot believe I didn’t have sex with her.
What was I thinking?
Then again, I was thinking exactly what I admitted. I didn’t want to hurt her. We were becoming friends, if only on a surface level. Still, she was more genuine than any friend I’d had in the past or present, although my current collection is selective and small.
“I only need the bathroom for a few minutes. My bag is mostly packed, so I can be ready in fifteen minutes, if that works? We can grab coffee on the go.”
“Yep.” I bend my knee upward, hoping to disguise my morning wood, which stands tall and proud, and admonishing about my choices. He considers them poor ones. I consider them smart.
I didn’t want to take advantage of our fake situation. Especially when sleeping with her might have been a little too real for a pretendship.
Angelica is quiet as we gather our things, circling one another in the hotel room. We grab weak coffee from the front lobby before checking out and hit the road, where Angelica remains equally quiet in the car.
Normally, I don’t mind the silence, but I’m coming out of my skin. My thoughts are a blizzard of scenes. A replay of ice skating and hot tubbing. Heated kisses and simple touches. The look on her face when I turned down sex. The fact I told her about my near-death experience.
“Do you think the board believes I’m your girlfriend?” Her question startles me after nearly an hour of silence.
“Absolutely. They loved you.”
“But will it help you?” she asks.
“Definitely.” My hope was to show the board that I can commit. One woman. One profitable store. I wasn’t wayward; I was dedicated. Angelica made it easy, and she made the board members easily believe I had changed.
“You really sold yourself to Ed Marksman and his wife, Catherine. They were eating up that line you gave them about volunteering at the children’s hospital. Working with The Giving Tree.”
Catherine Marksman was practically drooling with pride when she learned that Angelica volunteered to help collect and distribute toys for hospital-bound children during the holiday season.
I’d forgotten that the Marksmans had founded the program because one of their now-adult children had been hospitalized as a child.
“I wasn’t trying to sell myself.” Her tone rings with disgust while giving me a quick glance. “It wasn’t a line.”
“Well, they loved it.”
But how did I feel about her volunteerism? Her natural instinct to be so good? She was selfless even with her holiday plate full. Her brother’s wedding. Her grandmother’s shopping. The breakfast with Santa. She puts others above herself.
Even me. She attended this party, giving up two nights, last minute, to be my date. To help me show the board I’m a changed man. But am I changing? Was I turning over that leaf I promised to flip, or was I just twiddling it between my fingers?
Something cold and ugly unfurls inside me. A combination of irritation that she’s so good and a twinge of shame that I’m not.
Angelica adjusts in her seat, like she’s suddenly uncomfortable in the heated leather passenger seat. She addresses the windshield when she next speaks. “Have you ever volunteered anywhere? Does Ashford’s have community service opportunities?”
“Of course we do.” Only, I can’t recall a single event off the top of my head. As the minutes tick by while I try to think of one, the sudden chill coming from her side of the car is disorienting. That twinge of shame flares stronger, along with my agitation.
What did it matter if I volunteered anywhere or if Ashford’s had community causes?
“You should try it sometime,” Angelica says.
I grunt.
“It’s rather rewarding. To give, instead of receive. To volunteer, instead of being asked.”
“Like you were voluntold by your gran to host this godawful early breakfast?” The words are too harsh, too cutting, but the sting inside me causes me to strike back.
I risk a glance at her when I sense her shifting again. “I’d do anything for my gran.”
“Like host an event when you don’t have a child or a stake in the church.”
“There isn’t an endgame here.”
“You just mentioned a sense of giving rather than receiving. That sounds endgame to me.” My hands tighten on the steering wheel, anger surging.
Angelica is quiet another minute before she pulls out her phone. Staring at the screen, she says, “I’ve been thinking about something. About what you said last night.”
“What did I say?” I snap, knowing I said too much.
Told her about my parents, then told her about that stupid angel.
“You won’t tell anyone about my parents, right?
” Shit. I should have had her sign an NDA.
Then again, I didn’t know I’d be opening my mouth and pulling skeletons out of my closet like it’s Halloween instead of Christmas.
Her head swivels in my direction again. “Of course not. That was personal and private, and—”
“Between a fake girlfriend and boyfriend,” I interject, aware of the itchy agitation in my throat.
“I was going to say, between us. You and me.” Something about her voice turns my head one more time.
She looks down at her lap, staring at her phone once again, before adding, “It felt like something real.”
Silence fills my car, making the already tight space feel even constricting. I don’t like the growing tension.
“What did I say?” I snap. “That you’ve been thinking about?”
“Your question about Scrooge and transformation.”
I snort. “What about it?”
“Maybe you don’t believe in change because you haven’t lived change yet.”
“What do you mean?” My brows pinch while I tighten my grasp on the steering wheel once more.
“You don’t believe Ebenezer Scrooge transformed after his night with the spirits, but he did. He gave money to a kid to buy the largest goose in the town. He made amends with his nephew, Fred, and recognized Bob Cratchit’s worth. And he showed compassion toward Tiny Tim.”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat. “Then he ran down the street like a lunatic wishing a Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.”
“The first part of your statement was in It’s a Wonderful Life when George Bailey runs home to his wife because he’s had an epiphany about his life. And the second part is from “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” a poem about Christmas Eve.”
I chuff, puckering my lips as I glare at her. “You know what I mean. Scrooge probably had a momentary reaction, then slipped back into his old miserly ways.”
Angelica stares back at me, but I return my gaze to the dark road in front of us, suddenly not liking the path of this conversation.
“Maybe you need a little practice. Or you might return to your miserly ways.” Under her breath, she adds, “Or miserable ones.”
“What was that?” I counter, although I heard her as if she spoke directly to me. When she doesn’t answer, I add, “And you think volunteering is good practice?”
“It’s a start.”
Her thumbs start typing on her phone, and my annoyance further grows. Who the fuck could she be talking to this early in the morning?
“What’s so important over there?”
“I’m making you a list.”
“A list?” I parrot, then mock. “One you need me to check twice?”
She ignores me, lifting her head once a few seconds later and staring out the windshield, before she returns to her aggressive typing. When her fingers stop moving, she stares down at her phone, presumably reading whatever she’s written.
“I’ve made a list of the things Scrooge did immediately after his night with the ghosts.” She pauses, while still gazing at her phone, then reads off her interpretation.
Her list is a repeat of what she’d previously mentioned. “I don’t need a fucking English Lit lesson.”