His Off-Limits Christmas Gift (Midnight Holiday Affairs)

1. Rachel

1

RACHEL

S ome people loved the holidays. Others couldn’t stand it.

I fell in the middle. I wasn’t a grinch, grumbling at all the décor and fanfare that heralded the end of the year. At least, I wasn’t that bad yet . My tolerance ran in the middle, where I could plaster a smile on my face through the usual gatherings and events and still count down the minutes until I could be free.

This year, January couldn’t come fast enough.

Sitting at the kitchen counter, I zoned out as I stared at the calendar on the wall. Mom chattered on and on and on, talking to Mrs. Jones, our neighbor. More plans were laid. Other ideas for additional ways to celebrate were being brainstormed.

Yet, on every single block of the calendar behind her, December was full. Multiple jotted-down reminders were scrawled on the surface.

I loved my family. I truly did. But it wasn’t ever just us . Living next door to the Jones family ensured that it was always a doubled-up experience. The four of them with the four of us. Only with their oldest son away in the service and my older brother working in New York, it funneled down the families to three and three.

Mom and Dad with me. And Mr. and Mrs. Jones with their son—my ex.

“Oh! I heard that they set up new selfie stations at that hot cocoa stand, too,” Mom said with glee, pacing idly as she talked to her best friend of thirty years. “Rach and Kyle would look so cute posing at them.”

I bit back a groan, sinking my face into my hands and slumping over the counter.

“I’m sure they’ll be over their little tiff from Thanksgiving any day now,” Mom said, either oblivious to my defeat to gravity at her words or stubborn to believe that Kyle and I would get back together.

We won’t be. Accept it and move on.

I was trying to. Being dumped isn’t easy, but to have it happen during the start of the holiday season, caught in the middle of our neighboring holiday-fanatic families? It was hell on earth.

“I bet we could make a spa day out of it,” Mom said. “We can take Rachel to get all dolled up. Who knows, maybe these could be the photos we use for engagement announcements soon.”

Now I did groan. I let the sound of utter dismay leak from my mouth as I pushed to stand and exit. I couldn’t stomach another word of this crap.

Sure, I was heartbroken. It sucked to be rejected, no matter the circumstances, but this was just cruel.

Kyle was my childhood best friend. Literally, he was the golden child and boy next door. He was my high school sweetheart. Mrs. Jones and my mother predicted that we’d be a couple since the day we were taking our first steps.

But over turkey and pumpkin pie last week, he got quieter and quieter. Thanksgiving was tense. We argued and quarreled more than usual over petty things, and that wasn’t like us. At first, I chalked it up to the strains of long-distance dating. He was off at college further from our small hometown of Rockton, Connecticut. Worries that he’d been cheating or straying struck me.

It wasn’t that. He’d simply realized that he was gay. With that caveat, I tried to be more sympathetic about the breakup. When he asked me not to tell anyone, when he explained he wasn’t ready to come out to his family, though, that was where things got dicey.

No one in our families could believe that we were over. They all hung on to hopes of a grand reconciliation. Mom and Mrs. Jones likely had a whole battle plan of matchmaking us back together, with visions of a freaking engagement in mind.

Every time I was pressured to explain why we broke up, I could only claim something vague like, oh, we just want different things in life .

It was true. Kyle did want something very different from me or any other woman. As far as an explanation went, though, it didn’t appease the families who’d machinated our being together for so long.

Without thinking about it, I escaped to my bedroom. It was too rainy and chilly to trek outside. A stroll through Rockton usually calmed me. Abundant woods and parkland surrounded us, and I could follow any number of trails through the terrain to get away for a moment to relax and space out. Not today. I pushed open my bedroom door just as a boom of thunder rattled the ground.

A thunderstorm on the first of December? It seemed unlikely. Improbable. But not impossible, like my getting back together with Kyle would be.

I didn’t have peace for long. Mom wouldn’t have missed my groan and exit from the kitchen, leaving my just-brewed hot tea cooling on the counter.

Her footsteps sounded behind me on the stairs, and I sighed as I slumped onto my bed. The door remained open, because why bother to close it when she’d just knock to come in? I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I wouldn’t stoop to being a brat and slam it. The fastest way to get rid of her was to face her and deal with it.

“Rachel?” She knocked on the open door anyway. Her tone was curious, but it also held a note of impatience and frustration.

“What?” I replied, not bothering to lift my face from where it had fallen down on my pillow.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Yes! It would have been freaking lovely to just bluntly explain why Kyle dumped me. But it wasn’t my secret to share. He’d done me a really shitty deal by expecting me to take the brunt of the gossip and questions while he returned to campus for a couple of weeks prior to winter break.

He needed to tell them all why we weren’t together anymore. It wasn’t fair to dump the responsibility on me.

“No,” I answered dryly, tired of the echo I had to give.

“But—”

I groaned again as I sat up enough to look back at her. “Mom. I don’t want to talk about Kyle.” It wasn’t petulance. It was a promise not to out one of my oldest friends.

She furrowed her brow, taking my stern words as a challenge. “Okay, but what about?—”

“ No , Mom. Please. I don’t want to talk right now.” At all. With her constant pestering, I wanted to hide and burrow in a hole until Kyle could face all these questions.

God, I want to get away. So, so bad. They were already so pushy with the mandatory jolly moods and “let’s celebrate!” mentality that was getting so forced and commercialized. Where every little thing had to be photographed and captioned and shared. It didn’t feel like family time anymore, just a massive production of consumerism and obligated happiness.

And this undercurrent of wishing for me and Kyle to get back together made it worse.

“That’s all you say. That you don’t want to talk.”

I twisted to sit fully upright and rubbed my face. “That’s not true. I told you all about the contract job I’m going to start in January. I had a conversation with you and Dad about my loans and how I anticipate paying them off. Yesterday, I tried to ask you about maybe doing something different for next year at Christmas instead of the same old everything here.”

Her mouth hung open. “Rachel! The same old everything? That’s how you see it?” She flung her arms out, exasperated. “This is the most magical time of the year.”

I stared at her, not budging. “For you , it is.”

You do you, Mom. Don’t kowtow me into it.

“You’re just saying that because you’re mopey and sad about your little fight with Kyle.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin, stubborn as ever.

“It wasn’t a little fight.” I licked my lips, unsure how to convey this message any clearer. “We. Broke. Up.”

“But why ?” she whined, lowering her arms again. “If you would just talk to me, for God’s sake, we could figure this all out and you could apologize and?—”

It was my turn to drop my jaw. I did so with a loud huff, incredulous. “Why should I apologize?”

She pressed her lips together and shrugged a little. “Well, isn’t it your fault?”

“No!” I got up, tired of this. I wasn’t a bratty kid. I was an adult. But she was taking this too damn far. She had to respect the boundary I was insisting on for my privacy here.

“This isn’t because he gently suggested that you should work out more?”

I gave her a droll look as I approached her. “No. It’s not because of that.”

“Everyone puts on a little extra over the holidays. It’s understandable, but?—”

“That’s not why we broke up.” I held the door open for her and gestured for her to leave. “The reason we did is our business. Not yours.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense. I’m your mother. And Emily is worried about Kyle dumping you too.”

Because we were supposed to marry. All that Kismet crap they clung to when we were toddlers.

“Please, Mom. Stop badgering me about this.” I raised my brows, waiting for her to argue.

She didn’t, thank God. She got the hint that I wasn’t in the mood for her being pushy. Turning with a mutter that I couldn’t hear, she left my room.

As soon as she was gone, I closed the door and grabbed my phone from my pocket.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. It made no sense to move when I’d only be moving to the next town over in January, but I could not stay here like this.

I dialed my older brother, my lifeline for most emergencies in life, and prayed that he’d come through.

“Hey, Sis. I’d say long time, no see, but…” He chuckled.

“Yeah, funny.”

He’d come home for Thanksgiving but left early from the family dinner. With a job in New York, a partner at a bar that was always slammed with holiday traffic, he wasn’t there for the moment when Kyle dumped me. I’d filled him in on all the details, though, because Mom called him to ask him to talk to me—again, in the effort of trying to get the truth out of me.

“Is Mom still bothering you?” he asked.

“Yes.” He got it when I said it wasn’t my position to explain why Kyle dumped me. He didn’t push and ask. “I can’t stand it anymore.” Once more, I slumped onto my bed. Covering my eyes with my free hand, I sighed and willed this budding headache to go away.

“I’ve got an idea.”

I perked up, lowering my hand and opening my eyes. “Yeah?”

“Come to the city. You could do me a favor and fill in a vacancy at my friend’s business. He can’t find an assistant worth a damn.”

What friend? I rolled my eyes, dismissing my curiosity. It hardly mattered who it was. Brandon didn’t associate with losers and creeps.

I could be an assistant. But… “I’m starting that contract thing in January.”

“I know. It could just be for the month. You could be a temp.”

I was excited for something different to get me out of town, but I snorted, doubtful. “Yeah, right. Mom would never hear of my not being here for all the Christmas crap.”

He chuckled, in the same boat of hating the forced cheer all month long. “But she wouldn’t hear of your passing up a job opportunity to pad your thin résumé. You only graduated last year, after all. This could be a short-term work experience to count on.”

Hmm. He was on to something there. Mom and Dad were practical about money and my future like that…

“You know what? I’m in. Tell your friend I’ll be there.”

“Seriously?” he asked, a bit surprised. “That’s kind of spontaneous for you. I figured you wouldn’t want to do something impulsive like that.”

I shrugged, even if he couldn’t see it. “Trust me, Brandon. I’m desperate to get out of Rockton. For any reason.” Impulsive or planned, I refused to suffer through staying here like this.

Because I do not want to be home for the holidays. At all.

“Please?” I added, worried this might just be an idea, not an actual offer.

“All right. I’ll do you a favor and break the news to her for you, okay?”

“Thank you!”

Just like that, my mood lifted and a smile spread on my face.

I was getting out of here. And I couldn’t wait for the break to move on from the boyfriend I once thought I’d be with forever.

It was a Christmas miracle, a chance to hide away and not have to explain why I had been dumped just before the holidays.