Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
brOOKS
Pineridge at Christmas is when it truly feels like home. But nothing can compare to the feeling of crossing the town line with the woman I love sitting in the passenger seat of my truck.
Hadley’s gaze is fixed firmly out the passenger window as we drive through town. I purposefully go a little slower so she can take it all in.
“It looks different and exactly the same all at once,” she says quietly.
Small towns have a habit of resisting change, but one little thing here and there over the years, and soon it’s not the same place it was a decade ago. Being confronted with it like this would be jarring, I imagine.
I glance at her. “Nothing like Brazil, huh?”
She shakes her head. “Not at all.”
It’s my own damn fault for bringing it up, but her response sets off a chain of nerves inside me. Not at all could mean so many things. It could mean she’s simply biding her time until she can return there. It could mean she loved it there, but she loves it here, too. That she wants to stay.
I want her to want to stay. For her own reasons and not anyone else’s, no matter how much a small part of me selfishly wants to get on my knees and beg.
I shake myself from my thoughts as I turn onto a familiar snow-lined street. Hadley shifts in her seat, suddenly looking uneasy.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “Okay, no. Maybe. I guess I’m just a little nervous.”
My brows raise. “Nervous to see my mom and sisters?”
She cuts me a sharp look that I catch from the corner of my eye. “I haven’t seen them in eight years, and that was just before we broke up. I’m sure they know how we left things. How I left things. What if they hate me?”
“They don’t hate you,” I say. “They never have. Did they miss you? Sure. But we both needed different things back then, and they understood that.”
Well, my sisters did after Mom explained it to them ad nauseam. All they knew at first was Hadley was too far away for them to visit.
Hadley doesn’t seem convinced as she picks at an imaginary piece of lint on her sleeve.
“And you’re sure it’s okay that I’m here? I still have time to take Sam up on her offer.”
I pull up to the curb in front of my childhood home and put the truck in park, but I don’t make a move to get out yet.
Reaching over, I take Hadley’s hand in mine and intertwine our fingers. She finally looks at me, and I can see the worry in her expression.
I squeeze her hand. “You’ve always been welcome. You know that, and Mom would be on your ass for forgetting.” This pulls a small laugh from her. “But more importantly, I want you here.”
I knew it from the moment I saw her sitting at my bar. It wasn’t our time before, but life has thrown this second chance at us, and I’ll be damned if I let it slip by.
I only hope she feels the same .
Hadley’s eyes soften, and she smiles. “I want to be here,” she says. “I’ve missed my Dawson family dinners.”
That hits me right in the chest, knocking the breath from me.
“They weren’t the same after you left,” I admit. It took Mom weeks to stop setting a seventh place at the table. She didn’t even struggle like that when our sperm donor of a father left town.
Leaning across the centre console, Hadley places her free hand on my cheek and brushes her lips against mine. I press a little harder, savouring the feel.
“Let’s go inside,” she says when she pulls back.
When I get out and round the hood of my truck, I slip my hand into Hadley’s. She turns to me with a grateful smile before marching up the sidewalk, ready to face her fate.
Seeing the wreath hanging on the front door, covering the chipping paint, makes me smile. It doesn’t feel like Christmas until Mom hangs that wreath.
As I push open the door, Hadley takes a deep breath. Then I tug her inside.
We’re instantly met with a loud squeal. “They’re here!”
Ronnie skids into the hallway, sliding in her fuzzy socks. She has a beaming smile on her face, and it only grows brighter when she sets eyes on our intertwined hands.
“So it is true,” Ronnie says. “Andi didn’t believe it, but Marcy said that you said that Hadley came back, and Izzy thought you might get back together. It’s true, right?”
Before I can even attempt a response, Mom comes to my recuse. “Veronica,” she says as she comes out of the kitchen, “they just walked in the door. Leave them be.”
Ronnie huffs, crossing her arms. But Mom ignores her, turning back to us.
She grins. “Hadley. It’s so good to see you, honey.”
Hadley glances nervously at me, then back to my mom. Her smile wobbles a little. “It’s really good to see you, too, Michelle. Merry Christmas. ”
“Come here!” Mom beckons her forward. “I need to give my girl a hug.”
I release Hadley’s hand, and she steps forward cautiously. Mom closes the remaining distance, pulling Hadley into her arms. The wine Hadley insisted on bringing as a gift gets squished between them.
“You’ll have to tell me about your time in Brazil. I want to hear it all ,” Mom says to her. “But first, let’s eat.”
We find the rest of my sisters in the kitchen, and they all make similar comments about our relationship that Ronnie did while they pull Hadley in for hugs.
I watch it all with a content smile on my face. This is exactly where I belong, where Hadley belongs—with my family.
We sit down at the table and dig into our breakfast—full English, just like Mom serves her customers at the diner. Christmas in the Dawson household is a casual affair. We wake up and eat, exchange presents, and then we spend the day watching movies, playing board games or, my personal favourite, taking a nap.
“So what’s it like working for a billionaire?” Andrea asks Hadley, wiggling her brows.
“You have to tell us everything ,” Isabella adds.
Hadley laughs. “A lot less glamourous than you might think. Thiago keeps things pretty chill, even when his schedule gets to be demanding.”
“But you get to travel!” Marcy says. “That alone would be worth it.”
“I won’t deny that’s been a perk.” She glances at me quickly, then averts her gaze. “But it does get old after a while.”
I sit up straighter at that. Maybe I’m reading too much into her words, but it sounds like she might…want to stay.
“How long are you here for?” Mom asks.
And there goes that .
Damn it. I was hoping we’d be able to make it through the day without someone asking that question. It isn’t that I don’t want to know—I’ve been tempted to ask myself—but I don’t want our bubble to be popped so soon.
“I’m not sure,” Hadley replies. “We have our grand opening winter festival this week, and then it depends how long it takes to find a new manager. We’ve been having trouble hiring someone.”
Selfishly, I hope they never do. Hadley is already on top of everything. It wouldn’t be a stretch for her to take it on permanently.
But is that what she wants?
I haven’t brought up her job since we were snowed in at Dirty Dick’s. I want her to see that settling for okay isn’t really living—not when she can have so much more—but I don’t want to push her away either.
Ronnie, thankfully, pulls Hadley into a conversation about some kind of clothing trend, and I let out a quiet breath of relief. Mom sends me a sympathetic look.
Soon, Hadley and I will have to talk. Properly. But for now, I’m going to enjoy the holiday with all the people I love most.
It feels a little strange knocking on my own bedroom door, but Hadley looks deep in thought. I don’t want to startle her.
“Everything alright? You’ve been gone a while.”
After we exchanged gifts—I gave Hadley another bottle of that vanilla perfume, and she gave me tickets to a sold out concert for one of my favourite bands, procured through a connection of Thiago’s—she slipped out of the room. I finally went after her when she hadn’t made her way back.
Hadley looks over her shoulder from where she stands in the middle of the room. She has a framed picture in hand. I don’t even have to look to know which one it is.
“Shoot, sorry,” she says. “I was leaving the bathroom and then I saw this on my way by.” She holds up the frame. “You still have it. ”
I nod, stepping fully into the room. “I do. It didn’t feel right, getting rid of it.”
I kept everything from our relationship. It’s all still sitting in a box in the closet across the room.
When Hadley looks up at me, tears are glittering in her eyes. My heart drops. I cross to her, and my hands settle on her face, tipping her chin up.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I ask.
Her eyes shut, and a lone tear tracks down her cheek. I wipe it away with my thumb.
When she meets my gaze, all I see is regret in hers. “I threw it all away,” she whispers. “The pictures, the pieces of us. You .”
I won’t lie and say her words aren’t a punch to the gut. But what’s done is done. I can’t change the past, so I don’t want to dwell on it.
I nod, swallowing down my emotions. “It’s alright. You had your reasons.”
“It doesn’t feel alright.” She shakes her head. “It feels…really shitty, actually.”
“Reminders can be painful. It’s okay to let them go, if that’s what you need.”
Her hands tighten on the frame, but the tension in her shoulders loosens somewhat.
“I don’t regret leaving. It was the right choice for me. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work for Mr. Oliveira if I hadn’t,” she says. “But I do regret the way we ended. I regret not giving us a chance.” She offers me a rueful smile. “I was scared.”
“We were eighteen. I’d be worried if you weren’t scared.” I shake my head. “There’s nothing for me to forgive, Hadley. So it’s time to forgive yourself.”
Slowly, she nods. “You’re too good to me, Brooks Dawson. You always have been.”
“Not true in the slightest.” I tip my head toward the door. “Now, how about we head back out there? ”
She smiles. “Let’s do it. I promised Ronnie we’d watch Die Hard.”
“Ah, one of the Christmas classics.”
Hadley laughs as she goes to place the frame back on the dresser. I set a hand on her wrist, stopping her. “Keep it.”
Her gaze snaps to mine. “I can’t. This is yours.”
That picture of us on the first day of grade nine when we met, it’s more than a picture—it’s a memory. Our memory.
“Keep it, Hads,” I say again. “Let me give you back some of our pieces.”
And let that be enough .