Sixth Day of Christmas #4
Kestrel tried to swallow, but her throat had closed off.
She breathed in through her nose, trying to calm the squeezing feeling of near-tears.
She had let herself hope far more than she’d even realized.
And only now, in the devastation of a second total rejection, could she see the truth.
He hadn’t longed for her. He didn’t love her.
He’d shouldered his way into her dream world just to grant himself closure.
Check some box. Allow himself to feel better about the ways he’d hurt her.
Maybe he’d always been this insensitive, and his Midwestern politeness had just masked it.
Turned out, Hank was just that selfish. He wasn’t special.
He wasn’t a rare and precious specimen of perfect manhood. And he certainly wasn’t hers.
Once upon a time she had trusted this man more than any other soul on earth, had laid herself out to him in every way. Well, she refused to put herself at the mercy of him or anyone ever again.
“I don’t know what your problem is, Hank. Honestly, don’t try to explain because I don’t care. You are not my problem anymore. But this—coming here was a real jerk move, and I want nothing to do with you. Okay? Nothing.”
“Mr. Kern?” Mrs. Martinez was hurrying to him. “You are looking unwell. Is something amiss?”
“No, I’m fine,” said Hank. “Don’t worry about me.”
Kestrel took in Hank now the way Mrs. Martinez must see him, and against her direct order, her heart twisted again in sympathy. He did look to be in real pain. Because of her?
“It’s getting hot in here,” said Mrs. Martinez. “Let me fetch you a cool rag.”
“No, don’t bother—” Hank started, but she was already gone.
“Your face is super flushed,” said Kestrel.
She put her hand on his forehead as if to test for a fever. His eyelids closed. The heat of him pressed into her fingertips.
“Please, Kes,” he said.
She didn’t know what that word meant in this moment, but it buzzed through her fingers and into her bones. Please. She snatched her hand away as if she’d touched an electric fence.
Her hand still felt funny, energy humming through it. She laid it on her lap and stared at it, confused by the ongoing surges of emotions. She was a hurricane, spinning and out of control.
Then his fingertips were resting on her palm, so light, she almost thought she imagined it. Her core calmed. She held still, afraid if she moved, he’d pull away. How could he still have such an effect on her? Why couldn’t she be stronger?
“Please,” he whispered again.
Her oldest, truest instinct flared up: Run away. She couldn’t stand another second of this. So she said the only words she could think of to somehow close the book on Hendrik Kern.
“I forgive you.” She said it through a clenched jaw, hurling his wished-for closure back at him. It felt less like saying, “All is healed between us,” and more like “Leave me alone.”
His brow tightened as if even more in pain. Well, good. Because he’d caused her a lot of pain in the past, too, and by coming here he was wrecking her intended transformational life event. Whatever he was feeling, he deserved it. Wasn’t that karma?
And then she had a moment of insight. Bobby had come for Charming to get her under his control again.
But despite Hank’s apparent selfishness, she knew that type of control wasn’t his style.
For the past two years, he must have been uneasy knowing how deeply he’d hurt her, and so he’d needed to wash his hands of his deeds.
He thought that voluntarily entering a place so foreign and uncomfortable to him would be a grand gesture, a way to prove that his apology was sincere, so he could feel forgiven and move on.
Even if she could see some Hank-ish logic to that, Kestrel still judged it all to be a pile of garbage.
So what if his intentions had been pure?
She didn’t need to play along in his little redemption drama. Hendrik Kern could go to hell.
Face hot with rage, she grabbed her mug and relocated to the table with Andrews and Jerome, who paused their banter with Gussie to shoot Kestrel concerned glances.
She waved the concern away. She knew she was right to be furious with Hank.
But already the bubbling outrage was clotting and coalescing into some pretty damning self-anger.
Maybe Hank had ended their relationship, but she’d had plenty of others that had also failed.
She’d never been able to hold down long-term jobs either, always jumping from place to place, boyfriend to boyfriend, often leaving people hurt in her wake whenever she just had to move on.
Who does that? Not a nice girl. Certainly not a lady.
And on top of everything, Bobby kept trying to get her attention so he could wink at her or—shudder—knowingly lick his lips.
When Kestrel went to fill up her mug from the keg, Andrews followed her.
“What’s amiss?” he whispered.
She was far too ashamed to open up about Hank. So she unloaded the second biggest issue. “Bobby.”
Andrews gestured for Jerome to join them, and the three huddled in the inn’s low-ceilinged hallway.
“Jerome, my love,” said Andrews, “can we entrust you with the noble task of getting the chinless wonder drinking and partying and basically exhausted by the end of the night?”
Jerome leveled them with his gaze. “What have you been up to?”
“Shenanigans,” said Kestrel. “Impish pranks.”
“A caper?” Andrews squeaked.
Jerome looked at Andrews, at Kestrel, then back to Andrews again. “Good gods, now there are two of you. How am I ever to manage two? Andrews, we talked about this. No more capers.”
“Yes, yes, and you are right, of course, but this was a solid idea! Well, it had the potential to be. We could have thought it out a bit better, and dammit we mucked it up good, oh what a disaster I am, I shouldn’t be allowed out of the house let alone trusted in any intimate relationships with decent human beings—”
“Anyway,” Kestrel interrupted Andrews’s spiraling, “we need Bobby worn out tonight, because he’s expecting me to meet him later, and nighttime in the library will be too dark to film him—”
“No, no, stop,” Jerome said, covering his eyes. “I beg you, leave me in ignorance. But yes, of course you can trust me to tire the man out. I am an officer of the sea, after all. Bobby may wish for peace, but he must prepare for war.”
Jerome walked off, singing, “Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves. / Yet Britain was built on the backs of slaves . . .”