Chapter 35 Chris
CHRIS
I pushed open the door to the cabin to let in Larissa and Heather.
Woofarine ran inside ahead of us while we shook snow from our coats and hung them up.
Then Mike came around the corner and plowed into his girlfriend.
He wrapped her in a hug and whispered how much he missed her in her ear, and I had to pretend to be deeply interested in getting my boots off so nobody would see it on my face.
I hated everything. Every second of that car ride. Every second of now.
I couldn’t get Larissa out of my head. Nothing made it better. Not having a date of my own, nothing. No matter how much I tried to convince myself I was moving on from her, the pathetic reality was that I wasn’t.
I felt like I’d been robbed—and I’d done it to myself.
All I got of Larissa were tiny stolen moments. And they were stolen, because if she knew why I wanted them, she’d never give them to me. That car ride was precious, and I’d purposely ruined it and for what? To pretend Heather was anything more than just a stand-in?
I felt racked with guilt for bringing her here. I wasted her time, I wasted my time. I knew it the second Larissa got in the car.
I was worried about her. She was sick and I couldn’t even check on her, because why would I check on her? Mike was here. Heather was here.
“This place is so nice,” Heather said, looking around. “Give me a tour?”
“Sure,” I said in my best nothing is wrong voice, trying not to look at Mike kissing his pale girlfriend hello two feet from me.
Becca popped out of nowhere wearing a reindeer sweater and a blinking Christmas light necklace with my dog bouncing at her feet.
“Hey! You must be Heather. You’re just in time—Samantha’s making cranberry mimosas in the kitchen.
Chris, the guys lost paper rock scissors for who shovels the deck so we can use the hot tub.
Jesse’s already out there. He says for you guys to come help. ”
Mike let go of his girlfriend to give me a hug. “Thanks for giving her a ride.”
“Yup,” I croaked.
Becca hustled Larissa out of the vestibule. I had to swallow down the lump in my throat.
I went through the motions of giving Heather a tour of the cabin, trying to sound happy to be here. I ended with our bedroom. I opened the door and showed it to her from the hallway like it was a broom closet I didn’t want to step into.
We hadn’t had sex yet. We’d gone on six dates in the last two weeks.
Some desperate fast track I’d put us on to try and speed up the “Forgetting Larissa” phase I’d been hoping to enter.
Heather and I had kissed, but never anything past first base.
I had this vision that this week would be a transformative trip.
I’d see Larissa and feel nothing. Heather would outshine her, I’d be smitten, and everything would be as it should be.
I didn’t even want to be standing here with her.
She slid a hand up my chest. “Want to sneak away for a bit?” she whispered, looking at my lips.
“Can’t,” I said, peering past her at Larissa sitting in the kitchen at the end of the hall. “I have to shovel snow with the men.”
“Come on…” She got on her toes and kissed me. Larissa’s eyes flickered up for a split second and locked with mine before looking away. I felt sick.
“I’ve got a headache,” I said. It wasn’t even a lie.
Heather put her lower lip out in a pout. “Want some Advil?”
“No.”
Becca saved me. “Heaattther! Ready for drinks?”
Heather let herself be led away, and I grabbed my jacket and boots and left out the back door to join the guys without looking at Larissa again, feeling ashamed that I wanted to.
“There he is,” Jesse said, pushing his shovel into the snow.
Xavier nodded at me and kept shoveling.
The deck was buried. Good. I wanted to work myself to exhaustion. I wanted to be too fucking tired to think about what I was feeling.
Jesse shook his head. “We got at least three feet.”
“Good, you two motherfuckers can use the cardio,” Mike said, handing me a shovel.
The sliding glass door opened and Larissa popped her head out. “Who wants hot chocolate?”
She looked at me first. “I’m good, thanks,” I mumbled.
Mike headed over to her. “I’ll take a hot toddy.” He leaned into the open door, and I looked away and shoveled so I wouldn’t have to see them kiss again.
I didn’t feel safe raising my head until I heard the door close and Mike’s boots crunching the snow on his way back over.
“So how was the drive up?” Mike asked.
“Fine,” I lied.
“You guys got here fast,” Jesse said.
“They didn’t want to stop to eat,” I said.
That killed me. I didn’t even realize how much that part of the trip meant to me until Larissa said she didn’t want it.
There were so few things I could do for her in the open. I’d picked that restaurant for her like it was a sacred task, I’d spent days searching for where to go. I made sure it was safe, read reviews, checked the nut allergy websites to see if anyone had had a bad experience there, called ahead.
And I had to keep driving, the vision I had of her excited to eat out because she didn’t have to worry about the food, disintegrating as we passed the turnoff.
Samantha opened the sliding door. “Hey, can you guys do the walkway to the firepit?”
“Yeah, we’ll do that next,” Jesse said.
“Can you do it now?” she asked. “We want to do a bonfire before the hot tub.”
Mike sighed dramatically. “Okay, we’ll split up. Jesse, let’s go.”
They made their way down the steps out into the yard toward the lake. I kept shoveling. There was almost a frantic pace to it. I wanted my muscles to burn and I hoped it hurt. I deserved it.
Z eyed me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I just want to get it done.”
He went back to shoveling. “You’re being obvious,” he said.
I didn’t look up. “What?” I muttered.
“You’re being obvious,” he said again, looking at the snow but talking to me.
I stopped and blinked at him.
When I didn’t reply, he skewered his shovel in the snow pile and leveled his eyes on me.
We stared at each other and I knew in that moment that he knew.
I looked out into the yard at Mike and Jesse, shoveling snow.
“How long?” he asked.
I stood there quietly. “I don’t know,” I said, my voice so low I could barely hear it. “A long time. I think I felt it before I even realized that I did.”
“And her?”
I looked him in the eye. “She hasn’t done anything. She doesn’t feel that way about me. I mean, I didn’t ask her. I just know she doesn’t.”
He didn’t reply. He studied me in that expressionless way he had. “It can never happen. You know that, right? It doesn’t matter if they break up. Even if he leaves her. It doesn’t matter how much time passes. It will never be okay.”
“I know,” I said.
“It would kill him.”
“I know,” I said again.
We stood there in silence a few seconds.
“How did you know?” I finally asked.
“You never touch her.”
I looked at him for a beat before looking away.
No, I never touched her. Because I knew touching her would do something to me that I couldn’t undo.
“You need to figure it out,” he said. “Stop hanging out with her—”
“We share a dog—”
“Figure it out,” he said again. “It’s only going to get harder the more time you spend with her.”
I swallowed. “I know.”
But something told me it was going to get harder anyway. No matter what I did.