Chapter 35
Like the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy
CANDY
“Want some chocolate?” Eloise asked me, her voice muffled as her head was buried in the minibar.
“No.” I might’ve been partial to one of those small bottles of vodka had she asked. If only drinking away my problems could’ve helped.
Finally, Eloise’s head came back out and she jiggled a bag of gourmet nuts in the air.
“Well, I never say no to nuts, so if you want some, just say the word.” She poured a few in her hand and fished through them, obviously on the hunt for certain ones first. Not that it should have surprised me.
Eloise had always been that way. Growing up, she’d eaten her food the same way.
Favorites first, then the rest was whatever.
Even so, I shook my head. “I don’t have an appetite, but thanks.
” So what if I wasn’t really hungry? I wasn’t really much of anything.
Except sad. So, I turned to what I did best after shopping, which was fussing.
Unpacking my suitcase gave me every bit of the distraction I desperately needed.
Soon all my clothes would be on hangers in the closet, then I’d attack the bathroom and my toiletries.
Eloise followed me to the closet. “Wowza! You’re making yourself at home.
All I’ve done so far is order room service and scour the minibar for a snack while we wait.
On that note, I ordered something for you, so you best get your appetite going.
You need to keep nourished, Cici.” She waved a finger in the air at me, like she was disappointed in me. Who was the big sister here?
Setting my camel cashmere sweater next to my black tailored trousers, I was satisfied that my suitcase was officially empty.
“Do you want me to unpack for you?” Whenever we had gone anywhere, I had always unpacked for Nick too, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to doing a little additional work after my own.
Eloise shook her head and swiped her hands, letting her nut…dust fall to the plush burgundy carpet. “Thank you, but no.” Then she dropped her hands on my shoulders and steered me toward our bed.
Our king-sized bed. Yes, our bed, as in one bed.
One bed, two sinks, one desk, one terrace.
At least there was a respectable closet.
It was Christmas Eve, after all, so I’d taken what they had.
Apparently even throwing cash at the clerk couldn’t get us two beds.
Or a simple cot. Not that I thought a cot was an acceptable place for anyone to sleep, but that wasn’t the point.
Sinking into the soft mattress, I placed my hands atop it. “Why are we sitting down?” I asked finally, curious why she all but pushed me to sit. My feet didn’t hurt, so it made no sense.
“You’re making me dizzy with all of your back and forth. It’s exhausting, really. Plus, I just want to talk. Can we do that, please?”
We weren’t the just-talk type. “Fine. Talk.”
“I’d rather you talk about what’s going on with you and Nick and why the ugly D word has been thrown around.” She cocked a brow and waited.
Divorce? People blew things way out of proportion.
It was perfectly acceptable for a couple to no longer want to be together.
It was an option for a reason. It wasn’t as though we were acting in illegal ways.
He wanted a divorce. We were getting a divorce.
Big deal. It was there for the same reason emancipation existed for children—as a way to get out of a situation someone no longer wanted to be in.
Simple as that. Nothing else to it. Try convincing yourself some more. “How did you—”
Getting up, Eloise walked back to the minibar.
“If room service doesn’t come soon, I might just die.
No, never mind. I most definitely will keel over and die, no might about it.
They’ll have to deal with my corpse, otherwise it’ll smell and ruin their reputation as a five-star hotel.
” And the award for best actress goes to my sister, Eloise.
She reached in and pulled out a bottle of water.
“Anyway, how stupid do you think I am?” She tapped on the side of her head. “I’m extremely intuitive, you know?”
I hadn’t…
Then she barked out an intense laugh. “Just kidding. I’m not intuitive at all, but I am your sister.” She paused, growing serious, her brows coming together in the middle of her forehead. “And it was pretty obvious. I’ve known the whole time, Cici.”
I grew even more still and silent at her words, my nerves suddenly on high alert. If Eloise knew, who else knew? Did the other women know? How obvious had we been?
After drinking half the bottle in record time, probably dehydrated from the salty nuts, she sat back down and took my hands in hers. Hands that were suddenly clammy, thanks to her declaration. “Relax. I doubt anyone else picked up on it.”
Her reassurance did nothing to assuage my concerns, but I supposed it didn’t matter anyway.
I was supposed to be letting these things go, I reminded myself, and tried to do just that by changing the subject.
Instead getting to the heart of why we were spending Christmas Eve in a hotel room and why Nick and I were definitely over.
“Virginia set Nick up with a woman. I went to the pub where he bartends and saw them together,” I confessed, feeling like a giant boulder was suddenly lifted off my shoulders.
Maybe Eloise was on to something with this talking business.
I really never did it, finding I didn’t trust anyone enough to spill my guts to, but I knew my secrets were safe with Eloise.
If anything, I’d been just as stupid with her as I had been with Nick.
All these years, all this time, I let get between us, and it didn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t have been that way.
Flipping my hands to clutch hers, I squeezed them. “I want us to always be as close as we are right now. I’m sorry if I haven’t always been the best sister.” The words burned like acid, but they needed to be said.
She swallowed hard and pulled a hand free to swipe at her eyes. “Cici, I love you, and I’d like that very much.” Then she smirked. “But I hope you know that you can’t steer the topic away from the original one that easily.”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t trying to.”
“Good because I didn’t get to appropriately react to what you said. And my reaction is unholy mother-of-all-that-is-wicked-and-evil-in-this-world. That Virginia is downright sinister.”
“That she is,” I said maybe a tad too quickly, so I bit my tongue, instantly regretting my words. Although, I had no idea why. She really was horrible. I’d always thought as much.
At the knock on the door, Eloise hopped off the bed and flew to answer it, anticipating the room service she had ordered. And she’d been right.
A silver cart was rolled in with a variety of lid-covered plates. While all the plates caught my eye, it didn’t mean anything to me, especially not compared to the fact that the attendant who delivered the room service was wearing a badge that identified him as Nick.
Nick.
Certainly, I missed Nick. This must have been my mind conjuring the whole thing up. Maybe it was supposed to make me feel better or remind me of him because I’d been thinking about him, talking about him.
Trying to get to the bottom of it, I shook my head, letting my eyes zero in on the name tag again. Still Nick. Nope, I wasn’t hallucinating.
Oh my goodness. That was just too…unnatural. Weird. Unlikely.
Was it a sign?
And if it was, what did it mean?
I wanted to ask Eloise about it, but she didn’t seem to have noticed. I also didn’t want to sound like I was…childish, thinking that Christmas miracles might actually have existed. Like the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.
Not that seeing a man named Nick was a Christmas miracle.
Unless it was…
Realizing I would slowly be going out of my mind if I didn’t stop focusing on that, I glanced over at Eloise when he’d left. “Is all that for us? I did tell you I wasn’t hungry, didn’t I?” Surely, she’d heard me.
She only laughed, though, making her way around all the plates, lifting the lids.
“Maybe so, but I figured you’d want to eat something eventually.
I ordered something from every section of the menu, except caviar.
That stuff has always grossed me out.” She pointed to each dish in turn.
“French onion soup, but you might want to eat that soon if you like it hot. Maryland crab cakes, chicken wings, but those are all mine. We both know you aren’t a wing lover, too messy and all that, so hands off.
” She snarled at me and giggled. “Unless you want to get your pretty nails dirty.”
I shook my head. “Your wings are safe from me, don’t worry.” She was right in that I didn’t like to eat messy food, never had.
Clacking her tongue and flapping her arms like a bird, she cackled, tumbling down on the bed again next to me.
Sometimes Eloise could be ridiculous, but she really was funny, and I needed to learn to appreciate her more.
Especially when she kept acting like a bird at my side, and I could no longer hold back my laughter that served as the perfect distraction from my Nick-induced state.
In stitches, we both inhaled deeply, trying to catch our breath.
“Try it,” she coaxed, nudging my arm. “Try to be a chicken. Get your cluck on.”
I brought a hand to my chest to help me breathe steadily. “I don’t think so.” No way could I pull that off.
“No, you must. You must, or the crab cakes get it.” She lifted a fork and angled it to the crab cakes she knew I favored.
Throwing my hands up, acting goofier than I had in…forever…I shouted, “Wait! Don’t hurt the crab cakes.” I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. I proceeded to stand up and do the…chicken dance.