Chapter 1 #2
In all fairness, I hadn’t given myself much of an opportunity to make it happen. I’d been so focused on work for so long. And with any free time that I did have, I often returned to the things that brought me the most joy—snowboarding and spending time with my friends and family.
That wasn’t to say that I hadn’t dated.
I had.
But it was mostly through high school and my early twenties, my longest relationship lasting just over a year.
Granted, I was still young enough. I didn’t think I needed to be concerned just yet that it’d never happen. In fact, it was probably a good thing I hadn’t met her yet.
Right now, my focus needed to be on the business.
On doing the work my father entrusted me to do.
It hadn’t even been a full year since I’d officially taken over, and with me deciding to tackle a massive project in addition to the normal responsibilities I had, this wasn’t the time to get distracted anyway.
The mayor had finished his speech and started a countdown to the lighting of the tree.
It was lit to the cheers of everyone, and a group broke out in song.
As the words of Christmas carols filled the air, my friends and I took a few minutes to appreciate the sight of this year’s tree.
After a while, we dispersed from around the tree, like most of the crowd had done, and we made our way through the Christmas market.
Tessa and Lark had joined the girls, grabbing cups of hot cocoa for themselves before the six of them went off to buy things. I stuck with the guys, the five of us lingering several feet behind the women.
Though nothing particularly wild happened, it was nice to be here with them. Sure, I saw some of them on a regular basis, but our group gatherings were not nearly as often as I might have liked. The holiday season always seemed to help facilitate that when the other seasons made it more difficult.
We were in the middle of a conversation about plans for Christmas Eve when something caught my attention.
If the situation were even remotely different, I might not have noticed. But this was unavoidable. And after watching for several minutes, I determined that something was very wrong.
“Taj?”
At the sound of my name being called, I snapped my head back to my friends. “What?”
“What do you think?”
I shook my head. “Um, sorry. I… I’m good with whatever you guys decide. Can you give me a minute?”
“Sure. Everything okay?”
Nodding, I insisted, “Perfect. I’ll catch up with you in a little bit.”
As I turned to walk off, I didn’t doubt that the guys were confused. But I wasn’t worried. I could fill them in later.
Right now, I was compelled to act. That was just the kind of guy I was.
Perhaps that was strange, given the odd circumstances, but after what I’d witnessed, I just couldn’t stand around and do nothing.
I made my approach to the woman who was so out of place and came to a stop a few feet away. She might not have been hysterical, but it was clear she was distraught.
So, I said the first thing that came to mind. “You must be cold.”
OLIVIA
I should’ve felt relieved. Happy.
To some extent, I guess I did.
But my body was still so tense, my stomach roiling.
Had I just made the biggest mistake of my life? For the last several hours, I’d been confident this was the right thing to do. Hell, long before I’d gotten to this point, I knew things weren’t right.
But I allowed myself to stay where I was for far too long. I accepted less than I deserved for longer than I should have.
At least, I thought I deserved better.
It was difficult to believe that—like the reason it’d taken me this long to leave—when I wasn’t living in a truly desperate situation.
My life wasn’t that bad. Plenty of people had it far worse than I did.
But I couldn’t stay and pretend that I didn’t need something else. Something different. Something more.
Without a real plan, I’d hopped in the car and didn’t look behind me the entire drive here. I wound up in this small town, expecting it to be a brief stop on the way to somewhere else. Somewhere that was going to give me what I desperately needed.
To my surprise, what stood before me felt like a sign that I’d done the right thing. Even if this wasn’t the place I was ultimately meant to wind up, at least there was this little sliver of happiness.
A Christmas tree lighting in the center of town. It was a short walk to the hotel I intended to stay at for the next few nights while I figured out what to do. When the hotel staff had told me about this happening tonight, I didn’t think twice about marching right over to watch.
What did it matter that I looked the way I did? I needed something that could turn this day around. Something that would make this day anything other than what it had become.
Just as the thoughts of my day—the last few days, really—moved through my mind and had me breathing heavily, questioning what I’d done, my day went from bad to worse.
Because the crowd around the tree had thinned out so much that when I heard someone speak, I knew he was talking to me. “You must be cold.”