Chapter 45
Forty-Five
This is not the way I thought I’d be spending the Christmas holidays. Two months ago, I was content to spend the break alone. I just wanted my cabin. And now … Now I’ve got Stella. And I truly can’t imagine spending Christmas without her.
I’ve got breakfast for dinner made and set on the table. Stella’s already snuck two slices of bacon. Better that than sneaking open her Christmas gift.
I’m anxious about the portfolio book I had made for her.
I stole her photos and had the local print shop make her a bound book with pictures of her projects.
I added a note with a written request for a new GOAT plaque, just like she made me all those years ago.
I am much less cocky than my eighteen-year-old self, but I want it to be identical to what she made me back then.
“Hey,” Stella says, stealing another slice of bacon.
“I see that,” I tell her. “You don’t have to steal my bacon, you know. You can just eat yours.”
She beams. “Thanks for dinner, cupcake.” She wrinkles her nose. “That’s not it.”
“Nope, keep trying,” I say, leaning down and pecking her lips before sitting next to her.
But instead of eating, she sets both hands on the table and sighs.
“Stell?”
Nibbling on that bottom lip that I quite like, she says, “So, you remember how you snuck up on me in the living room and then laughed and laughed after I fell onto the couch?”
“Thirty minutes ago?” I smirk. “Um, yeah, I remember that.”
“I want you to know I forgive you,” she says, still not touching her food. Is she serious? Stella never lets pancakes get cold.
“That’s … nice of you.” Something is up. She’s making me nervous.
“It is nice of me. It’s very nice. And I want you to remember how nice it was of me to forgive you just now.”
“Stella,” I say, ready for her words to make any sense at all.
“I just need you to remember this, okay?”
Not okay. I’m not buying it. Setting both elbows on the table, I stare at her unrelentingly. Man, she’s beautiful. “What’s going on?”
“I’m just saying, if I ever do something, you need to forgive me too.”
My mouth gapes open. “What—” I bobble my head. “What did you do?”
She straightens her back and pulls in a breath. Looking me dead in the eye, she says, “Roman, I bought plane tickets.”
“To Canada?” I’m shocked. I’m willing to go, but I’m stunned that Rebecca talked her into it.
“No,” she huffs, then pulls in a shaky breath before answering. “To Atlanta.”
My brow narrows. That’s where my dad lives.
“Remember how I forgave you!” she spats, pointing a finger my direction. “We are going to hand-deliver Mason’s gift.”
I cough, pushing back from the table. My chair scrapes on the ground, tipping over as I stand. “When?” I say, but I’m too stunned to form a complete sentence. “You—when?”
“I ordered the tickets last night.”
“Last night?” My voice pitches high. “When last night? We were together all night.” I blink, my wife coming in and out of focus. Righting the chair I’ve knocked over, I fall back into it. My hand scrubs over my short hair and down my face.
“After you fell asleep.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of her words. “You’re telling me you got out of bed and bought plane tickets? To visit my father?”
“I did. To visit your brother,” she says. “You’re like the dead, Roman. You did not move an inch. I mean, I had to lift your seventy-pound arm off of my body. Holy, that’s one heavy arm. And you didn’t even flinch.” She blows out a breath as if she’s just lifted my arm off herself now.
I run a hand over my head. Atlanta? I don’t think about the last time I saw my father years ago. It didn’t go well. I wish I didn’t remember. I’d just gotten on with the Red Tails, and my father’s exact words were, “This is what you’re doing with your life?” I haven’t talked to him since.
With my silence, Stella fidgets in her seat. “You never mailed Mason’s gift.”
“So, you bought plane tickets?”
“It felt like a sign,” she says. “No wasted time, Roman.” She covers her hand with mine. “You have a brother.”
I breathe out a trembling breath and nod.
“Oh! That’s right.” Nose wrinkling, she hisses, “Also, I have no money. So, I used your credit card. We leave tomorrow.”