Seven
Liam
T he wingman plan sucks. Officially.
I’ve spent hours in Tabitha’s company and have yet to be completely honest with her. If I could, I’d tell her that our chats online pale in comparison to the connection we’ve made in real life. Her amazingness comes as no surprise, but there’s a huge difference between worshipping her from afar and then being handed a front-row seat.
Not to be overly dramatic, but Tabitha electrifies me.
But I can’t say any of that. I’m not worthy of her, first and foremost. She deserves better than a ski instructor who intends to shun his birthright for the rest of his life. Thanks, Dad, for making me totally aware that slackers don’t live happily ever after.
Plus, I can’t envision a scenario where telling her the truth goes well.
Hey, so funny story…I’m really ShreddingPages. Hilarious, right? I let you believe all week that I was helping you gain some confidence to meet your online crush when I was in the room the whole time!
Three days ago, I could have salvaged this. Even two days ago, she might have accepted a really enthusiastic apology. But after she cooked me dinner last night—wearing a dress that I picked out for her because she seemed so disappointed that I didn’t want to play the dress-up game—everything has changed.
I can’t tell her. But neither can I let her show up for this meeting under the mistletoe in two days without warning her first. Maybe I can still talk her out of it, but it’s crystal clear that so far, all I’ve done is make her doubt herself. Which is the opposite of what I want.
So I need a new strategy. As soon as I figure out what it is, I’ll be in business.
In the meantime, I start working on Tabitha’s Christmas present. I didn’t know we were giving each other soul-shattering gifts or I would have started shopping a lot earlier. It’s doubtful that I can top a signed first edition of The Giver —a huge detail she conveniently forgot to mention when she gave it to me—but I have to try.
I’m distracted during my ski lessons. My paying customers should be annoyed, but everyone is in the Christmas spirit, so they give me a pass. Most of them probably don’t know what a good ski lesson should look like, but I know. I’ve fallen down on the job a lot lately.
The situation with Tabitha is the same. She has no clue how a man should treat a woman, so she thinks it’s fine that I’ve basically been using these romance lessons to get closer to her the safe, non-committal way.
Because I’m a loser.
Worse, BookGirl47 pings ShreddingPages several times during the day to talk about chapter 28, but I just can’t with this today. Usually, I respond between lessons. She’ll suspect something’s up if I don’t get myself together.
BookGirl47 : Isn’t it great how Don is finally starting to see the potential in his relationship with Rosie?
ShreddingPages : Don’s struggling more than you’re crediting. He’s compromised a lot to be with Rosie and it’s crazy easy to lose yourself when you’re trying to fit someone else’s mold.
A hazard I know well.
By the time I get to her place, where we’ve elected to meet tonight—because we’re still on the torture train, apparently—I’m a tiny bit panicked over the nothing I came up with for my new strategy.
Tabitha answers the door wearing jeans and a heather-colored sweater that makes her eyes bright. Everything that bugged me all day drains away solely because I’m standing in her presence. My muscles flex to reach for her. My heart does too.
I don’t, though. The hug I gave her last night was for her. If I hug her tonight, it would be for me, and that’s not how this works.
The whole apartment smells like cinnamon. She’s decorated for Christmas with a skinny tree full of ornaments, a hodgepodge style where she’s thrown everything she likes on it instead of picking a color theme. I love it. A professional decorated the one at the resort. It’s soulless, which I find highly fitting.
“You brought dinner again,” she says, her brows coming together as if she’s about to scold me.
“It’s not a big deal. I was standing by the concierge desk and Kara typed in the order.”
Tabitha should never mistake privilege for forethought. Neither does she have to know that I was standing by the desk specifically so that I could order dinner from The Table. I’ve never taken a date there, but it’s a staple for locals celebrating an anniversary or other special occasions. I kind of wanted to do something like that for Tabitha.
“Thank you anyway,” she says and grabs the bags to plate up the food. “Liam! This is prime rib.”
“You cooked last night. It’s only fair.”
She doesn’t argue but her face telegraphs that she doesn’t know what to do with the two-hundred-dollar dinner I dropped on her. We sit at her cute, wooden table with wicker chairs. Immediately, she takes a bite and makes this little noise of appreciation that does wonderful, terrible things to me.
When she turns to me a few beats later, she gives me a look. “You’re not eating.”
Because I forgot how forks work. Quickly, I rectify that by shoveling prime rib into my mouth, but I’m still watching her taste the prime rib as if she’s having a religious experience. I’m having one, too.
“I was thinking,” she says. “I’d like you to help me craft a message to ShreddingPages about meeting in person. Like a formal invitation? What should I say?”
Since that’s the worst subject she could have picked, I shake my head, scrambling for threads of my sanity that are likely long gone. But I said I’d help her and here we are.
“Instead of strategizing all the time, why don’t we just talk, Tab?” I suggest. Lame. But it’s exactly what I want to do, so maybe it’s a test of sorts too. Is it even possible for us to hang out as if we have a normal, regular type relationship? “Just…tell me about your day.”
“A conversation.” She nods knowingly. “That’s smart. You’re so good at this.”
Sure. We’ll go with that.
“Let’s see.” Her mind turns over the concept of simple conversation, clearly weighing out how it’s supposed to work. “I’m trying to think of a funny story.”
Good grief. She really doesn’t get this. “Tab, I didn’t ask you so you could entertain me. I want to know. Tell me everything. What you had for breakfast if you want.”
She cocks her head. “But that’s boring.”
That’s so false, it makes me chuckle. “When it’s someone you don’t care about, yes. Mundane becomes exciting when other factors are at play.”
“Like what?”
“How you feel about the person.” Warming to the subject change for more reasons than one, I brain dump for a hot minute. “When you’re thinking about them all day, wondering what they’re doing, hearing about it later is like solving a puzzle. No detail is too small when you’ve spent hours thinking about their gorgeous eyes or what their laugh sounds like.”
“I don’t think I’m at that place in my relationship with ShreddingPages.”
“Forget that guy,” I’m not proud of how growly I sound, but competing with myself has started to do a number on me. “You’re talking to me right now. The right person for you will absolutely feel like that.”
For whatever reason, she takes the challenge and runs down her day, poking fun at me by starting with how she woke up, what she wore to work, oatmeal for breakfast, etc, etc. Joke’s on her—I love every word of it. She has a nice voice that I enjoy.
She winds down. Even though I just told her I didn’t want to talk strategy, I need to know the answer to the million-dollar question before I can relax.
“Why is it so important that you meet this guy on Christmas day?”
Tabitha toys with her water glass. “My dad wants me to quit working at the bookstore.”
“What? Why?” The whole sentence upsets me. Tabitha breathes books like I breathe snow. It would kill her to not be around them on a daily basis. Even I know that.
“He thinks of it as a fun hobby that I should have outgrown, I guess.” She shrugs, her meal no longer dominating her attention and I feel terrible for bringing it up. “He wants me to take over running the Kilt Valley Heritage Trust from my mother.”
“Is there something wrong with her?” I ask delicately. “Is she sick?”
Tabitha jolts. “Oh, no. It’s just what Douglas women do. We attend genteel fundraisers to ensure the preservation of the historic buildings in Kilt Valley. If we don’t do it, who will?”
“All of the other people who care about the history of our town?” I suggest with raised eyebrows, shocked that we have familial expectations that double as albatross necklaces in common. “You cannot let your father dictate what you do with your life. I…forbid it.”
The smile on her face makes me feel like a million dollars.
“I guess you have a better than average understanding of the problem.”
Yeah, you could say. “That’s why I’m firmly on Team Tabitha. If I had done what my father demanded, I’d be sitting in the resort office right now, pouring over advertising campaigns and running profit margin statements. We don’t get along because he’s trying to force me into a mold that would make me like him.”
Something creeps into her expression that I can’t categorize and it’s killing me. I want to know all of her tells, what she communicates in the small moments by fingering her hair a certain way or when her breathing picks up. I want to know her intimately. Not like that , and yes, it’s astounding to me too that I’m not focused on typical guy stuff.
It’s that I want to be who she turns to when she’s lost or alone. I want her to know that she’s the one I’d melt for, or whatever the snowman guy says in Frozen .
She’s still looking at me as if I’m a puzzle piece that she can’t place.
“What?” I murmur.
“ShreddingPages made a point to me earlier today that I’ve been mulling over. It’s just interesting to me that you basically said the same thing.”
I did? Full-blown panic grips my lungs and I start to wheeze, but I have to cover my slip. “Really? What a coincidence. Which part?”
“About trying to fit someone else’s mold. I think that’s what’s bothering me about meeting ShreddingPages. Why I haven’t reached out to him yet. I’m worried I’m doing it for the wrong reasons.”
“What reasons?” I shouldn’t ask. But I can’t help it.
“Because I can’t tell my father I don’t want to quit working at the bookstore. I keep thinking that I need a confidence boost so I can stand up for myself, but what if I’m just trading my father’s expectations for someone else’s?” Her expression pleads with me to understand.
I think I do. “You need someone to see you for who you are right now.”
It’s literally what I’ve been telling her the entire time, but the message has been watered down by pretending I’m fine with stepping aside for some other guy. I’m an idiot, by the way. What if I’d told her from minute one that I joined the book club because of her, that I agreed to help because I want to be close to her, that I think the sun rises and sets wherever she is?
How different would this have gone if I’d been real with her from the start?
And now everything is in shambles.