Nice Guys Don’t Kiss Like That At Christmas

Chapter 3 EVE

Chapter three

EVE

“UC Medical Center thanks you for your application, but after careful consideration, we regret to inform you we decided to move forward with a better-suited candidate. Wishing you happy holidays.” Translation: Your-Suspension-Makes-You-Radioactive.

This is the sixth rejection email this week.

It’s all good. I’ve still got five pending applications.

Plus, the Trauma ER Coordinator position at Lakeview Hospital doesn’t open until January.

The timing’s perfect: finish this small-town stint, grab a glowing recommendation that screams “stable and so professional,” and make it back to Chicago in time to show Chuck he didn’t completely obliterate me.

Because he didn’t.

I’m still Eve Can-Do-This Foster. Right?

Maybe. Totally.

“You okay girls?” I murmur to my dogs in the backseat as I pause my audiobook.

When my Great Dane and dachshund tilt their head as if to say, “You got this mom,” I finally step out of my parked car.

The only one in this deserted gas station.

My gaze darts around and goosebumps trail up my neck.

Between the inflatable Santa singing “Merry Christmas” in a creepy metallic voice in the corner, the flickering lights and the abandoned-vibes of the motel on the other side of the road, this could be the beginning of The Shining: Christmas Edition.

Hurrying, I slam my credit card against the machine while my phone rings. The hospital. Hope flickers in my chest. Maybe they saw the error of their ways and are asking me back.

“Eve.” Great. My ex.

I clear my throat. “I don’t have time.” But of course he doesn’t listen to me. Instead, his voice blares from the speakers from inside the car as my phone switches to Bluetooth without my permission. Something about holiday staffing schedules I never asked about.

The pump beeps.

Payment declined.

Crap. Shit. Fuck.

Wind and snow slap me in the face as I use my only other card while attempting one of those deep-breathing “hmms” Julie taught me.

But I sound like a congested Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer impersonating a meditation instructor.

My bank account is probably sending me an “I’m so disappointed text,” and I refuse to calculate how many oatmeal dinners stand between me and financial ruin.

Dorothy’s dental surgery cost more than my monthly rent, and she probably still has better credit than I do.

Approved.

I’d do a happy dance, but my fingers are frozen and I’m 90% sure a serial killer’s watching me from that abandoned building.

“Eve, are you even listening?” I slide back into my car, ignoring my ex’s grating tone and the tightening in my throat as my dogs throw me Mommy-will-never-afford-premium-kibble-again stares from the backseat.

I exhale, rip off my beanie, and push back my honey-blonde hair, now standing on end like I licked an outlet.

Not quite the “new life, new hair” cut Claire recommended post-divorce.

The mirror reflects my tired brown eyes and circles no concealer dares challenge.

I look less “exciting new chapter” and more “needs a nap and more therapy.”

But I got this.

The motor sputters as I turn back onto what can only be described as a country road to holiday hell.

“Why are you really calling, Chuck?” I maintain my professional nurse voice.

The one I use when explaining to drunk college students why, no, the ER can’t “just take out” the lightbulb they’ve inserted somewhere creative.

Nothing says “holiday spirit” quite like maintaining eye contact with a guy wearing only a Santa hat who keeps insisting, “But it was a Christmas light. Festive, dude.”

“I’m worried about you,” Chuck says, his voice mellowing into that smooth tone that once made my shoulders relax. “I’ve been thinking about us, and how sorry I am about how things ended.”

My entire body tenses. Ah, this part of the script.

Chuck’s “genuine” apology. Version 10.0.

He’s perfected it over the years, with enough regret and tenderness to sound convincing to anyone who hasn’t heard it before.

Five versions ago, I might have believed him.

Now? It’s another Jerk Du Soleil performance.

I let him talk anyway. Not because there’s hope left, but because when Chuck thinks his apology has landed, he gets careless. And careless means information I could use. For Jennie who needs to know his apologies come with an expiration date. For me...

He continues, “I was thinking about that Christmas Eve at my parents’. Remember? When you told everyone about that glass heart ornament your grandfather made?”

I remember. The warm lights, the champagne, how Chuck had pulled me close as I explained Papet’s glassblowing.

How everyone listened instead of executing their standard Eve-is-talking-let’s-check-our-phones protocol.

One of those rare moments when I didn’t force a Chuck-approved smile. When I belonged. Or thought so.

Memory blurs the worst parts like anesthesia: numbing what hurt until the feeling floods back, sharp and sudden.

“My mother still talks about that story,” he says softly. “How much it meant to everyone. To us.”

I’m taking the ornament to Papet this New Year’s. Proof it survived both the fall and my divorce. Everything else from Cape Cod? Still boxed up in my parents’ attic. Like artifacts. Like feelings I never fully unpacked.

“That ornament means a lot to me,” I murmur, tapping the steering wheel. Definitely a soothing mechanism like my therapist said. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap.

“Maybe, but it’s mine.” His voice hardens.

“What?” Well, that’s new.

“After all the work I did to get it repaired when you knocked it off the tree.”

Ah yes, the fight. One of many. Where I ended up believing him instead of my own eyes. Yet again.

When I don’t immediately respond, he pushes harder. “The receipt is in my name. Jennie was looking at old photos last night and asked where it was. I had to tell her my ex-wife is being unreasonable. Again. I want to surprise her with it at Christmas.”

Jennie. My former mentee who’s now sleeping in my former bed. The one I trained, supported through her first year, who cried on my shoulder more than once. Now she’s playing house with my ex-husband. But I also know if he wants to “surprise” her, he’s already being an ass to her.

He continues, “You know the holidays are hard for her, and you’re making them harder.”

“I?” And I sound like Dorothy’s favorite squeaky toy. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Who else? You clearly are not over me, and I get it, but I moved on. You should, too. So, Eve… tell me, where is the ornament?”

“Maybe it’s shoved all the way up your ass,” I murmur as I check the GPS again. Is it frozen?

“Very professional. I didn’t want to go there. But don’t make me call—”

I hang up before he finishes, swallowing a scream. Goodreads says villains should have layers. Chuck definitely does. Three dimensions of pure, undiluted assholery.

The Bluetooth reconnects automatically. Like I actually didn’t hang up on him. My barely functioning car is possessed by a Christmas spirit, and not a happy one.

His voice is coming in and out. Sounding more metallic by the second. “J—j—Jenn—ie. Your—protocol.” Yes, I know you stole my family support program protocol. Fuck you, Chuck all the way to the moon.

“Part—paaaart—time. Cancer—” Even my malfunctioning Bluetooth can’t stop my lungs from freezing.

Hang up. Hang up now before he says something that really cuts. I press the button, but I can still hear him breathe.

And, of course, now, my car decides it’s time to let me hear him crystal clear.

“Cancer fucked you up. And gave you an inflated ego. You only care about yourself not the patients. You don’t care about anyone else, really.”

And there we go. Chuck’s greatest hit. His way of erasing my calling as a nurse.

The one I discovered after being on the other side of the hospital bed.

Believing I could show ER patients they’re still people, not just another chart.

At least his assessment doesn’t sting as much anymore.

It’s a faded bruise on the heart that only makes you go “ouch” when you poke it.

And Chuck’s second specialty, after Emergency Medicine, is How to Make Eve Feel Like Shit.

He earned three PhDs on the subject during our marriage.

I can picture him running a hand through that expensive McDreamy haircut. “You were always broken and even I couldn’t fix you.”

This time, when I hang up on him again, it works.

Nope. It doesn’t.

Bluetooth: 3. Eve: 0.

Blanche snorts.

“Is that my girl I hear?” Chuck says, smug as ever, protein shaker clinking in the background. “How are my dogs? You’ve had your credentials back for three months…what else are you doing except spoiling them rotten?”

“The dogs you never walked are fine,” I snap, glancing in the rearview mirror. Dorothy’s licking Blanche’s ear, and Blanche shoots me a side-eye. And he doesn’t get to know that I do, indeed, have a job. Starting tomorrow. In the middle of nowhere, apparently.

“My lawyers advise me I have options,” he continues, with enough of an edge that I know it’s a threat. “If you don’t get me my ornament before Christmas, I’ll sue. Got it? Happy holidays, sweetheart.”

And, of course, when he hangs up, it works.

Ugh!

When I met him, I was Jennie’s age. He was older, confident—the kind of man who walks into rooms knowing he is the smartest person there. He became my friend. Supportive. Sweet. So sure about us. Waited for me to be ready to date after The One We Don’t Talk About, wooed me.

As a doctor, he didn’t flinch when he saw the port I still had. Promised he knew exactly what he was getting into. He sold me on a version of us that felt safe. Real. Like the kind of future people toast to. And we did.

For a while, I believed we did.

And maybe it wasn’t all fake.