You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(5)

She didn’t ask, “What’s the other?” Perhaps because she no longer believed his answer.

“I wasn’t a loner at high school—with three sisters I couldn’t be—but I did live in my own world with music, and didn’t notice other people much. But I noticed her.”

He leaned forward to pick up an olive, conscious of Kayla’s sharpened focus.

“This girl was a dynamo, always cheerful and friendly. She must have been involved in half the clubs in high school.” The olive was salty and tart with a shot of sweetness from the pimento in its center. “She tried out for the school band but even playing the triangle, someone had to nod a cue or she’d miss the beat. She just laughed it off and moved on to something else.”

He chewed thoughtfully. “She didn’t care about her image the way the other pretty girls did. What mattered to her was giving everything a try and encouraging other people to have a go.”

Swallowing the olive, he washed it down with warm beer. “I don’t know why she decided to make me one of her pet projects, or even how she found out I wanted to become a professional musician.”

He paused, waiting. He’d never thought to ask her that before.

“Perhaps she didn’t, at first,” Kayla offered. “When you played she might have been blown away by how freaking good you were—despite her own lack of talent on the triangle—and figured it was your lane.”

“She started dropping career pamphlets in my locker on how to develop a music career and pestered me into playing in the orchestra for our high school production. I messed with her a lot because I was cool and full of self-doubt. And one day she called me on my bullshit.”

Absently, he looked at his hands, with light calluses on the left fingertips from the frets.

“She said, ‘You have to believe to succeed’, which was the lamest cliché I ever heard, except that I did stop pretending and I believed. And when that belief wavered, when people told me how hard it was to break through, or suggested I give up and get a proper job, this girl believed for me.”

He stopped, emotion thick in his throat. Took another sip of beer. “I lived with a houseful of women, I wasn’t going to tie myself down young, but she was irresistible, like trying to stay out of the sun.”

He wanted that sun’s warmth again, wanted to bask in her love so badly.





Chapter Three





Kayla swallowed, unable to look away from those dark, liquid eyes. “Sounds like a fairytale.”

“It is. I married her.”

She finished her mulled wine. The dregs were bitter and gritty. “And yet here you are, Bob, on a secret assignation with another woman.”

She was proud of how light and playful she kept her tone.

“Kayla—”

“Betty.”

“Kayla,” he repeated. “I—”

Laughing shrieks distracted him. Kayla looked up. Had one of the exotics gotten loose from their bamboo cage?

Half a dozen women clattered through the bar, in clothes that paid no mind to the temperature outside—crop tops revealing honed bellies, legs bare under sexy minis. A brunette in a strapless dress straightened a lacy bridal veil over a riot of curly hair.

Their whoops and raucous laughter suggested this wasn’t the bachelorette party’s first bar, confirmed by the slightly lurching gait of the bride-to-be. She steadied herself on the black quartz counter. “Five fireball shots, barkeep, my girls are paying, and a tomato juice for my sober driver.”

As she hitched up her strapless dress she made eye contact with a guy waiting for service. “Look your fill, buddy, cause tomorrow I’m taken… No, not tomorrow. When am I getting married again, girls?”

“Next weekend, Paula,” they chorused.

“Holy shit, I gotta find someone to flirt with.” Swinging around, her gaze swept the room for prospects.

Kayla grinned and said to Jared, “Look taken.”

“I am taken.” He leaned forward and kissed her.

It was a nip of a kiss, light but provocative, and so unexpected it flustered her.

“Too soon, Betty?” he asked politely but she recognized that inflection in his voice. Husky and knowing, dirty and dark. He wasn’t sorry, not one bit.

“Actually, Bob, I was thinking, is that the best you can do?”

His eyes darkened. God, she loved it when she turned him on. “You think you’re safe because we’re in public?”

She let her chuckle answer.

He leaned forward again, and she waited, lips slightly parted. These days, he wore expensive cologne, but she could smell her man underneath the warm sandalwood. A scream split the air, making them start.

“No f*cking way,” yelled the bride-to-be. “It’s him… Y’know, him.”

Jared tilted his head to glance over Kayla’s shoulder. “Brace yourself.”

She planted a kiss on his cheek. “Make it fast, so we can return to the slow.” Collecting her bag, she stood. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“Are you kidding? We have kids. One of us has to get out alive.”

Kayla nodded to the stampede as she passed but only the sober driver responded. The others were too intent on their prey. Poor Jared.