The Holiday Swap(58)

Cass stared down at the cakes, thoughtful. “I have an idea,” she said. “A final touch. A vanilla and cinnamon coffee cream topping drizzled on the plate. My assistant at the bakery in Starlight Peak adds vanilla and cinnamon to our coffee sometimes, and it’s just the perfect flavor combination.” Her heart rate ticked up as she realized what she’d just said. “I mean, when I help out there. Over the holidays. We have an assistant named Walter.”

Miguel simply nodded, not realizing the mistake she had made.

“I know I have some more cream in the fridge, and I definitely have coffee.” Flustered now, she poured the cream into a bowl, added the vanilla and cinnamon, and turned on the coffee grinder to fine grind some espresso beans. Then she plugged the hand-blender into an outlet beside the stove and turned it on. There was a loud zapping sound, and then all the lights went out. Now, Cass and Miguel were illuminated only by the candle still burning low on the kitchen table.

“Uh-oh, you have one of those finicky outlets,” Miguel said. “Same in my place. Seems to be a typical flaw in these vintage apartment buildings. Where’s your fuse box?”

“Oh! The fuse box. Right.” Luckily, Miguel seemed to mistake her confusion for something else. He stepped toward her and looked at her in the flickering candlelight.

“Maybe there’s no rush right this second,” he said. “You’re so beautiful in candlelight, Charlie. I mean, you’re beautiful all the time, but especially right now.”

Cass’s cheeks grew warm and her heart rate accelerated to warp speed, the way it always seemed to do when she was with Miguel. She reached for him and they shared a gentle kiss in the semidarkness. After the kiss, Cass rested her head against his chest. She could feel his heart beating beneath her cheek and wished they could stay like this forever. But it was getting late; he had to work the next day, and so did she. Reluctantly, she pulled away.

“Let me find the fuse box,” she said, realizing too late that she didn’t really know her way around this apartment. She checked a few obvious places—the front closet, the tiny laundry room—then emerged, perplexed but trying to cover her confusion.

There was no hiding it, though.

“Wait. You don’t know where the fuse box is?” Miguel said. It was hard to read his expression in the dim light, but from the tension in his voice she knew it wasn’t good.

“I’ve never blown a fuse before . . . My landlord showed me when I moved in, but I just . . .”

“Forgot.” He finished the sentence for her, and Cass couldn’t tell if he bought her story—but he started helping her look anyway, using the flashlight from his cell phone.

Finally, they found it, in the bedroom closet, a housecoat hanging in front of it. Miguel opened the panel, flipped the correct switch, and everything in the kitchen whirred to life. Cass ran back into the room just in time to see whipped cream spraying everywhere. She turned off the blender and grabbed a rag. The lights were glaring; she felt exposed.

“Charlie.”

She didn’t look up, just kept wiping the counter, rinsing the cloth. “Yes?”

She could feel him close, although she kept her eyes on the now sparkling clean countertop instead of meeting his eyes, afraid of what she would reveal.

“Have you been having any other lapses in memory? For example—and I can’t believe I didn’t realize this before—have you forgotten big things you used to know how to do before? Like, for example . . . how to surf?”

“What? You think I lied to you about that?” She realized how absurd it was for her to be so indignant: she was lying to him about literally everything else. But she still pressed forward. “That was the truth: I never learned how.”

“And you just kept all this equipment for your sister?” She had never seen him like this. He seemed confused, maybe even a little angry—and how could she blame him? He didn’t believe her. It was all unraveling. Her heart was racing. How could she fix this?

But she could tell from the expression on his face that it had gone too far. It made her feel sick, how many lies she had actually told him. She truly cared about him—which meant she had to tell him the truth.

“Miguel . . .” She opened her mouth, then closed it again. The right words to explain what she had been up to escaped her. “I . . . ah . . .”

Miguel shook his head and momentarily rubbed his palm across his face in agitation. “I should have known better,” he said. “This is all my fault. I got too focused on my . . . on whatever this is between us”—he waved his hand like he didn’t know anymore, like it was all meaningless—“and forgot about my obligation to you as a medical professional. You came to me with a concussion, and I—God, what is wrong with me? I ignored all the signs.”

“Miguel, what signs? I don’t have a concussion—”

“Yes, you do. And a serious one, which I knew when I first met you. But you seemed to have recovered when I saw you again—except, you didn’t know the Hive always opened late, and you were so agitated and confused on set that day I came to watch with Jacintha, which is not at all like the Charlie Goodwin I’m familiar with.”

Her heart sank at this and she broke eye contact. “Maybe you should just go,” she said.

“Have you had any other symptoms?” He seemed anguished now, but she knew it wasn’t because of his feelings for her and instead because the tangled web she had been weaving was threatening to strangle them both. “Headaches, blurred vision? You know, you probably shouldn’t even be driving. You definitely should not be working, which I told you the day I treated you, especially not if you’re having memory lapses like the one you had tonight.”