Page 75 of Something Borrowed

“Cal! You shouldn’t have.”

He knew his grin was as big as hers.

“You like it?”

“It’s amazing.”

“We can get it sized and inscribed when you get her—or him.”

“I might wear it myself until I find the right one, or she finds me.” Carrie slid the chunky silver-link collar with its blingy dog bone tag on her wrist as if to show she was serious.

Next, they watched him unwrap their gifts to him, one of which was a sweater from Carrie.

He read the tag aloud to the camera. “Because you can’t wear flannel every single day.”

“Yes, I bloody well can,” he said to the camera, waving a flannel-encased arm for emphasis.

Jordy and Kelsey laughed.

Then they watched in anticipation as he opened their joint gift, the latest Elif Shafak novel—oooh, he was excited. He opened it to a bookmark they’d slid into it, and discovered it was a gift card. “Oh, wow, you guys! How’d you know I’m into this store?”

Jordy grinned and tossed Cal’s own line back at him. “A little birdie you call Sister might’ve mentioned you were going all interior decorator.”

The visit wound down fairly quickly after that—good timing because his battery was about to pack it in. Cal gave another round of holiday wishes, and before he hit End, Carrie and the kids were already joking about who was going to cook what and who was only going to eat.

Even though it had been an online visit, the house felt emptier or colder or something after they disconnected. Cal sat his phone on its charger in his bedroom. In the living room, he used his stereo, so unheard of in this day and age, and put on a record that used to belong to his parents: John Denver’s Rocky Mountain Christmas. As the first strains of “Aspenglow” came on, though, he had to turn it off. So beautiful, but too memory laden. Melancholy. He didn’t want to be sad today. He closed the turntable’s lid and stacked his CD changer with 80s rock instead, volume set low, so it would just be soft background noise. Then he double-checked his fridge, making sure he’d taken the pre-stuffed, rolled turkey breast he’d bought for the big day out of the freezer and put it in the fridge to defrost. He had, of course.

Finally, he lit a couple of candles and settled back into his chair—imbibing eggnog this time, not coffee—and visited with Dave and his turkey again. It was nice. Just quiet.

An hour or so later, his book about Dave’s turkey was done—great to the very last page. His cheeks hurt from smiling so hard at the outlandish story.

Yawning and stretching contentedly, he looked at his watch. When the time registered in his brain, his peaceful enjoyment of the day drained away. 2:30 pm! What? If he’d ever lived a slower-passing day in his life, he wasn’t sure when.

He got up, put his Dave book in a section of the living room bookshelf dedicated to seasonal reads, then paced the room.

If he had a dog, he could walk it. That would give him something to do when quiet hours stretched too long. He could go for a walk without having a dog, of course, but what was the fun in that?

Vic and her new cat—if it indeed was going to be her cat—popped into his head then. He wondered how they were doing. It was the first time she’d visited his thoughts in at least a couple of hours—a record for him, but he’d never confess that out loud.

He was intentionally trying to avoid obsessing about their date tomorrow because he didn’t know if his heart could survive 48 hours of the extreme excitement that dwelling on it ignited. Besides, he didn’t want to jinx it by creating massive expectations about what it might lead to, more dates, or a—

See! That’s why he didn’t let himself think about it. He got carried away in thirty seconds flat.

He wandered back to his bedroom to retrieve his phone, mostly charged now.

He wasn’t going to call Vic and disturb her Christmas Day plans, whatever they were, of course. And he wouldn’t harass her by text either. They’d very clearly set their plans for tomorrow. Then again . . . they were having a date. Maybe it would be weird if he didn’t at least text her a Merry Christmas.

His phone sprang to life, and a notification showed he had two messages.

Cal opened it, expecting Carrie, or one of the kids.

But it was Vic. Cal groaned in disbelief. Of all the times and days to ignore his phone! The time stamp showed she’d texted him hours earlier—and like a numpty, he’d totally ignored her. And on Christmas.

Chapter 37

It had been a surprisingly low-stress, not-absolutely-terrible morning and afternoon with Audra. They’d enjoyed pancakes with strawberries and whipping cream and sides of bacon for Christmas brunch and even played a game of Scrabble—Audra’s idea. You could’ve knocked Vic over with a feather. It was, Vic believed, all because of Christmas—the cat that is, not the day. It seemed like the exactly right name for the sparkly, surprisingly friendly little animal. A bittersweet name just as the holiday itself was for so many people. Sweet for the obvious, aforementioned reasons; bitter because there was absolutely no way, given her calm demeanor, familiarity with a litter box, and happy-to-be-with-the-humans personality, that she didn’t belong to someone.

Christmas had been on full-charm mode pretty much from the time Vic first fed her breakfast. She was fastidiously clean. She didn’t make a pest of herself with Audra—but Vic had clocked her sitting near Audra’s chair, purring to beat the band. And when Vic went to bed Christmas Eve, Christmas trotted upstairs after her like it was a well-established tradition already, jumped up beside her, and snuggled right in.