Page 54 of Love Me Again

He watched as she waited for him, her expression pained because even standing there telling him it was too late, it hurt her to see him in pain. Because she did care. This wasn’t about love or care. It was about trust.

He didn’t know how to build trust back up. Didn’t know how to mend the cracks and breaks he’d put in their foundation. Not when she was so determined they couldn’t be healed.

He thought of all the ways he’d given up—on his family, on himself. The way it had always felt like the only option, when looking back it had been the easy option. The option that kept things from hurting too much.

But this hurt more than anything, and he couldn’t accept failure. Not when losing her felt like too much to ever bear.

So how did he fix it? He really didn’t know.

He led her inside and to the big living room where the Christmas tree was set up and his family was milling around. Gavin and Cal hefting the tubs of ornaments and placing them next to the tree while Grandma perfected her cookie spread on the shelf in the back of the room.

“Josie’s here,” Boone announced.

Everyone turned to her and kind of cheered, Mom and Molly moving forward to greet her while Lou and Grandma made space for her.

She couldn’t fight a smile at that, and that smile made him feel like he’d won a million dollars.

It’s too late for us.

He wasn’t going to let that be true.

CHAPTER 16

Josie had refused the eggnog Grandma Maisey had offered, because she’d looked over at Boone and he’d given his head a little shake. A clear sign it would knock her on her ass if she accepted. Josie noted Molly also declined. No doubt they were both in the same boat after last night.

Josie looked down at the cookie in her hand. She had rightfully refused some alcohol, but she might feel just as sick tomorrow from all the cookies. Because they were amazing, and she couldn’t quite resist. They were everywhere.

And this was nice. Even when she felt Boone’s gaze on her far too often, there were enough people she was always engaged in some conversation or another. Mostly revolving around the Christmas ornaments being lovingly unpacked and hung on the tree.

She got to hear how Deb had met her first husband, about the Christmas after Lindsay was born when Deb had five kids under the age of eight and her husband had thought he would help her overwhelm by buying a fake tree for the house.

“I just cried and cried and told him he was awful.” Deb shook her head, like the memory was a fond one. “I was so mean to him, but he just took it. Promised to go cut me down a real tree that very afternoon. Luckily, we laughed about it after the fact. And he promised never to get me anything but an hour to myself next time he noticed I was overwhelmed.”

There were more stories like that. They didn’t all revolve around Boone’s late father, but with every new little kernel of information, she thought about Boone. Dreading Christmas, because he felt like he didn’t have anything to share about his father.

Her heart ached for a little boy who misunderstood what was expected of him, and for the people who so clearly loved him but hadn’t known how to take that feeling away.

It was dangerous, swampy ground. If she had any self-preservation instincts, she would have left. Just slipped out. No one would have noticed right away, she was almost certain.

But she stayed, watched, listened, and ate far too many more cookies while everyone took out ornaments, told a story or two, and hung them up.

“Boone made this one in kindergarten.” Deb handed her a kind of crumpled piece of paper with a hook hanging from it. It was maybe cut in the shape of a kind of star and was decorated with faded stickers. In careful, childish writing on the back it said To: Mom From: Boone.

“Mom, throw that atrocity away,” Boone said. “It’s about dust anyway.”

“Never,” Deb said vehemently. “Now, I can’t trust him to put it up. Why don’t you, Josie?”

Josie hesitated. It was one thing to sit here as an observer, but putting ornaments on the tree was like…being part of the family.

She didn’t have a family, and she’d do well to remember it.

But to refuse felt petty or rude or she was afraid of disappointing Deb, so it felt like her only option was to sink deeper into this thing she desperately wanted and couldn’t have and wasn’t that all Boone Tyler’s fault?

With a lump in her throat she pretended wasn’t there by plastering a fake smile on her face, she hung the ornament on the tree. She wasn’t the only one hanging an ornament at the moment—Micah had a glass basketball over on the other side, and Lou was hanging a pretty beaded bouquet of poinsettias, so it wasn’t like all eyes were on her, but she felt Boone’s eyes on her. Felt the old frisson of heat.

She supposed this had been his plan. She supposed she should be mad at him. She couldn’t quite find it in herself. When she went back to her seat, he was hovering kind of behind it. She could have found a seat somewhere else.

But she didn’t. She settled herself onto the little bench even though he was right behind her. She sat, he stood, a breath apart, while Grandma Maisey showed off a truly terrifying looking Santa that she explained was the oldest ornament on the tree.