Holiday Wedding (Holiday Romance-Spicy Version #2)

24

Saturday, December 21

3 days until the wedding

Gwen

In the bathroom, with the door closed for privacy, I try Caleb one last time before going to bed. He picks up on the third ring, groggy, his voice more raspy than usual.

“Hey. Sorry to wake you,” I whisper in a soft tone, feeling guilty for interrupting his sleep. He works hard, long hours.

“No. No,” he says to reassure me. There’s a rustling in the background, sheets and blankets being tossed aside. I assume he’s sitting up. Maybe he’s moved to the chair in the corner of the room. “I’m glad you did. I was waiting for you but must have fallen asleep. I see I missed your call. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. How are you?” I ask, my heart warming from the sound of his voice.

“Bad,” he says, his tone flat.

Alarmed, I clutch the phone tighter. “Why?”

“The nightmares are back.” So much anguish buried beneath those words.

I press my fingers to my temple, understanding immediately. “The drinking ones?”

“Are there any others?”

The defeat in his voice makes my heart clench. “Tell me about them,” I say, like I always do.

“You already know.” He’s morose.

“Tell me again,” I urge, surprised he’s resisting. In the past he said talking to me about this helped. I’ve talked to him on the phone late at night when he would wake up half-sobbing.

A heavy sigh from him. “It’s the same as before. I’m at a bar, not one I recognize. I drink and drink, but my glass is never empty. It tastes,” here’s where his words get ragged, “tastes so good. Like the best thing in the world. I’m thirsty. I keep going, getting more and more panicked because my mouth is so dry. I can’t quench it…the thirst.” Shallow breathing from Caleb echoes over the line.

“It’s okay,” I say gently. “Remember, the addiction specialist said this is normal. Lots of people in recovery have these dreams. That’s your mind’s and body’s way of processing.”

“It should be over by now.” His words come out slowly, like he has to prod them from his mouth. “I haven’t had alcohol in almost two years.”

The doctor had told us the nightmares might never go away. Caleb knows that, but the crankiness in his tone tells me he doesn’t want to hear it.

Abruptly, he changes the subject. “Your text says you’re stuck in Denver? What happened? Last I heard you were just going to have a layover there.”

I tell him about how the flights got canceled and how we were rerouted.

“That’s just great,” he says sarcastically. “You’re gone. Dean’s gone, trapped across town. Half the guests are stranded. I’m all alone. Everything is going wrong.” He lets out an angry, short sigh, then says in a tightly controlled voice, “I told you to take the jet.”

I close my eyes, stunned by the resentment in his tone. My anger flares to meet his. “What difference would that have made? All the airports in New York are closed. Even to your fancy-schmancy jet.”

He doesn’t like that. He spits back, “You could have gotten out before the storm hit instead of waiting at the airport for hours. Could be home right now if you hadn’t been so dang stubborn.”

“Wow, Caleb,” I say sarcastically, “why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”

He exhales sharply, muttering curses under his breath, too soft for me to make them out. I can hear his bare feet slapping the wood floors of his bedroom, and I know he’s pacing. “I feel angry.”

“Yeah, Captain Obvious.” I’m pacing, too. I can only take four steps in the cramped bathroom before I have to turn around and go the other direction. “I got that already. Thanks.”

“I feel like I’ve sacrificed a lot for you, and you don’t appreciate it,” he says. Bitterness resonates through the phone line and hits me like a punch to the gut.

My vision turns red at that. Memories of my lecture and how those girls treated me come flooding back.

“You? You’ve sacrificed? Really, tell me what you gave up.”

“My movie career. I gave that up to be with you. To stay home with you.”

I gape at the phone, totally thrown off by his answer. “What’re you talking about? You said you wanted out of the film industry. That you were sick of it.”

A frustrated groan from him. “I was, but now that I’ve had time away—I don’t know—maybe I miss it. The producer I met for lunch, my old friend, he has a project that might be good for me.”

“You want to do that kind of work again?” Emergency bells clang in the back of my mind. I see a future where Caleb’s off making movies while I’m at home with 10 screaming babies. A future where I give up medicine, where I subjugate my needs to his.

It’s a picture that terrifies me.

I sit on the closed toilet. The porcelain is cold and hard against my legs. “What about me? Where do I fit into these plans?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even saying I’ll take the job. It’s just something that I would have considered before…”

My heart thuds painfully as I complete that sentence. “Before what? Me?” I inhale a shuddering breath and swallow down the tears that threaten.

“Forget I mentioned it,” Caleb says, cutting me off. Heedless of my emotions, he pours out all his anger and frustration. “It’s not just that. It’s all the stress I’m under.” I picture him tearing his hands through his hair. “I’m trying to keep everything together here. The wedding. Our families. The theater. The restaurants. All while you’re off gallivanting around the country.”

“Gallivanting!” I gasp, shocked he used that word. “Are you serious right now? You told me to go to this conference. You said it would be fine.”

“I said to go away for a week. Not two.”

His exaggeration makes me even more enraged. “I’ll be home tomorrow!”

“No, you won’t,” he argues. “It’s a blizzard here. I can’t see out the window. Half the city has lost power. It’ll take days to clean this up.”

My stomach drops, sinking down into my feet. “Days? We don’t have days.”

“Why do you think I’m freaking out? Our families have flown in. My cousins came all the way from Ireland. They’re here, and you’re not. Do you understand what a disaster this is?”

“It’s not my fault. I can’t control the weather.” I’m gripping the edge of the toilet lid, my knuckles white. I try to calm my racing heart, but my emotions are difficult to rein in. Maybe it’s the stress of traveling or the impending wedding. This is all too much. I want to hang up on him. Go back to a time when this conversation never happened.

“This is pointless to argue about,” I say, unable to admit he might be right about all of it. “I’ll be at the airport in the morning and be home by nightfall.” If I believe it with enough conviction, surely it will happen.

“You won’t, but whatever.” Bitterness leaks out of the phone.

I dig in my heels. I’ll make that plane fly me home tomorrow even if I have to pilot it myself. Just to prove him wrong.

“I guess we’ll see.”

“Guess so,” he says, sullen. “Listen, I have to be at the restaurant early to take a delivery. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Fine. Well, good night then,” I snap.

“Yeah, good night.” There’s a long pause where I hold my breath, waiting. Finally, more softly, he says, “I love you.”

I relax my grip. We haven’t gone a single evening without saying that to each other since we reunited. It’s a talisman, those three little words. They weave a magic spell of protection over our relationship. Holds it together so we don’t break apart, but tonight I’m not sure it’s enough.

I tell him, “Love you, too.”

It’s not until after I’ve hung up that I realize neither of us said our usual “forever and always.”

I lean against the bathroom wall and then slide down it until I’m sitting on the floor with my phone held loosely in my hand. I stare at nothing for several minutes.

Caleb and I rarely fight, never anything like the conversation we just had.

After a minute, I dial a number I memorized years ago. It rings for so long that I almost hang up, but finally Mom answers.

“Gwen?”

“Hey, did I wake you? Sorry, I know it’s late on the East Coast.” I rub my eyes, tired.

“No, honey, I’m up. I’m still on California time,” she says, with concern in her voice. I rarely call past bedtime. “What’s going on?”

I hesitate, deliberating. My mother and I don’t have a perfect relationship, but at the end of the day, when I’m sad or scared, I want my mom. “I had a fight with Caleb.”

“Oh no. I’m so sorry, honey. Can you tell me about it?”

Again, I pause. Complaining about Caleb feels like a betrayal, but the truth is, I’m struggling. Alvina said to lean on my support system, so that’s what I’m going to do.

“He’s upset that I’m stranded and not able to help with the wedding.” I stand up. Sitting on the hard tiled floor is uncomfortable.

“I think everything’s shaping up fine,” Mom reassures me. “We got all the flowers and tuxes done.”

“I know, but he’s worried I won’t make it home in time.” I tuck the phone under my chin and wash my hands. They’re sticky from the chocolate ice cream Alvina and I ordered for comfort food earlier tonight.

“If you’re stuck at the airport, then so is everyone else. All of our families. This storm is affecting the entire country,” she reminds me.

“What should we do? Reschedule it?” Panic stirs when I think how hard it would be to move the wedding date. We’d have to rebook all the vendors. Most of our guests are from out of town. How many of them would make a second trip?

“That’s not necessary. If there’s any chance of you making it, I say we keep everything as is.”

I let out a sigh, glad she isn’t urging me to change the date. “I’m still hoping we get in on time.”

“Everyone understands the situation. Your guests are more flexible than you give them credit for—hang on a minute.” There’s the rustle of her speaking to someone and the sound of a door closing. “Seth’s going to bed. I wanted to let him know I was talking to you. Was it just the wedding that’s got Caleb upset?”

“No. He says he might want to do movies again.” I move back to the toilet and sit down on its closed lid.

“Is that a bad thing?” she asks.

“It means he’ll potentially spend months on location.”

Time away from me.

“If you hold him back, he’ll grow resentful,” she warns.

“What about me? I’m growing resentful.” I shift into the same position I was in earlier, with my feet on the toilet seat and my knees pulled up to my chin. Quickly, I fill her in on what happened with Skylar, Lola, and my presentation.

“None of that’s Caleb’s fault,” Mom says. “He can’t control how other people act.”

“I know, but still it feels like there’s so much I have to sacrifice to make this relationship work. Things Caleb has to give up too, like how I don’t fit into the typical celebrity wife mold.”

Mom surprises me by laughing. “Did you expect it to be different? All relationships require sacrifice and compromise. That’s what happens when two people come together and agree to share their lives. There’s no way they’ll both want the same things at the same time.”

“You and Dad weren’t like that,” I’m quick to point out. “I don’t remember you ever arguing.”

She laughs again, even louder. “Of course we fought, Gwen. We just did it at night after you kids were in bed.”

My jaw drops.

“Your father was a wonderful man, but you romanticize him, honey. He was so smart that sometimes it made him overconfident, hard-headed. He was certain he knew the best path for our family. When I didn’t agree, it could take hours of debate for him to see my point. The good thing was that, once I explained myself well enough, he took what I had to say into consideration. We both compromised a ton. Gave up what we wanted to keep the peace.”

I can’t picture my dad being that way. “Really? Like what?”

“So many things. I wanted to live in Chicago close to my family, but your dad said California was better for his job. He wanted to put you all in private school, but I thought public school was fine. He wanted to bike to work, and I was worried he’d get run over.”

“How’d you figure it out? What you chose?”

“Sometimes I would get what I wanted, and sometimes he would. We stayed in California. You went to public schools, and he only biked on the weekends. That’s the compromise part. It wasn’t easy. Some arguments spanned years. Some were never resolved, and that’s okay. It’s the same way with Seth. The same for all couples, at least the ones I know.”

Her words settle me down. “What you’re saying is that no one ever wins? Someone’s always giving in?”

“Basically,” she says in a cheery voice. “It’s so worth it though, Gwen. For all the times that you and Caleb disagree, there’ll be far more when you see eye to eye. That’s because you’ve picked wisely. You’ve selected a partner with similar values and goals. Together you’ll build a family. When the years have passed and you look back at all you’ve accomplished, you won’t remember the fights—you’ll only think about your triumphs.”

She takes in a breath. Emotion makes her voice waver. “At least that’s how your father and I felt when we thought about you kids and the life we built. For all our bickering, at the end, before he died, he said the greatest thing he did was marry me and have all of you. I’m sure you’ll feel the same way about Caleb.”

Talking about Dad brings tears to my eyes. Those were the last words I had heard him say—that Mom and us kids were the best decisions he’d ever made.

Mom’s right. When I look at my life, all the things I’ve done, my relationship with Caleb is what I’m most proud of, most passionate about. As much as I love medicine and will never leave it, the people in my life will always be my top priority.

“Thanks, Mom,” I tell her, wiping away a few stray tears. “That was exactly what I needed to hear.”

Caleb was correct. Flights are grounded the next day and the day after that. Every morning, the shuttle drives us to the airport. We watch with strained eyes as the time to board our flight lengthens, and the word “delayed” eventually turns to “canceled.” Every night, the shuttle takes us back to the same hotel room so we can go to sleep and then get up and do it all over again.

At the airport, Christmas music plays in the speakers overhead. It’s a prerecorded loop. I’ve spent so many hours at the gate that I know which song is next. After Little Drummer Boy, it always goes to Baby, It’s Cold Outside, the old Dean Martin version.

My nightly phone calls with Caleb grow progressively more strained.

We still end with “I love you,” but I fear there will come a day when those words are too hard to push past our lips, when they are said out of duty rather than genuine emotion. The thought tears me apart.