The Christmas Crush

Chapter 35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

One final whack with the sledgehammer, and the last rotten board splintered. Wood chunks flew around him. When he turned to his tool chest, he saw Pamela’s front door open across the street. The florist stepped onto her porch and rubbed her arms to warm herself, craning her neck to look at him. Twilight made the temperature dip even lower, and Pamela shivered with theatrical flair.

“Everything okay over there, kiddo?” she called. Fantastic. Soon all of New Hope would know Lawrence Higgins was having a breakdown while breaking down Nana’s crappy steps.

He took a pair of screws from where he held them clenched between his lips like cigarettes. He inspected the fresh lumber he’d picked up after leaving the hospital.

“Fine,” he said.

“Your mom called and told me the surgery went well. We’re all so relieved.”

Dad hunting him down with the good news about Nana’s operation was the only reason he could function. Overwhelmed, regret like a stone in his stomach, he’d called Elena back right after she hung up on him. Twice he got her voice mail, his mind a jumbled mess, his words stuck to his tongue, unable to leave a coherent message.

There had been no sympathy from her for the fact that he’d been having the worst day of his life. She’d spoken right over him as he tried to admit fault, made sure to let him know exactly what she thought of him.

He might’ve been wrong about the recipe fiasco—despite all logical signs pointing straight to her; who could blame him for thinking two plus two made four?—but he wasn’t wrong about her unsettling ability to freeze him out. How she’d used the same superior tone she’d pulled on him the night of their town hall. He never should’ve chased after her. She could’ve gotten new gloves, and he could have spared himself this heartache.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Lawrence? Do you want some wassail?”

“No,” he said, his tone sharper than he meant it to be. Wassil reminded him of Elena. She’d ruined his favorite holiday drink on top of everything else. “I’m sorry, Ms. Pamela. I’m exhausted.”

“No worries, kiddo. Don’t stay out here too long. Frostbite won’t make anything better.”

Remarkable he hadn’t gotten frostbite from Elena on the phone this morning. Like everything they’d shared meant nothing, like she’d forgotten it all. He’d put it all on the line for her, for her to treat him like a stranger at his lowest moment.

Pamela went inside—probably called his mom the second she shut the door to express her concern for his sanity. Maybe he’d get lucky and his phone couldn’t receive calls anymore. It looked pretty rough. Over the course of the afternoon, cracks had spider-webbed, and a big portion of the screen had turned into a pixelated blur.

Didn’t matter to him if he could never take or make another phone call.

Crouching, he shifted past screwdrivers and hammers in his banged-up toolbox, searching for the tape measure to calculate the cuts for the stringers. The wound on his finger throbbed beneath the bandage they’d given him at the hospital. Where was that damn tape measure?

Irrationally angry at the missing tape measure, he dumped the contents of the box on the salted path to Nana’s house. They rattled to the concrete, his best screwdriver rolling away toward the sidewalk. Who cared?

Ah, the tape measure. He measured the drop from the porch, felt around on the ground for the pencil he kept with his tools. When he found it, he saw the lead was mostly worn away. For some reason, this sad excuse for a pencil made him think of Elena again. Of her cup of pencils, how they flew across a page in her expert hand.

How she’d captured him exactly. Elena wouldn’t let a pencil get worn down and useless.

Even if she was telling the truth about the recipe theft—and, as time passed, a sick suspicion he’d overreacted, that she had been honest, gnawed at him—things still wouldn’t work between them. Elena, precise and professional, a gifted artist, and Lawrence, the overreacting, on-the-verge-of-not-being-able-to-afford-rent baker, didn’t make sense.

And how could he move forward with someone who wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt on a terrible, unusual day? Didn’t she care he’d been tired, hungry, and beyond worried?

He jotted his measurements down on a scrap of paper he found in his pocket, chewed on the eraser. Not that he’d given her the benefit of the doubt. Why hadn’t he? What corrupted, hidden part of himself had made him assume the worst? Not merely assume it but act on it. He, who never spoke without thinking first. Where had that come from?

He reached for his phone to make the calculations for the stringers. The screen looked worse than ever, and he couldn’t find the calculator app. Looked like he’d gotten his wish, couldn’t make a call even if he wanted to.

No choice but to end the night here. He’d have to go home to cut the wood anyway. Darkness was fast replacing the remaining daylight. Nana wouldn’t be home tomorrow or the next day. Might not even be home before Christmas. He could pick this project back up after work tomorrow.

He collected the tools he’d scattered like a petulant child, his lower back complaining, still in knots from that stupid chair. Exhaustion launched a fresh offense, and he rubbed his eyes, walked on heavy feet to his truck.

What difference would it make if he took responsibility for how he’d acted, for the thoughtless things he’d said? Worse than my worst fears. Remorseless. Words that stung as badly as slaps. The dig about her being like her father, when Lawrence knew her complicated relationship with him. Words designed to hurt.

Her words clawed through his memory, sharp as paint-stained nails raking his skin. At the end of the day, what you are, Lawrence Higgins, is just some guy I never want to see again . She was the one who’d yanked away any hope of reconciliation, the one who’d stated her refusal to forgive before he could even ask her to. She was the one who wouldn’t answer the phone, give him a chance to apologize. His stomach grumbled. No matter how terrible he felt, he’d have to make himself eat something when he got home.

Back at the house, the rooms felt emptier than he’d ever known them. Trey and Iris had taken Sugar for the night, unsure when Lawrence would make it back. No friendly paws padding toward him, no jangling collar tags. The only sounds his own breathing, the floor creaking.

He turned on the overhead light in the kitchen, and a lightbulb popped, went out. In the semidarkness, he found a slice of bread, smeared some peanut butter on it with a spoon. He swallowed a lump, tasting nothing. He pushed away images of Elena in this room, wearing his T-shirt, standing on tiptoe to fetch a mug from the cabinet. A pain he hadn’t noticed before pounded in the back of his head, his neck tight.

He rolled his head to loosen his muscles. On the table, he spotted a large piece of paper. Thick paper, sketch paper. Artist’s paper. He crossed right over, saw a note in the upper corner.

When the other girls send nudes, but you’re an artist and you have to do it one better.

With a speed he didn’t know he possessed, he flipped over the paper. Elena, lithe limbs, luxurious curves, the fall of her hair over her shoulder. Desire, immediate, painful, shook him from his days-long stupor. There was that higher eyebrow she didn’t like but he adored because it conveyed all her mischief, the pleasure she took in a clever remark. The full cheeks that fit perfectly in his palms.

His hungry eyes sought hers, the way she portrayed them looking up. Looking for him. How he looked down into them as he lay over her. The eyes she called too big.

Those eyes got him more than anything else. Vulnerable, confident, trusting, bold, afraid. Complex and confusing. Raw, and now outside his reach.

Under the portrait, another note. Remember you have me with you, even when we’re apart—Your Elena .

He’d hurt this beautiful, caring person. Hurt her like she meant nothing to him. Like he hadn’t held her all night while she slept, like he didn’t know the feel of every inch of her. The woman who’d come to comfort him when he needed her most, the one who wanted to do her job and fight to help his bakery survive. How could he fault her for her voice going cold? For saying hurtful things back?

His fingertips ran over the words Your Elena .

My Elena, how could I how could I how could I? Please come back one more time and be mine again.

He ended up falling asleep at the table, face on its unforgiving surface, hands on the drawing of her.