In A Holidaze - Christina Lauren Page 0,72

you have more feelings for Theo than you’re admitting.”

His vulnerability here makes me ache. “Andrew, I know you’re having a hard time believing this, and I realize that what I’m telling you doesn’t help my case here, but no. There’s nothing there for me. I think I got another chance to make it right. And maybe also to save the cabin.”

He laughs, but it isn’t an Andrew laugh I’ve ever heard before. It’s a hollow husk of a laugh. “You need to get over your savior thing with the cabin.”

Ouch. I try to string together a few words in response, but my brain has gone blank with hurt.

“This is so weird,” he says, mostly to himself, and then he pushes out of the sleeping bag and walks back along our trail of clothes, picking them up as he goes. Gently, he places mine in a pile in front of me, and starts pulling on his boxers, his pants, his shirt, sweater, socks.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he says quietly. “You should probably head back up to the house.”

And . . . that’s it.

I get dressed in mortified silence. I want Andrew to watch like he did last night, with his hands tucked behind his head and a sleepy, satisfied smile on his face. But he turns his back to me, bent over his phone. When I move wordlessly to the door, he follows, walking me back to the house. I’m not surprised, though I’m heartbroken. Andrew knows I’m afraid of the dark and even when he’s mad at me—even when I’m pretty sure we just ended things—he’s still the best man I’ve ever known.

chapter twenty-four

Another sleepless night.

I vacillate wildly, staring up at Theo’s bunk in the darkness with an odd mixture of mortification and anger. My gut says I shouldn’t have told Andrew what happened with Theo, but my gut has always been an idiot. This is the kind of thing I’d have to share with him eventually, right? Isn’t that what people do when they care about each other? They share their flaws and mistakes just as readily as they share their strengths?

But how did I expect him to react? Did I expect him to laugh it off? To believe me blindly and chalk it up to a giant cosmic mistake? I close my eyes . . . I sort of hoped he would. I wanted Andrew to find it as ridiculous as I do now. At the very least I wanted him to commiserate. At this point I can’t even fathom what led me to hope for that.

Theo didn’t come downstairs until late. I listened as he slipped down the stairs in the dark, shucked off his jeans, and climbed into the top bunk. It took me five minutes to gather up the courage to say his name, but he was already asleep. Or at least he pretended to be. Not that I can say anything, really, considering I slipped into the house myself last night and went straight to bed to avoid having to talk to anyone.

By the time I’ve replayed everything for the hundredth time, my thoughts have reached a fever pitch. I suspect Andrew isn’t faring any better out in the Boathouse.

Nauseated, I throw the covers back, grab my phone, and head upstairs. It’s one thirty in the morning.

The kitchen floor is ice beneath my bare feet. The hallway seems almost sinister in the blackness. I’m drawn by the quiet crackle of the remaining embers in the fireplace in the living room. They struggle to sustain themselves, flickering and glowing beneath a mountain of sooty black wood. I can’t build a fresh fire without risking waking the eternal light sleeper Ricky, and not even a chat with Benny would help me right now. I grab a collection of throw blankets from the couches and chairs and build a makeshift bed in front of the hearth.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I’ve barely thought about it. Because a few of us spend Christmas morning at church, tomorrow we’ll eat a huge meal and open our gifts, and what is usually my favorite day all year is going to be awkward as hell. Andrew is mad at me. Theo is mad at Andrew and me. No doubt everyone knows about Andrew and me, but it will be immediately apparent that something has gone terribly awry.

Universe, I wonder, how am I any better off than I was the day we drove away from the cabin?

So even