Naughty or Nice - Alexis Winter Page 0,53

the wine.

Felicity cuts her eyes toward me and give me a look that asks, are you okay?

Then she picks up a small box and hands it over. “Open mine,” she requests. I wonder why she’s always the one asking me for things. I’ve never once asked her for anything, and yet, I still can’t tell her I love her? I tear into the paper a little too aggressively and open the box. In my hands is a picture frame. In the frame, there are four pictures. Two of them are of us as kids, and two of them are from the past week.

I frown as I look down at her sitting on the floor at my feet.

“This is what my mom gave me, and I thought it was too good not to give you. You see, in the first picture, we’re angry with one another. But in the second, we’ve made up and are happy. The third picture taken fifteen years later, it’s the same. And the fourth. We’ve had a lifetime together, Carson. We’ve had our ups and downs. But we always overcome it and stay friends. I’ll never forget you. That, I can promise,” she says. It’s a sweet gesture, but the only word I can focus on is friends.

I set the picture frame aside and get up. Everyone is looking at me now as I grab my coat and leave the house, slamming the door closed behind me. I get in the car and start the engine. I see her running out the moment I hit the gas and leave the house behind.

I end up driving around aimlessly for a while. Then I find myself at the liquor store buying a bottle of tequila. Then I’m at the old farm road that I took Felicity to. I park on the side of the road and get out to sit on the hood. It hasn’t been that long since I was last here, but a lot has changed. I open the bottle and chuck the lid into the snow, knowing that I won’t need it. I’m not moving until this whole bottle is gone. The more I drink, the more comes into focus for me. I know I shouldn’t have left the way I did, but I didn’t have much of a choice. What I wanted to do was pull her against me and kiss her until I made her see clearly. I don’t know why she’s being such a pain in the ass about this. She loves me. I know she does. And I’ve known it somewhere deep in my soul before my brain even knew it. She’s loved me since we were kids. And it’s more than just in a friendly kind of way. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have fought against it our whole lives. I just have to make her see. How do I do that?

Being winter, it gets dark early and it’s not long before I’m sitting out in the dark alone and cold. My cell phone has been ringing constantly in my pocket, but I keep ignoring it, not ready to talk to anyone yet. It’s crossed my mind a few times that I’m too drunk to drive home, but I push that thought away quickly. If nothing else, I’ll sleep in my car tonight. It’s not like there’s an Uber in this small town. God, I miss the city. Get shit-faced drunk anywhere there, and you’re safe as long as you can still work your phone. I’ve done that a few times too, usually because of her as well. The first time was when she told me some guy she had been dating proposed.

“Hello?” I answer my phone as I sit at my desk at work. I look at the clock and see that it’s well past quitting time. It’s going on eight o’clock.

“Carson?” It’s Felicity and she sounds excited.

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s going on?” I ask, immediately smiling when I hear her voice.

“Oh my God. You’re never going to guess.”

“Guess what?”

“I haven’t told anyone yet, but Ben proposed! Can you believe that? He asked me to marry him.”

My blood runs cold. I can’t think. I can’t talk. All I can do is sit here with this information and let it take everything from me, my past, my present, my future.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” I stutter out.

“Can you believe it?”

“I’m sorry, I’m just…who’s Ben again?”

“Ugh, Ben. The guy I’ve been dating for the last two years. Remember? I’ve sent