A Toast to the Good Times - By Liz Reinhardt Page 0,11

to come home or confess before I make the trip. I should be unconditionally there for her. I was once.

But things have changed since then.

A ton has changed.

“What’s this about? I haven’t been home in over a year. I’m probably not even welcome there.” The probably is bullshit. I’m definitely not welcome in my parents’ home, and I can’t really blame them.

“I’ll work on mom and dad,” Paisley pleads.

“I can’t, I have work.”

It’s a dick move, but it will be better this way. And maybe she could come here. I’ll let her know that she’s welcome, that she can stay as long as she needs to. I’m about to offer when she brings up the holiday refrain I’m starting to hate more than I can possibly express.

“Landry, it’s Christmas. You can close the bar on Christmas for Christ’s sake. Oh, I guess I’m not supposed to say Christ like that, right? Whatever. It’s Christmas, no one will be there anyway.” Her voice is a mix of clawing desperation and teetering anger.

“You’d be surprised.”

I press my palm to my forehead, which is starting to throb already. It’s been a long night. I need to go to bed. But I can’t go back to my place. Mila might still be there. And even if she’s not, just seeing all her crap is just going to remind me of what a total douche-nozzle I am and how badly I screwed things up.

“I have something to tell everyone, and I’d really, really like you to be there,” Paisley finally says with a sigh.

I understand that sigh. She wanted me to come home for her, not because of some bombshell she’s gonna reveal. My selfishness is starting to irritate even me. I hate myself a little bit more with every passing second.

“Are you pregnant?” I ask.

“No way!” Paisley snorts and I can’t help but smile. And the way I suddenly miss her and Henry aches like a broken beer bottle to the gut.

Maybe Christmas is the time for miracles and all that.

“I’ll see what time the train to the city leaves. Can you pick me up in Dover?”

Paisley squeaks with delight on the other end of the line, and I already know I’m making a catastrophic Christmas mistake.

Chapter 4

Nearly five hours later, I’m on the second train of this never-ending night, travelling back to New Jersey, so chilled I have a nasty cold sweat, my stomach is rumbling and rolling over itself, and my brain is on fire from the residual aftershocks of a hangover going strong. I slide my phone out of my pocket a dozen times, running my thumb over the smooth glass, ready to text Mila at any second.

Any second.

Whenever I got my guts up and just do it.

Anytime now.

The irony of my situation is that I’m actually begging fate or life or whatever to throw me something that will detour my attention and keep me from having to bungle it all with Mila in a whole new format...and then I get a diversion that comes out of the goddamn blue and is the only thing, other than a face-to-face meeting with my dad, that could ruin my already shitty situation.

“Landry? Landry Murphy? Is that you? Seriously?”

For a long minute, all I know is that this is someone from my past, someone I knew really well once and am having a hard time placing through the vodka-fog encasing my brain.

Finally the pieces all come together; the long blonde hair, the pretty brown eyes, the figure, tall but a little too skinny. Which makes sense when you know her and how constantly on the run she always is.

It was exhausting in high school when she was the head of at least twenty different clubs, our class president, the salutatorian, and a Girl Scout. Yep, she went all the way up to whatever the Girl Scout equivalent of Eagle Scout is. I went to the ceremony with her to get her award or sash or pin, and the little beret she wore was cute as hell. Awesome cookies, too.

She went on to dominate in college and, last I heard, she was working on her doctoral degree. Probably well on her way to being some cutthroat attorney or head of neurosurgery or something equally impressive.

“Toni.” I move closer to the window, my body language asking her to sit down next to me even though my brain is objecting loud and fierce.

The smile stretched over her lips pulls into a resigned, downturned frown. “No one calls