Contents
Follow Author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Also by Christina Benjamin
About the Author
Note from the Author
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2020 by Christina Benjamin
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Atlantic Publishing
Version 1.1
Oct 2020
Chapter One
Casey
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Lucas asked.
I cut my eyes at him, trying to figure out if he meant the breaking up part or the telling people part. I didn’t know how to read him anymore. I studied him closer, still mesmerized by his beautiful blue eyes, by those lips that used to be mine.
When had things changed?
It used to be that we could read each other’s mind, finish each other’s sentences and all those other stupidly annoying lovey-dovey couple clichés. But now . . . it was like looking at a stranger, not the boy I’d known and loved since T-ball.
But I guess that gave me my answer.
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore—anything but that fact that Lucas and I had grown apart.
This rift between us had blindsided me and rocked the very foundation I’d built my future upon. I’d been looking forward to an amazing Christmas break reunited with my boyfriend and best friends, not a heart-wrenching fight that ended with . . . with whatever this was.
A break? A breakup?
Lucas was still staring at me with that simmering anger in his brooding blue eyes. He expected an answer and after a grueling road trip of nonstop arguing I didn’t see any other possibilities. So with a heavy heart I nodded. “Yes, Lucas. I’m sure. I don’t want to lie to our friends, but there’s no need to ruin their Christmas break by telling them we broke up.”
He huffed a laugh. “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?”
I crossed my arms, my scowl coming easily now. “I’m being dramatic?”
“Hey! It’s not unreasonable to be mad that you’ve been spending all your time with another guy.”
“Lucas! I’m an athlete. I’ve been spending all my time with guys since I picked up a baseball.”
“I know! That’s how we ended up together,” he challenged, meeting my glare with one of his own.
I sighed and let my head fall back against the warm headrest of Lucas’s truck. This was going nowhere. We’d literally just had this same argument during the entire drive from our respective college campuses all the way back to Northwood.
I should’ve just taken the bus!
No. I fought my usual urge to avoid conflict. This was a problem that needed to be addressed if we were ever going to have any chance at moving past it.
But that was the thing . . . I wasn’t sure if Lucas wanted to move past it.
Normally, we could hash out anything. Viral videos, mean girls, ending up at two different colleges . . . But this time, it seemed like we’d finally found something that no amount of logical thinking could solve. No matter what I said, we kept circling back to this.
“I’m not mad that you’re friends with a guy, Casey. I’m mad that you lied to me about it.”
“I didn’t lie!” I erupted, fully aware that my cherry red cheeks probably matched my hair color right about now.
“Omitting the truth is the same thing,” he argued. “Whether you acknowledge it or not, your omission tells me you have something to hide.”
I practically growled in frustration as I gripped the seatbelt that suddenly felt like it was strangling me. “Lucas, he’s the athletic trainer. Every girl on my softball team is friends with him.”
“Yeah, but not best friends. They don’t spend every day together, go to movies together, go out to dinner together.”
Tears welled in my eyes despite my effort not to cry. “This isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything wrong. You know how hard it was for me to have to transfer to Syracuse this year. I would’ve done anything to stay at Columbia with you, but that wasn’t an option without my scholarship.”
“I know,” Lucas said softly.
The comforting tone in his voice nearly broke me. I hadn’t heard it since we started this awful fight. “Then why are you punishing me?” I asked, my voice cracking with emotion. “Kelly is the only friend I’ve made at Syracuse. Do you want me to have no friends? Because I’m sorry, Lucas, I love you, but that’s a deal breaker.”
“I don’t want you to have no friends. Just not him.” Lucas scowled again, his eyes growing cold as his chiseled jaw clenched with irritation. “Kelly. What kind of a person names their son Kelly?”
“I don’t think his name is the real problem here, Lucas.”
“Well, it doesn’t help. If he’d been a Bob or Mike, I wouldn’t have been so blindsided.”
I shook my head, swallowing hard as the true problem solidified itself in my chest. Lucas didn’t trust me. And that was something I didn’t know how to solve.
My eyes stung as I turned to face him. “Lucas, I’m sorry that you feel misled or lied to or whatever, but the truth is Kelly’s not the problem. You are.”
He cocked his head back like I’d slapped him. “I’m the problem? How am I the problem?”
“You don’t trust me, and I can’t make you. But until you do, we’re never going to work.”
Anger flashed in his eyes like blue flames as I glimpsed his warring emotions. I watched his jaw muscles twitch as he tried to keep his feelings bottled up inside. I wanted to scream at him to let it out. Scream, shout, do something, anything that proved he wanted to fight for us. But I kept my mouth shut because this needed to be his decision. I’d been the one fighting for us for months and it’d taken a toll.
This last bout had done me in. I felt hollow and drained as I looked past Lucas to Champs. The cheery little diner’s parking lot was full. Already I could see cars I recognized. I knew the place would be packed with all my old Northwood High friends. Friends I should be excited to see.
Alex and Grant were in there. Marissa had even messaged me to let me know she and Archer would be stopping by. But how could I look forward to anything when I felt like my heart had just been skewered by an icicle?
I couldn’t go
in there.
Champs had always been a place full of happy memories. It’s where this all started. Me and Alex becoming best friends, bonding with Lucas, finding the courage to be myself and go after what I wanted. It was a place of traditions and joy and I just knew if I went in there like this, I’d erase all those happy memories, replacing them with this excruciating one.
Already I knew it would leave a scar. I could feel my heart trying to stitch itself back together, trying to minimize the damage, thickening my defenses so it wouldn’t be trampled again.
Honestly, this was what I’d been afraid of. It’s what held me back from telling Lucas how I felt about him sooner. I’d been afraid to expose my heart to that kind of devastation again. I knew it was no way to live . . . with that kind of fear. But my heart had been broken at an early age and I wasn’t sure I could survive that kind of pain again.
I thought back to all those years ago, when I’d had to be strong for my dad after my mother died.
You survived that, Casey. You can do it again.
Harnessing that sliver of strength, I managed to calm myself. I took a few more deep breaths as I waited for Lucas to choose fight or flight.
While waiting, I watched a car full of girls pull up, giggling as they pulled their green and gold Pep Band jackets closed against the cold. They jogged up to the restaurant, the glow of the colorful Christmas lights welcoming them in like old friends. Swap out the band jackets for athletic ones and that could’ve been us—me, Alex, Marissa and Nicole.
Had it really been only a couple of years ago that we’d been just a couple of tomboys with the whole world ahead of us?
Things had seemed so simple back then.
I found myself wishing I could go back, wishing I could be as young and excited about the future as all the high school students inside were. But now . . . my future felt as bleak as the snow falling silently around us.
It made the relentless snow feel like a metaphor for my life. It was quietly accumulating and starting to stick. It was easy to ignore at first, but left untended it could do damage, sending unsuspecting drivers off course.
That’s what being dumped by Lucas felt like. Hitting a blind patch of hidden ice on a snow-covered road—sudden and terrifying. It left me drifting helplessly, praying the airbags would deploy and save me from the wreckage. But as I looked back at Lucas, I saw he wasn’t going to pump the brakes or offer me a soft landing. He was going full speed ahead. And from the tight set of his jaw, I could tell he was bracing for impact. So maybe I should too.
“Whatever,” he mumbled, his hand already on the door. “Let’s just get this over with.”
With a sigh of defeat, I exited his warm truck cab, following him through the slippery parking lot.
The snow had been falling for our entire drive, making an already long trip even more daunting. Add our epic fight and the trip had felt like an eternity. But being back here . . . it was like nothing had changed.
Yet everything had.
We walked into Champs side-by-side, bracing to face our friends. But suddenly I wondered if Lucas was right. If this wasn’t a good idea. We took one step inside and were hit with it—joy.
The place was a sea of happy faces and laughter. Santa hats and ugly sweaters. And Lucas and I? Even the Grinch would look positively jolly next to us.
There was no way we were going to be able to pass as a happy couple.
My stomach knotted as I fought the urge to bolt out the door before anyone saw us and beg my dad to come pick me up. But I didn’t get the chance. Two familiar brunettes stood up on their booth and shouted my name. I smiled at Alex and Marissa and returned their waves. Then I grabbed Lucas’s hand and took a deep breath, preparing to put on a show.
Before today there was nowhere else I’d rather be. But before today I thought I was dating the guy of my dreams.
It turns out getting dumped on Christmas Eve can change a girl’s perspective.
Chapter Two
Alex
“Oh, come on,” Marissa teased. “You can’t hate Christmas.”
I shrugged. “What’s there to like about it? I don’t get to play sports over winter break and it’s cold!”
“She has a point,” Grant agreed, grinning at me as he squeezed my bouncing knee under the table.
Dang it! I was doing it again.
It was great to be home but the closer we got to Northwood, the more nervous I felt.
Normally, I looked forward to the Mistletoe Mixer at Champs. It was a Northwood High rite of passage. Only current students and alumni were allowed. It was the best way to catch up with old friends all in one place when home from college for winter break. But this was my last mixer, my last year at Arizona State. I’d be graduating in a few months! And thinking about the future . . . well to say it made me anxious was an understatement.
Dread tightened my stomach, making me push my mug of hot cocoa away. I twisted my engagement ring, knowing soon I’d have to stop avoiding our wedding plans. I looked over at Grant, wondering how the heck I was supposed to have this conversation with him without hurting his feelings.
Ugh! Why did things have to go and change?
Everything had been so perfect after high school. It was just sports and the boy I loved. To me, life didn’t get better than that. Which was why I was dreading this next step.
I wasn’t ready for real life yet. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be.
Grateful I had a few more hours of avoidance ahead of me, I focused back on my friends. Archer, Marissa, Casey and Lucas were all comfortably lounging in the large back booth Grant and I had staked out earlier.
As usual, Grant and Archer were teasing each other about something.
“What, a few winters in Arizona and Northwood’s royal couple is a bunch of wimps now?” Archer goaded.
“Hey, don’t call my guy a wimp,” I said, putting an arm around Grant.
“You mean your fiancé?” Marissa corrected.
I fought the urge to say, ‘don’t remind me’ and offered a tight smile instead.
Archer held his hands up. “Whatever you say, Miss Collegiate Player of the Year. I know you could wipe the baseball diamond with me any day of the week.”
“You better remember that, Montgomery. Even when you go pro,” I added.
“Yeah, what’s the status with that?” Grant asked.
Archer shrugged like it was no big deal that he’d been invited to enter the NFL draft. “I’ve been doing some negotiating, but there’s not much I’m allowed to say. It’ll all come down to draft day.”
“So, you have no idea where you’ll end up?” I asked.
Archer shook his head.
Casey piped up, finally joining the conversation, her eyes darting worriedly between Archer and Marissa. “But you guys will stay together, right?”
“Of course,” Marissa said cheerfully, snuggling even further under Archer’s massive arm. She started talking about their first choices of teams and places to live, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy studying Casey.
My best friend had been uncharacteristically quiet since she and Lucas arrived, and it was starting to weird me out. Marissa was always the talker of the group. But Casey could usually give our Broadway-bound bestie a run for her money.
Come to think of it, even Lucas was being more reserved than usual.
Lucas was like Grant, not super outspoken in a crowd. But we’d all known each other since high school, some longer. It was rare that we got a chance to get back together, which usually turned all of us into a bunch of Chatty Cathys, jockeying to be heard over one another.
With me and Grant in Arizona, Archer entering the NFL draft, Marissa getting closer to her Broadway dreams, and Casey and Lucas tearing it up with their college teams in New York, we had a lot to catch up on. But there was one question I was dying to ask. And that meant I had to find a way to ditch the guys.
“No way!” I said loudly, stealing the group’s attention. “The Pac-Man game
is working!”
Everyone in our booth turned to look. Archer’s eyes lit up. “I used to spend hours playing that game. I wonder if my high score is still on there.”
Grant huffed a laugh. “Please. You might be the touchdown king, but I could beat your score any day of the week.”
“You’re both delusional,” Lucas added. “No one has ever beaten my high score. You don’t even know where the secret levels are.”
Grant coughed the word, “Nerd!” and everyone laughed.
“Well, he did get into Harvard,” Marissa said, sticking up for Lucas.
“Yeah, but I didn’t go,” Lucas said, his eyes flicking to Casey with a strange intensity.
Archer didn’t seem to notice. “Whatever, man. I can still crush you both.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” I said, hoping to goad them into playing so they’d leave the table and give me the girl-talk I so desperately needed.
I looked at Casey, hoping she’d catch my drift and help me out, but she was staring blankly into her hot cocoa—another sure sign something was wrong with my normally freakishly observant best friend.
Casey had a knack for reading my thoughts, but right now she looked like she was drowning in her own. I found myself at a loss, wondering if I should ask her what was wrong or just punch her in the arm and tell her to walk it off. That’s what I normally did with my teammates . . .
Dang it! This is what I get for not having a girly bone in my body.
I sighed and made a mental note to ask Marissa if she knew what was going on with Casey. But right now, I had a more pressing problem that needed to be addressed before I freaked out and possibly made the biggest mistake of my life.
Tomboys Don't Love Christmas Page 1
