I’m beginning to wonder if this studying together thing was really such a great idea. As much as I want to spend time with him, I really do need to pass these finals with flying colors. My parents will kill me if I flunk any classes and have to retake them. They aren’t poor or anything, but it’s not like they have a bunch of money lying around, either. They agreed to pay for my tuition as long as I keep my grades up, but if I fail I don’t know what they’ll do.
They know how upset I’ve been over this breakup, but I’m not sure it will be enough to excuse a whole semester down the drain.
There’s no way I’ll be able to pay my own tuition with the little bit I make at The Cup. I can barely pay the rent most months as it is. I have no choice but to buckle down so I can ace my finals.
Judd gets the music started and I’m surprised to hear he’s chosen Classical music instead of rock.
“Mozart,” he says. “It’s good for your brain and for remembering things. At least that’s what I’ve read.”
I shrug and decide to give it a shot. I could use all the help I can get right now.
We settle into a happy silence as we both dive into our books, but after a few minutes, his foot brushes mine under the table. When I look up to see if he did it on purpose, he smiles.
Chapter Seventeen
It’s dead week on campus and for the next few days, Judd and I spend every chance we get together. We study, walk on the beach, eat more than our fair share of hotdogs, and spend a couple of nights snuggled under Big Blue, watching the waves crash on the shore.
I gradually fill his apartment with little Christmas baubles. My own apartment is always overflowing anyway.
“You must really love Christmas,” he says when I walk through the door with yet another strand of lights and a plastic snowman.
“Doesn’t everyone?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He simply smiles and watches as I hang the lights. “If you could have one Christmas wish this year, what would it be?” he asks.
I bite my lip and look up toward the ceiling. That’s a tough one.
“I wish it would snow,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow and I shrug.
“I know it’s impossible,” I say. “But I’ve always dreamed about snow on Christmas. There’s just something magical about it, don’t you think? Only, it never snows in Fairhope. Ever.”
“Maybe this year,” he says, pulling me into his arms. “This is a magical year.”
We’ve been doing a good job studying when we have to, but our evenings usually end up with us finally giving in to our desires and making out on the couch. It’s getting more and more difficult to be careful with my heart.
When I’m working, he always stops by to study, and I’m getting spoiled by all the attention.
With Preston, I always felt like I was begging for his attention. When I wanted to hang out, it was always me calling him first or asking what he wanted to do. If he had a big family function, it was always me asking if I could come. Even with the Christmas Memories Charity Ball, I was the one who had officially asked him if he wanted to go with me or not. I learned the hard way that unless I nailed things down early, Preston would never make plans to spend time with me.
Every once in a while, as much as I hate it, thoughts of Preston invade my brain. Most of the time, it’s as if my brain and my heart want to make simple comparisons between the two guys. If Judd opens the door for me, I think about how Preston always did that too. If Judd tells me I look beautiful when I’m wearing something simple like yoga pants and a tank top, I think about the fact that Preston never commented on how I looked unless I was dressed up for a special occasion.
I know it’s not exactly a competition, but in most areas of comparison, Judd is winning by a mile.
He’s sweet and thoughtful. He always compliments me and pays attention to me. He asks me for my opinion and seems to really care what my answer is.
So why am I even still thinking of Preston at all?
“It’s like wearing in a new pair of shoes,” Monica says the following Sunday afternoon when I bring it up. She’s sitting on the couch and I’m in the kitchen making Christmas cookies. “If you adored your old shoes and they were super comfortable after a few years of wearing them, it’s only natural to be hesitant to really believe the new shoes could ever be as good. You kind of have to wear them in a bit. Get comfortable with how nice and shiny and new they are. When you finally start to appreciate the new shoes for how great they are, that’s when you start to see the flaws in the old ones. The holes. The scuffs. All the problems.”
“The shoe analogy isn’t really doing it for me,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying it’s only natural for you to compare them. I mean, you loved Preston, right?”
I shrug.
This is something else I’ve been giving a lot of thought to these days. Did I really ever love Preston? Or did I love the idea of him?
When we first got together in high school, capturing his attention was more like a game. I was immature and jealous of everything Leigh Anne did. I wasn’t out to hurt her. Not intentionally, anyway. But I wanted him because he was the cutest, richest guy in school. He was the one everyone wanted. So I wanted him, too.
And at first, it was just sex. Pure fun. I think we both got kind of high off the idea of sneaking around behind everyone’s backs. It was fun to have this secret between us.
Then Leigh Anne walked in on us in the pool-house one day and all the fun died. Preston wanted nothing to do with me for a long time. He tried everything he could think of to get Leigh Anne back, but once she decided to move to Boston for school, he knew he’d lost her forever.
Gradually, he came back to me. Over time, especially when she didn’t come home for the holidays—or for anything—he moved on and we got comfortable. It took him almost a year before he ever called me his girlfriend, though. To be honest, I don’t think he ever really thought of me as his girl. I was more like a layover until he found something better. Never worthy of what he had to offer. Never quite good enough.
Or at least that was my fear.
“Are you saying you didn’t love him?” Monica asks. She’s off the couch now and standing in the doorway of our small kitchen, her arms crossed in front of her chest.
“I don’t really know anymore,” I say. “Maybe I was just obsessed with this perfect idea of getting married to the guy everyone else wanted.”
“Wow,” she says, her jaw hanging open. “This is a huge realization. Do you even realize how huge this is?”
I shrug again. I’m not even sure I really want to be talking about this. In some ways, I’m completely freaked out about this whole thing. If I can admit that I never really loved Preston, that means I’m well on my way to getting over him completely.
Which means I’m open to falling in love with someone else.
And the idea of falling for someone as perfect as Judd scares the ever-loving shit out of me.
“Bailey, listen to me,” she says. She walks over and grabs my arm, turning me toward her so I am forced to look in her eyes. “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve had your head so far up Preston’s ass that you could barely remember your name.”
I frown. I wasn’t that bad.
Was I?
“You never made plans for the weekend without checking with him first. You never left this house without looking perfectly put-together and color-coordinated,” she says, ticking off her reasons on her fingers. “Preston never once came over to our place to hang out, and he certainly never just stopped by to see you on a whim. If you wanted to be with him, you were always having to go to him.”
“I liked the shoe analogy better,” I murmur, turning back to take the cookies off the baking sheet.
“When he dumped you, you stayed in bed for days. Weeks. You slept all day, remember? Missed classes?”
“What exactly are you getting at here?” I ask.
“I’m saying that a few weeks ago if I
had told you that Preston was the wrong guy for you, you would have possibly injured my face,” she says. “But now that you have someone like Judd to compare him to, you’re finally starting to see that despite his good looks and reputation and money and all that, Preston really wasn’t the one. This. Is. Huge.”
My hand trembles as I reach to turn off the oven. My stomach feels hollow and my nerves feel jittery.
She’s right. I know she’s right.
And the truth scares me to death. Because if I didn’t even really love Preston and it still hurt that fucking bad when he rejected me, what is it going to feel like when someone I truly fall for says he doesn’t want me anymore?
I don’t know that I’ll be able to survive it.
The thought of that kind of pain makes me want to run screaming in the opposite direction the next time Judd Kohler comes knocking at my door.
“What’s going on in your beautiful brain?” she asks. Monica takes a plate of warm cookies to the table while I pour two glasses of milk and grab some napkins.
By the time I sit down across from her, I’m no closer to a coherent answer.
“Is it crazy that I don’t want to see Judd again, because I’m scared of what will happen if he breaks my heart?” I ask. “I mean, it’s messed up right? That I’d give up the chance at something real just because I don’t want to get hurt?”
She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “I’m pretty sure it’s normal,” she says. Then she smiles and raises one eyebrow. “Besides. I can tell from the way you blush and smile every time he’s around that you’re in too deep to turn away now, anyway. If he called right now, you’d hop in the car and go meet him in a heartbeat. Broken heart be damned.”
I laugh and take a bite of my snowman cookie.
I hate to admit it, but she’s right. It’s crazy how quickly it can happen. In just one short week, I went from barely able to get out of bed to a racing heart every time the phone rings.
About two seconds later, that’s exactly what happens. I jump at the sound, then race toward where I left my phone sitting on the counter. I take one look at the caller ID and my face breaks out in a huge smile.
Monica laughs. “Told ya.”
Chapter Eighteen
I stick my tongue out at my roommate, then pick up the phone and walk back toward my bedroom.
“Hey,” I say, a warm feeling spreading through my body.
“Hey, what are you up to tonight?” he asks.
We hadn’t made any specific plans to be together tonight , but I had been hoping he would call.
“Nothing in particular,” I say. “You?”
“Can you be ready around six?” he asks.
“Ready for what?”
“I want to take you out to meet some of my friends,” he says, like it’s the most casual thing in the universe.
My entire body tenses. I wasn’t expecting to meet his friends so soon. I have no idea what to wear or how to act around them.
“What were you guys planning to do?” I ask, trying not to sound like I’m about to throw up.
“We were going to head to my buddy Brian’s house and play some games,” he says. “He’s having a little get-together for Christmas. It’s pretty casual, but I’d like to go.”
I hesitate. Breathe in and out. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. Meeting the friends is a huge deal. What if they don’t like me? What if I don’t fit in with them? It took me years to learn how to fit in with the rich kids at Fairhope High. Even up until the point Preston and I broke up, I never really felt like I could be one-hundred-percent myself around them. And since we broke up? Not one of my so-called friends has bothered to come by and check on me or ask me to hang out.
It didn’t take long for me to see the true loyalties there.
I was never one of them, and maybe that was part of the reason Preston and I never really fit.
“I don’t know,” I say. “It seems like a big step.”
“Wait, are you saying no?” he asks. He sounds surprised. Worried. “Look, it’s not a big deal if you really don’t want to come, but it’s not like I’m asking you to marry me or anything. It’s just a party.”
He says it with a laugh, but for some reason, his words cut me to the core. It’s like he’s making fun of me for taking this seriously.
“Well, I don’t want to go, okay?” I snap. I sit down on my bed and pull my legs up tight against my chest. “I really should stay home. I have a lot of studying to do tonight. My first final is coming up in a few days, and I’m not ready for it.”
“Bailey,” he says. “Let’s talk about this.”
“I have to go.”
I hang up, tears welling up in my eyes for the first time all week. I have no idea why I just snapped at him like that, but now he probably thinks I’m a jerk. Or a total mental case.
I jump when the phone rings again. It’s Judd calling back, but I don’t think I can face him right now. I’m embarrassed and upset and scared. I send the call to voicemail and silence the ringer. Just to be extra safe, I stuff the phone under my pillow and disappear into the bathroom, letting the tears fall until I calm myself down enough to head back into the living room to face Monica. It’s the first time I’ve cried all week.
“What happened?” she asks, a huge smile on her face. Then she sees my red eyes and frowns. “Whoa, seriously, what happened?”
I shrug. “I don’t even know,” I say, half-laughing. “He asked me to go hang out tonight with his friends, and I completely freaked out for no reason.”
She bites her lip. “You don’t want to meet his friends?”
“I don’t to be judged by his friends,” I say. “It’s been so nice being able to just be myself around him, you know? There are no games between us. No crazy drama or lies or pretension. Well, except when I cause the drama. When we’re together, we can be honest and silly and fun. I don’t even know what kind of friends he has. I wouldn’t know how to act.”
Monica sits up straighter in her chair. “Well, doesn’t it make sense that if you can be yourself around Judd that you could probably just be yourself around his friends? I mean, he likes you for who you are. You don’t have to impress his friends to get him to approve of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
The tears begin to fall again, and I swipe at them, then grab my plate and take it into the kitchen. I throw half of my cookie into the trash, my appetite completely gone.
Monica follows close behind me. “Bailey, you don’t have to explain yourself to me,” she says. She throws her arms around me and I hug her back, not even sure why I’m crying. “If you aren’t ready to meet his friends, you just aren’t.”
“Thanks,” I say, but deep down, I know I’m being stupid and irrational.
I think about my phone in the other room and wonder if Judd has tried to call again. I wonder what I’d say to him even if he is still willing to talk to me.
I pull away from my friend and snag a clean napkin from the counter. I wipe my eyes and blow my nose.
“Better?” she asks.
I nod and am about to suggest we head out to the library to study when someone knocks on the door.
Monica eyes me, one eyebrow raised. “Are you expecting someone?” she asks.
I shake my head, my hands trembling slightly. “You don’t think he’d come all the way over here, do you?”
She lifts her palms. “I have no clue. You’re the one who knows the guy. Would he?”
“Maybe,” I say. My heart is racing. “You answer it.”
I’m such a coward.
I hide in the kitchen while Monica walks to the door. I lean my head against the cool wallpaper and wait, unsure if I want it to be him or not.
Then I hear his voice and I know. I wanted it to be him all along.
Chapter Nineteen
“Is Bailey here?”
I can’t tell if he sounds angry or just anxious.
I look at the clock. It can’t have been more
than fifteen minutes since he called. Did he seriously just get in his car and come over here because I wouldn’t answer the phone?
“Ummm…” Monica stalls like a good friend, probably waiting to see if I want him to know I’m here or not.
Nervous, I step around the corner. “I’m here,” I say softly.
His eyes seek mine. It’s possible he’s a little bit angry. His face is tense and he definitely does not look happy.
I feel like a child who has suddenly been caught doing something bad.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” he asks.
Monica turns around and squeezes my hand as she walks past me and back toward her bedroom. God bless that girl. She’s a true friend.
“Do you want to come in?” I ask.
Judd walks in and shuts the door behind him. He pulls his coat off and lays it on the back of the couch. He runs a hand through his wavy hair.
“What the fuck was that about?” he asks. He isn’t yelling at me, but from his tight jaw, he seems to be struggling to hold it together.
I may have been feeling embarrassed and ashamed before he walked through the door, but the anger in his tone sets me on the defensive.
“I told you it seemed like a big step and you…” I can’t finish my explanation. When I say it out loud, it sounds completely stupid.
“I what? Told you it wasn’t a big deal? Okay, so let’s talk about that,” he says. “It’s just my friends. These are the people I hang out with when I have free time and I’ve been dying for them to meet you. What’s the problem there?”
I cross my arms in front of my chest and back toward the wall. I’m not used to being spoken to so directly. I don’t know what to say to him.
“Bailey, you need to talk to me,” he says. “I’m trying really hard to understand why, after an entire week of spending as much time together as possible, you would get upset, hang up and then refuse to answer your phone.”
My mouth drops open, but I still don’t have a response. I turn my face away from him, feeling childish and awful.
He paces the space behind the couch. “Is there something else wrong?” he asks. “Because I hate playing games, Bailey. I despise it. I don’t like to be manipulated or lied to, so if practically hanging up on me is your version of trying to get me to do something you want, you need to tell me to my face what it is. I don’t want to have to start trying to read between the lines with you.”
A Season For Hope (A Fairhope Christmas Novella) Page 8
