Stuffed: A Thanksgiving Romance

by Jessica Gadziala

  As much as I wasn't happy that she lost her job, Cory was right, it was the perfect opportunity. That was, if she was willing to move back home after so much time. It was one thing to move back with your parents directly after college, it was another to move back after you had been living on your own for a while.

  I finished my drink and headed upstairs toward the master suite, going into the bath I never got to show to Callie either. I had replaced all the old, ugly tile the house had come with that must have been replaced in the fifties with warm cream tile, a giant glass walk-in shower, and a large vintage-looking but brand new soaking tub.

  I climbed into the shower and weighed the options.

  Sure, I could sit back and wait for the chips to fall where I wanted them to, wait for Callie to make the decision to move back home.

  But, that being said, if she was freaking out, there was a chance she had already applied to a dozen jobs and might take whatever the first one that came her way was.

  It wasn't worth the risk.

  Besides that, I knew Callie. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was a romantic. No one went for a degree in literature and hated the idea of love. Not with all the Bronte, Austen, and Hardy they bury their noses in.

  If ever there was a woman who would appreciate and was deserving of a grand romantic gesture, it was her.

  On that note, I threw on some fresh clothes, went back into my room, sat on the side of the bed, picked up my cell, and called Cory.

  "Yeah?"

  "Any idea where I can find some packing boxes and bubble wrap?"

  ELEVEN

  Callie

  It was a hell of a Monday following Thanksgiving weekend.

  First, of course, there was the fact that I was not in the best of spirits after coming back home. Add in the fact that I barely slept and when I finally did pass out, I overslept so I had to rush through my twenty minute morning routine in five, leaving me running up the street toward my office building in the pouring rain, half-blind because my glasses were covered in raindrops.

  Then, chilled to the bone, hair a sopping mess, I rode the elevator up with one of the accounting guys who always looked at me like he had X-ray eyes and, that particular morning, knew just how cold-hardened my nipples were.

  And then, coup de grace, I barely sat down at my desk, wiping my glasses with a tissue, when the girl from HR came up to speak to me.

  I wasn't prepared.

  I should have been prepared.

  But my mind was on half a dozen other things.

  So I didn't notice the things my mother had warned me about when we had had our talk. Like how some of the desks were empty. And, when I really focused, there were faces standing around that I had never seen before.

  They weren't new employees.

  Oh, no.

  See, she told me that when companies were going belly-up and doing large amounts of layoffs, they almost never did the tasks themselves. They farmed out the dirty work. They called in people who fired people for a living, people who knew exactly what to say so people didn't blow their tops and start breaking stuff or falling into hysterics.

  I was led into the conference room where a man and a woman in bland suits with bland features and bland voices invited me to sit down.

  I sat down across the long table from them where I found a company folder already awaiting me.

  Then I was thanked for my hard work, told that it was not a reflection of my work performance, and laid off.

  I took my folder that offered me a six week severance package and a letter of recommendation, and was led back toward my desk where I was handed a sturdy paper stock box and watched by the HR lady as I emptied my desk of my personal items. That included two hardcover books, three paperbacks, a picture of my parents, an assorted array of colored pencils, and a tiny little pig figurine.

  "Best of luck, Carlie," the HR lady said, making me wince.

  They had taken years of my life, given me six weeks of pay, and they didn't even know my name.

  I stopped at the corner store on my way home.

  But I didn't pick up chips.

  Chips were for panic attacks.

  Ice cream was for depression.

  I headed straight to the freezer section with a hand cart and grabbed three gallons- vanilla bean, triple chocolate, and just to cover my bases, rocky road. Then I dragged myself back to the apartment that I knew I would no longer be able to afford in two months, took a long hot shower, changed into the baggiest, oldest sweats I owned, put on mindless TV, and dove so deep into the frozen deliciousness that by the time I realized I was still eating it, half of the vanilla, half of the chocolate, and a quarter of the rocky road was already gone.

  Stomach aching, matching the feeling in my chest in a way that made my whole center hurt, I climbed into bed and passed out.

  The next morning, I finished the damage I started on the ice cream, then ordered a giant salad out of guilt, eating it while I did what I knew I needed to do, I called my mother and told her what happened.

  See, while she absolutely had told me so, she didn't remind me of that fact.

  Instead, she just went ahead and was the great mom I had been blessed with my whole life. She gave me tips for my resume. She reminded me that if I was thinking of changing career paths, this was the right opportunity for that. Then, as if all that wasn't enough, she offered to let me come home.

  At first, that idea filled me with a rush of longing and relief.

  It was a simple, temporary solution to a complicated, long-term problem.

  I, unlike most of the grads I knew, never moved back home, never got that leg up that came from having a roof over my head and food on my table while I built up a savings to get myself into a better situation. My mother raised me to be self-sufficient so it felt like defeat to move home when I knew I could be working and providing for myself.

  It would be a smart move to go back, not blow through my savings paying rent while I looked for a new job.

  But, I worried, more so... the reason I wanted so badly to move back had nothing to do with it being a wise decision financially, but everything to do with being closer to Adam. And that, well, I wasn't sure I could let myself be that needy, that sad, that pathetic.

  Besides, he didn't show any interest in that.

  We had a fling.

  He got me out of his system.

  Case closed.

  So, as much as it was the better choice for me, I wasn't going to move back home. I was going to drown in ice cream and potato chips while I applied to every single graphic design gig in D.C. Which, well, was a lot. I could even just do contract jobs to hold me over until I found something more permanent. My rent was already paid up for December and my severance package would pay it for January. That gave me plenty of time to figure something out. It wasn't like I had some high paying job and needed to be picky about what I took. I had an entry level graphic design job that paid me pitifully little, so little that I actually had a book budget. In my ledger next to my rent, water, electricity, subscription TV services, car insurance, and grocery shopping money, there was a line dedicated to how much I had available to me to buy books. And it wasn't nearly enough. So, yeah, getting another low paying job that I wasn't crazy about, it wouldn't be a problem.

  After just a couple days or weeks of stress-inducing interviews and waiting to hear back from them, life would settle back down to normal.

  And as I sat at my laptop clicking through the want ads online, I tried really hard to ignore the voice inside my head that said "normal" wasn't good enough.

  I had never been unhappy. Not really.

  I worked hard like I was raised to do. I was a good employee. I paid my bills on time. I never overdrafted my bank account. I put small amounts into savings every month. I spent my free time reading and watching shows and movies I loved. Occasionally, I dated. It had always seemed like enough.

  But, fact of the matter was, something had changed.

  Mayb
e it was as simple as going back home and spending time with my family, seeing my father happy with his career path, my mother with hers, my brother, my cousin, Adam. Everyone seemed to be doing what they wanted. While I worked a job I was good at but did nothing for me. I had few friends. My family was hours and hours away. I hadn't had even a casual-type relationship in almost a year.

  So being around family and old friends, having some time with a man, it all made me see something I hadn't even realized.

  I was lonely.

  I was so all-consumingly lonely that it made my chest feel constricted. It made my bed feel way too big. It made the world seem larger than it used to, more hollow.

  I sighed, slamming the lid to my laptop and bringing my ice cream back to the freezer.

  Four digital applications seemed like enough for the day. There were at least seventy-five of them already swirling around out there waiting to be responded to. It had only been a week. I was way ahead of most recently unemployed people. Hell, most people probably took the whole first week to sleep in, binge watch TV they had missed, let loose a little. So there was no reason to feel guilty when I went into my bathroom and filled up the tub then climbed in with a book.

  And then there was no reason to feel guilty when the water turned cold, I drained the tub, got changed into more hideously oversized sweat clothes, and took the book to my couch with me.

  There wasn't even any reason to feel guilty when I fell asleep with the book in my hand on my couch at three o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

  I was startled awake by knocking on my apartment door.

  Maybe 'startled' wasn't the right word.

  I woke up with my heart lodged in my throat, inwardly suppressing the urge to ninja roll across my apartment floor and go hide in my bedroom.

  No one knocked on my door.

  In the couple of years since I moved in, literally not once had someone knocked on my door.

  I carefully bookmarked my book, placing it down on the coffee table as I moved across the apartment, grabbing the giant R2-D2 paperweight off the small mail table I kept beside my door, and leaned up to look out the peephole.

  But all I saw was the hall.

  And the knocking had stopped a good full minute before.

  Curious, I unlocked the deadbolt, but left the chain on, pulling the door open to peek out the crack.

  "You don't ask who it is before you open the door, Pip?"

  TWELVE

  Callie

  I'm pretty sure a mass murderer standing in my hall with a giant, bloody katana, and a severed head in his hand would have somehow been less surprising than Adam standing there.

  I could only see a sliver of him through the gap in the door, gray slacks and a black dress shirt.

  "I promise I'm not here to kill you. You can take the chain off the door," he said, sounding amused and I snapped back, shaking some sense back into my head. I closed the door, slid the chain, then had a momentary freak out about the fact that my gray sweatshirt was about four sizes too big with a couple bleach stains and that my sweatpants were printed with parrots and I had mismatched patterned socks on and that my hair had probably dried into an absolute wavy mess, but just as quickly realized there was nothing I could do about that.

  So I pulled the door open to reveal the perfectly dressed Adam with his perfect face and perfect hair and perfect teasing smile as his eyes lowered to my hand where I was still holding R2-D2.

  "Gonna bash my skull in with a Star Trek toy?"

  "Wars," I corrected automatically. "Star Wars."

  The smile only widened at that.

  When he didn't say anything, I shook my head a little. "Adam, what are you doing here?"

  "Well," he said, looking very much like he was up to something as he rocked back on his heels, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I heard about the job thing," he said. "I'm sorry, Cal."

  "You don't look sorry," I said, brows drawing together because he was doing his damndest to hold a smile back.

  "Yeah, I'm really not," he said, letting the smile free. "I'm sorry that you're stressed out about it, but I'm not sorry it happened."

  "Ah... okay," I said, brows knitted, not understanding why he was smiling about my misfortune.

  "Ask me why I'm here again, Cal."

  "Why are you here?"

  He moved to the side and I heard a sliding noise just a second before he pulled a large stack of folded cardboard moving boxes in front of him. "We're having a packing party," he informed me.

  "A packing party? I'm not packing anything."

  "Well, if you'd rather leave everything you own behind..." he said, shrugging.

  "Adam, I'm not going anywhere."

  "Sure you are. You are coming back to Massachusetts and stocking all your stuff in the living space outside of your bedroom. You, however, I think will be spending most of your nights in my bed."

  I'm pretty sure something had happened to me. Like maybe my bathroom radio had fallen into the bath and electrocuted me and I was having that thing they say people have right before they die, when their brains misfire and give you happy images that many people associate with an afterlife.

  Because there was no way that Adam Gallagher was standing in my hallway with moving boxes and telling me to move back home so he could have me in his bed at night.

  "See, I knew I would need these," he said, moving to put the boxes back against the wall and I heard a plastic bag rustling. Then he lifted his arms and showed me four shopping bags full of, you guessed it, potato chips. "Come on, let me in, Pip," he said as he moved forward.

  And, still not entirely convinced I wasn't dying by electrocution, I moved out of the way and watched as he moved inside my apartment, stopping short, looking around, then depositing the chips onto my coffee table and then turning back to me with a smile.

  "So where's your wand?"

  Okay. So maybe my apartment was a bit nerd-chic.

  I had made sure it was respectably adult-ish in that I had a nice, tufted gray couch, a distressed white coffee table, throw pillows, spot rugs, and curtains on my windows. But if you looked, there was a touch of some nerd everywhere. My bookshelves that lined the whole wall in my living room were actually Tetris shaped. The artwork on my walls was actually framed quotes from Bronte sister novels. My shower curtain had the periodic table of elements, and pretty much every hard surface had some knick-knack from some TV show or movie or book.

  And suddenly I felt very insecure at the idea of Adam seeing all those things.

  I picked up a hand and waved toward the bookshelf where all the Harry Potter books were on display.

  "Are those Tetris blocks?" he asked, smiling wider. "And... is that a floppy disk throw pillow?" He looked over at me, likely taking in the none-too-subtle embarrassment and shaking his head. "I'm not teasing you, Pip. I like that this place looks like you live here. Most houses have no personality anymore."

  "Um, Adam, why is there..." I said, looking out toward the hallway where, butted up against the huge supply of boxes, there was a small suitcase.

  "Well," he said, coming up behind me, folding his arms over my belly. "You have a lot of stuff. I figure it will take a couple days to get it all boxed up. Plus, you know..." he said, turning his face and kissing my neck. "I think we are going to find ourselves constantly distracted."

  "By what?"

  "Oh," he said, his hand sliding lower, almost indecently so, "I think we can figure that out," he promised in a low, smooth voice.

  I looked over at the moving boxes again, shaking my head to try to clear it. "Okay," I said, trying for firm and mostly hitting the mark. "Okay. Off," I said, grabbing his wrists and pushing down until he released me with a small chuckle. "Okay. You need to deal with that," I said, waving a hand into the hallway.

  And I needed to dive into a bag of those chips.

  After I got into less ridiculous clothes. And brushed my teeth. And made sure my body wasn't floating in my bathtub.

  "I'll
be right back," I said, rushing off to my bedroom and closing the door, taking a deep breath.

  Adam was in my apartment.

  Adam was in my apartment with every intention of helping me pack up everything I owned and bringing me back to Massachusetts with him where he expected me to fall into bed with him.

  And, well, I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about that.

  I heard the front door close and was acutely aware of the fact that he was likely inspecting every inch of my living room, dining room, and kitchen. He would find nothing in my fridge but some bottle of white wine work gave me the Christmas before, sitting there because I didn't like white, and a plastic carton of baby spinach. The freezer, however, was loaded with ice cream and frozen pizzas. My sink was half-full of dishes. There was a pile of shoes behind my front door. And there were at least four different sweatshirts in various places like the back of my couch, hanging off one of my kitchen cabinets, and at least two somewhere near the door.

  But that would have to wait.

  Ratty old sweat clothes and stale breath needed to be dealt with first.

  I ripped off my sweatshirt on my way to the bathroom, putting toothpaste on my brush and brushing as I went to my closet and pulled on a slightly better fitting long-sleeve black tee. I slipped out of my ugly sweatpants and changed into more acceptable yoga ones. Then I went back to my bathroom, rinsed, and finger-combed my hair into order.

  "Hey, Pip, you have to come out eventually," Adam called through my bedroom door as I stared at it, trying to convince myself to walk out.

  "I'm coming," I said, lying.

  But it was time to stop stalling.

  Before I could cross the room, the knob turned and the door pushed open. And there he was, stepping into my bedroom.

  He took me in for a moment before his eyes moved around, landing on my very pink comforter with my pile of books on the empty side. "Come over here," he said, moving his head to the side, eyes a little heavy.