It Started with Christmas: A heartwarming feel-good Christmas romance

by Jenny Hale

  “I like pizza,” he countered. “But it’s not my favorite food.”

  “What is your favorite food?” Holly noticed she was leaning on her hand heavily, fighting the sleep that wanted to come. She sat up, her head fuzzier than it had been with Otis’s drink.

  “I’ll go,” Rhett nearly snapped, his voice booming between them, leaving Holly’s question for Joe hanging without an answer.

  Holly turned slowly toward Rhett. She knew by his gritted teeth what he thought about her and Joe, but he’d misunderstood. Tammy probably told him complete gossip; Holly had never set her straight that she and Joe weren’t a couple. Even still, the idea crept in that the thoughts she’d had about Joe tonight would haunt her in the daylight hours, once the night was over.

  “Here are my three. Ready? I’m not sure you are.” Rhett went straight into it anyway. “All my songs are about Holly—all of them. I’m in love with her. That’s why I couldn’t come home.”

  Where was the lie? Was it the second one? Holly prayed it was the second one. She burned through the buzz of the alcohol, her heart wanting to jump right out of her chest, a shooting pain bouncing around in her head like a speeding bullet that couldn’t find its way out. If the second was a truth, then he was crossing into territory that she didn’t even want to think about. She was already furious with him. But the reality was that, while she was terribly angry with him, she still missed him. Deep down, that had been what had bothered her so much. She really missed him. And only now had that realization hit her.

  Suddenly aware of tears under her eyes, she wiped them away, her lip wobbling.

  “Woops,” Rhett said, his voice monotone, his blue eyes boring into her. “I forgot to tell a lie.”

  Tammy gasped while the others stared on in complete shock. Holly felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. She struggled to get a breath, the tears assaulting her, falling down her face faster than she could wipe them. Once again, he’d only thought about himself, derailing the entire night, ruining a light, happy Christmas moment with their friends to dramatically announce this news as if Holly were going to run into his arms.

  Not to mention, if Tammy had told Rhett Holly and Joe were an item, what if her gossip had been correct? How audacious he was to think that he could walk in after all this time without a word, bark that he loved her in front of everyone, and have her step away from the person she’d come with to be with him. Did Rhett have any consideration for Holly’s or Joe’s feelings in the matter?

  The table was silent. Holly could hear a pin drop.

  Nana stood up. “Rhett, my darling boy, I’m going home. I’m tired.” Her voice cut through the tension like a warm knife through apple-butter. Rhett turned to her, clearly shaken by his own admission. Nana continued. “I think you might want to slow down on the iced tea,” she said, the word “iced tea” through gritted teeth, and then it occurred to Holly that Rhett had been handling his nerves all night with alcohol. “I’m sure Holly would be happy to come over and see you tomorrow. I’m sorry we missed your mama coming, and I’m sure she’ll want to catch up with Holly sometime.”

  “I’ll get the tractor running,” Buddy said, standing up and scrambling for his keys, not a word coming from the rest of the table.

  Holly still hadn’t spoken. She was shell-shocked, confused. She just kept thinking how she shouldn’t have come. The minute she heard that Rhett was back, she should’ve run in the other direction. She’d only wanted to show Nana a good time, and now Rhett had ruined that too. She wanted to talk to him, to have time when they were both calm to go over everything that had happened, but she knew that tonight wasn’t the night. He should’ve said all this before he left. Not now.

  They both needed to sleep this off and have some clarity before they could discuss it properly.

  “I’ll come by tomorrow,” she finally said to Rhett, the exhaustion of the night winding its way through every inch of her body, making her feel like she hadn’t slept in three days.

  Rhett had relaxed now, noticeably more composed after having gotten that off his chest. He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers.

  Holly turned to Joe, who’d already stood up and was helping Nana with her coat. She felt just awful for putting him in this situation, and she planned to apologize once they got back to the quiet of the cabin. He turned around and gave her a small, consoling smile, allowing her to relax just a little.

  “Ready?” he asked, that soft voice calming her.

  “Yes.” Holly waved to the people at the table while they all goggled at her, and then left them to their rising, buzzing chatter as she, Nana, and Joe walked out of the barn.

  Seventeen

  “As crazy as it was,” Nana said as she pulled back her bed covers, “I had fun tonight.”

  “Fun?” Holly asked, still mortified by Rhett’s display.

  “Rhett’s drama aside, those are our people, and it felt good to be with them. It made me happy.”

  “I’m glad.” Holly kissed Nana on the cheek.

  Holly got Nana settled in bed, and when she peeked out of her room, Joe had already shut his door for the night, so Holly turned in as well. But she was restless. The clock ticked as if marking every minute that Holly lay awake next to Nana, wishing she could talk to Joe about everything or at least apologize. She also replayed all the times she’d spent with Rhett through the new lens he’d created tonight.

  Holly remembered the day he left. The night before was the night he’d almost kissed her. They were sitting on the steps of Papa’s porch like they always did but this time, he leaned in a little too close and, as he made a move, she actually considered it. They both stopped, and she pulled back, neither of them going any further but both of them knowing they’d thought about it. The next day, he was doing a small tour of venues across the south, and he asked if she’d go with him. He teased her and said that he couldn’t do it without her. Holly had just picked up a new job at a restaurant and she didn’t want to lose it. She explained that to him and told him that he didn’t need her, and she encouraged him to go.

  “What if we ran away—just you and me?” Rhett said that night. “You could work anywhere.”

  She laughed and now that she understood his real feelings, she remembered the sadness in his face. She thought at the time that it was just his self-centered yearning to have a friend on the road, but now she wondered if he’d meant that he wanted her to run away with him forever, not to go on the road, but to be his partner in life.

  “You never take any risks,” he complained. “How can you find what you love if you never make that next step into the unknown?”

  Now she wondered if his almost-kiss had been an invitation, a step into that unknown he spoke of.

  She originally supposed he’d been talking about himself, trying to validate his tour. But after tonight, she thought he might have meant: how can you find who you love if you never make that next step?

  So many conversations like this one raced through her head all night, giving her further evidence that the friendship she had with Rhett was one-sided. He thought more of her than that, and she never believed it until he spelled it out for her. Acid burned in the pit of her stomach. She just didn’t think of him that way. She loved him, absolutely, but she wasn’t in love with him—not like that. They were so different… Now what would they do? She wanted her best friend back; she wanted him to make right what he’d ruined. But something told her that he might be gone for good, his pride keeping him from returning.

  Holly rolled over and looked at the clock: 2:00 a.m. She was restless, irritable, her head was throbbing, and she probably needed some ibuprofen and water if she ever wanted to get some sleep. Quietly, she slipped out from under the covers, trying not to bother Nana, and padded across the room. The hinges creaked just slightly, so she slowed her pull on the door to reduce the noise. Holly must have left the kitchen light on, a long, thin yellow beam illuminating the hallway floor.

  When she got there, Joe look
ed up from the table.

  “Hi,” he said, his eyes following her across the room. “I… couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me neither.”

  The first thing she noticed was the sunglasses—the Joseph and Katharine ones—resting in the middle of the table. And a pair of nice blue and green flannel bottoms and a navy T-shirt that complemented his dark eyes had replaced those silver pajamas. He was leaning on his forearms, his hands resting on either side of a glass.

  “Is that… buttermilk?” Holly said with a smile.

  “Guilty.” He picked up the glass and swirled the thick liquid around. “It’s a last resort. I thought maybe Buddy’s idea would work, and it would help me fall asleep.” He grabbed the bottle of buttermilk that was beside the glass. “Want some?”

  “Why not?”

  Holly pulled another glass down from the cabinet and retrieved two ibuprofen that she had brought for the headaches Nana had been having lately. Joe filled her glass, sliding it toward her. She popped the two ibuprofen into her mouth and chased them with the thick sweet buttermilk.

  “Sooo,” he said, the word coming out on an exhale. “Rhett has a big personality.”

  “Yes.” She took another drink of her milk, this sip much smaller than her last.

  “How do you know him?”

  “I spent every summer and holiday with Nana and Papa here at the cabin, and Rhett and I grew up together. We were inseparable.”

  Holly had gone from spending long days near the water, wearing sundresses and ponytails as a little girl to baseball caps and cut-off shorts as a teenager. Their little feet that hung above the water when she and Rhett sat on the pier had grown along with their limbs, their adolescent legs in the cool stream as she watched her bobber sink with the bite of something on the end of it. The thing she’d loved most about Rhett was how he listened with a sort of excitement, and for a teenage girl who had a lot to say, he was great. Looking back now, she knew that he’d listened because he cared about her and he’d used every single feeling she’d had in his music. So, in a way, their talks had been like research for him.

  “It seemed…” Joe began, his eyes flickering over to the sunglasses on the table, “that Rhett’s admission tonight surprised you.”

  “Yes.” Holly took another sip of her buttermilk.

  “You didn’t respond to what he said,” he pointed out. “It took a lot of guts to do what he did.”

  Holly shrugged. “Not for Rhett. He finds it easy to lay his feelings on the line. That’s what makes him such a great artist. It comes through in his lyrics and when he sings.” Holly acted like it hadn’t been a big deal, because she was still angry with him—for leaving, for showing up and ruining the night, for changing everything—but she knew it was a big deal. She’d never seen Rhett so intense.

  “You’re going to talk to him tomorrow?” Joe asked, pulling her back into the conversation.

  “Yeah.”

  Perhaps Rhett’s announcement tonight had been some kind of divine intervention, a way to keep her from daydreaming about the unattainable. As Holly looked at Joe, all she could think about was a lost opportunity. What if they’d met before he’d dated Katharine? What if they’d crossed paths sooner? Would anything have happened between them? She couldn’t drive herself crazy thinking about it. Because, in the end, they hadn’t met before he was engaged, and there was a wedding to finish planning.

  Why had Joe come into her life? Was it just to give her an opportunity to be a wedding planner? Maybe that was it. Perhaps it was that simple.

  “No wonder you’re not sleeping,” Joe said.

  Holly realized she’d been staring at her buttermilk, everything coming down on her again like it had while she’d been trying to relax in bed.

  “You need to turn that brain off. It’s going a hundred miles an hour, I can tell…” When she looked up at him, his gaze dropped to the table, his eyes unstill, and she wondered if he was trying to work out what she’d been thinking about.

  “You two and your late-night shenanigans. Neither of you seem to know how to rest.” Nana’s voice took them both off guard. She eyed their glasses, and her disapproval was clear.

  In that instance, Holly felt as though there was an imaginary line with her and Joe on one side of it and Nana on the other. It was very clear that Nana didn’t like the idea of Holly and Joe spending any time together. Would that line still be there if Rhett were sitting at the table in Joe’s place?

  But at the end of the day, it was Nana Holly cared most about. That was why they’d come here in the first place, why they’d brought all their Christmas decorations and presents. Joe distracted them from their holiday together. Why had Holly let it happen? If she looked at things objectively, she could see that she and Joe had two very different paths ahead of them in the upcoming weeks. Holly needed to step over that line Nana had drawn, making it her and Nana on one side and Joe on the other. She was his wedding planner, nothing more. Maybe if she could make a clear distinction about that, he’d step back and give her some space, which would help Holly get over her feelings.

  “We were just talking about Rhett,” Holly said, knowing that name would change Nana’s demeanor.

  Nana, who was now headfirst in the fridge, turned around, clearly interested, just as Holly had guessed.

  “I couldn’t sleep thinking about what he said,” she lied a little. She’d been thinking as much about Joe as she had about the ridiculousness of Rhett’s confession. But she didn’t mention Joe on purpose just now. It was important that Holly focused on Rhett because if she seemed interested in him, then she wouldn’t look at all interested in Joe. That was how it had to be. “I need to talk to him.”

  “Yes, you should,” Nana encouraged her. “I missed that boy. I hope we get to see him again before he leaves.”

  Holly resisted the urge to offer a dismissive look. She kept her face contemplative. She needed Joe to think that she was considering Rhett’s advances as well. It would be the only way she could show Nana their relationship was strictly platonic. “I’m sure we’ll see him,” she said. But how would Holly feel when she saw him again?

  Eighteen

  Holly had almost forgotten the sun could be that bright; she hadn’t seen it in so long. She stretched into the empty side of the bed where Nana usually slept and realized she was alone. Her body ached, as her feet hit the cold floor. She peered out the window. The sun shimmered off the fallen snow like diamonds, the sky now an electric blue. The clock read 9:18. Holly thought that waking after nine, she should feel rested, but she had only gotten about six hours of sleep.

  She still hadn’t made her way through the mental haze of last night. But she knew that if she could organize her day, she could keep herself focused on a list of tasks, one at a time. First, she was going to see Rhett. She’d ask him to come get her in the tractor—Buddy would let him borrow his, certainly. After that, she was going to get some things done for Joe and Katharine’s wedding. Maybe he’d let her do a Facebook post about his dad…

  Then, that evening, she wanted to spend some time with Nana. After all, it was Christmastime! Maybe Holly could break out the newest one-thousand-piece puzzle she’d bought. It was a picture of Santa Claus coming down a chimney, his big black leather-clad feet hanging above the logs, his red and white hat dangling from one boot.

  There was a knock on the door, startling her. The hinges creaked as Joe peeked his head in. “You’re up,” he said, widening the opening. “I made us scrambled eggs and toast. Your nana’s already had three pieces and a cup of tea.” He smiled, giving her a rush. Had Nana finally taken to Joe?

  Holly ran her fingers through her knotted hair. “Okay,” she said, her eyes still groggy enough that she could barely notice that Joe was cleaned up for the day, his hair combed and face shaved, and he had fresh clothes on.

  “I also made coffee.” He winked at her.

  Why was he so spunky today? He’d cooked? For Nana? And he made Holly coffee when he wasn’t even
a big coffee drinker. She wasn’t complaining, certainly, but she did find it a bit odd.

  Holly brushed her teeth, washed her face, and slid on her fuzzy slippers—the striped ones that looked like candy canes—then opened the door. Christmas music sailed through the air. Bing Crosby? Before she could start singing along, a mug found its way into her view.

  Nana was at the table, knitting and humming to the music, and, for an instant, Holly wondered if she was in the middle of some sort of Christmas dream. But then concern floated up through Nana’s tiny grin when Joe got a little closer to Holly to hand her the cup of coffee. That was when Holly knew she was awake.

  “I put a spoonful of sugar in it and topped it with cream,” Joe said. “Isn’t that what you usually do?”

  “Yes,” she said guardedly. Had Nana told him, or had he remembered how she made her coffee?

  Nana’s hands were now still, her attention on Joe.

  “Can we plan the wedding in a few hours? After I go see Rhett?” Holly asked Joe, Rhett’s name coming out gently pronounced, a subconscious message to Nana to stop worrying. She also wondered if mentioning Rhett might clear any lingering apprehension Nana had toward Joe. She sat down at the table.

  “Yep,” Joe said, returning to the pan on the stove before dropping a pile of scrambled eggs onto a plate with his spatula.

  Holly eyed him as he slid it in front of her.

  He set two pieces of toast down beside the eggs and handed Holly the butter.

  “Those six hours of sleep must have done you well,” Holly said, still guarded by the general good cheer in the air. Nana was happily sipping her coffee again.

  “Yes.” He smiled, but there it was; she knew that smile already. In that one gesture he’d allowed a crack in his façade. It was the counterfeit smile that he used when he wasn’t really comfortable.

  Ha! She caught him. But then more questions followed. Why was he attempting to be so chipper? Had Rhett’s little outburst made him uncomfortable? Or was he trying to keep the atmosphere light for Nana? It wasn’t like Nana didn’t know what was going on with Rhett—she’d been there last night too. There was no reason to pretend.