My Christmas With You by Fortune Whelan

Author:Fortune Whelan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
ISBN: 9781957748955
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2022-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Mabel was looking for comfort. Not on purpose. She was tired of holding herself together and she didn’t know she needed to hold Danny’s hand until their fingers were already entwined. He hesitated before closing his hand. She felt what he felt. Knew what he knew. That if they started, they’d have a hell of a time stopping.

She looked into his eyes, the shade of crystal blue she saw in the sky, in the water, behind her eyelids before she slept. And searched his face. For what? She wasn’t quite sure. Her gaze fell on his lips, and she spun her head around so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash.

Yes, this was Danny. Yes, they’d just shared something cathartic. But she wasn’t here for him. She was here for her. The timing wasn’t right for them then, and it definitely wasn’t right now. Mabel didn’t have to remind herself that she couldn’t just go looking for comfort in the arms of the first man that gave her attention. That’s how she ended up with Piers for fifteen mostly awful years.

“I’m ready to go inside,” she said. She took her hand back without making it a big deal and wiped her hands on her thighs. Mabel sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

“About that.” There was a pained expression on his face, and then he gestured at the bench they were sitting on. The one she’d flopped down on to spill her guts—it smelled like fish guts.

“It’s just like us,” she said. “Good or bad, everything that happens between us is memorable.”

Danny shook his head.

“What?”

“I’m going to regret this,” he breathed.

That took her by surprise, but she’d bite. What else could possibly happen?

“Could you change out of those clothes before you get on the boat?” he asked.

“Is that good regret or bad regret?”

His eyes combed over her, slowly, seductively. “I don’t know yet.” Finally, he tore his eyes away from her, leaving a scorching heat inside of her.

She watched him unlatch a plywood equipment box and took the opportunity to look at him. Not the way she did when she first saw him. That was more of a comparison, a then versus now. And not the way she did at dinner, where past Danny and present Danny converged and reconciled themselves into one man. From Danny lying face down at the bottom of the porch to now, time seemed to fast-forward and catch up. There were no more secrets between them. He caused the accident on purpose, and they almost had a baby.

Mabel didn’t have a word for what was happening, or if something was happening. She wanted to rationalize it, to tell herself the universal scales were balancing out. Just to be with him again. To feel safe and protected and to know with certainty that she wasn’t perfect and it didn’t matter.

Danny handed Mabel an ancient gray wool blanket from an equipment box on the pier and she handed it back to him.

“You sat on the stinky bench too,” she laughed.

“I did.

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