Deacon landed around the corner from his mother’s townhouse and, once inside, took a quick shower before attempting to sleep. The moonlight fell silver through his window. He studied the beams from the comfort of his creaky, antique four-poster bed and considered his next move.
His mother wouldn’t be impressed if he left on Boxing Day, but there was nothing for him in London. He had spent the last month with the same family. They would meet again for another meal and more discussions—he had no desire to attend either. Giving in to exhaustion, he promised himself the morning would bring his return to Worcester.
Deacon didn’t rise until after noon. His mother had left him a note saying the pair of them would be attending a show at the West End the following day. While he had no interest in accompanying her, he knew better than to abandon her on such an occasion. She was understandably melancholy this time of year, missing his father more than usual.
He was finally able to leave the evening of the twenty-eighth.
After multiple delays and canceled flights due to bad weather at his destination, Deacon landed in blizzardy Boston late on the twenty-ninth.
He wanted to see Vivienne right away, but after twenty-four hours of travel, he wasn’t fit to see anyone. Instead, he went to his home, washed up, and, for the first time in forever, had no trouble falling asleep.
Early the next morning, he drove to Vivienne’s flat only to find no one home. If he hadn’t forgotten his phone in the car, he would have called her. He gave one final knock in desperation. When only silence answered, he drifted toward the snowy ground.
“Hello?”
He flew back toward the door and gave Vivienne a little wave. She looked at him with narrowed eyes, and he had a sinking feeling their reunion wasn’t going to go as he had hoped.
“What do you want?” Her voice was husky from sleep, but it was also cold and detached.
He’d been asking himself the same question for the last month. “I wanted to let you know I’m back.”
“Great. Welcome home. Now I’m going back to sleep.”
He stopped her from slamming the door in his face. He had assumed she’d be a bit annoyed from his lack of contact, but hadn’t expected this. “Look, I’m sorry for not texting, I’m not very good at the whole distance thing and—”
“That’s a bunch of crap and you know it,” she snapped. “It takes two seconds to send a text message. If you wanted to talk to me, you would have. Simple as that.”
“I did want to talk to you,” he confessed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I do want to, I mean.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“It’s complicated.” What was he doing? He was shit at this. The best thing to do would be to let her cool down. Then she’d get over it, and they could pick up where they’d left off in November.
“Whatever.” She tried to close the door again.
He needed to get out of here. To go home. To leave her alone . . . “Can I just come in for two minutes? Please?”
She rolled her eyes but stepped aside and allowed him into her apartment. All the decorations were still up, but the lights in the Christmas trees were off. There was a suitcase sitting beside the sofa. Had she been somewhere or was she leaving?
Vivienne’s watch beeped when she pressed it. “You have two minutes, starting…” Another beep. “Now.”
She was setting a timer? All right. He needed to get it together. The truth. He was going to tell her the truth. “I didn’t text you because I was hoping I would get over whatever this is.” He gestured between the two of them. It wasn’t a relationship. It was . . . he didn’t have the right word for it.
She shook her head and sank onto the arm of the sofa. “Why? I thought…I thought you liked me.”
“I did—I do. But I was hoping that some time away would mean I could clear my head and stop thinking about you all the damn time.”
She frowned at the face of her watch and pressed a button on the side. It beeped once. Twice. “Why is that such a bad thing?” she asked quietly, keeping her eyes on her wrist.
“Because it doesn’t happen to me, all right? I go out with girls once or twice, and that’s it. I don’t get into relationships. I don’t even go on dates. So I haven’t a clue what I’m doing. All I know is that I’m doing it wrong.”
There. Now she knew he was a terrible person. That he wasn’t looking for anything formal or heavy or labeled. He was looking for something casual and fun . . . but with her.
She sighed and pulled her hair back into a ponytail and chewed on her lip, but she wasn’t saying anything. Why wasn’t she saying anything? Surely she had something to say. An opinion. A curse. Something.
“Okay.”
That’s it? Okay? What did that mean?
“You like me, but you don’t want to date me,” she said slowly, as if processing. “So you’re saying you…what? Just want to hang out casually or whatever? That you like me but have no interest in being anything more.”
“Yes.” That was what he meant, wasn’t it? Because it didn’t sound quite as appealing coming out of her mouth.
“Okay then.”
“You’re…into it?”
A shrug. “I guess I’m into it until I’m not.” She got up and padded into the kitchen.
“All right.” Shouldn’t he be more excited about this? He followed her into the kitchen and watched her pull a loaf of bread from the press.
“Do you want toast or is breakfast a no-no in this whole casual, non-dating scenario?” she asked, dropping two slices into the toaster.
“I’d love toast.” He’d left his house without eating breakfast, which said a lot about his priorities at present.
She laid out two plates and a butter knife. The delicate sound of her feet across the floor made him smile.
He picked up the snowman salt and pepper shakers. Where did a person get decorations like these? “How was your Christmas?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “How about I don’t ask what you did over the holidays and you don’t ask me. Because that seems a little too serious for whatever this is.”
Had she done something that she didn’t want him knowing about? “Good idea.” He dragged a glass from the press and filled it from the tap. The cold water did little to revive him. When he leaned against the counter, the present he’d gotten for her jabbed him in the ass. “I got you something.”
She whirled around from the fridge, butter in hand. “You did?”
Deacon withdrew the hastily-wrapped statue and held it toward her. “The wrapping is shocking.” In hindsight, he probably should have put it in a box.
She wiped her hands on her sweatshirt before accepting the present and unravelling the layers of wrapping paper and tourniquet of tape. “This is amazing,” she said, running her fingertips along the delicate carving of Peter Pan. “I love it.” She gifted him the first warm smile since their reunion.
The toast popped, and she sat the statue on the counter. “Butter that,” she said, indicating the toast. “I’ll be back in a sec.” Then she disappeared down the hall.
He scraped some butter onto the toast, stacked the two pieces so the butter could melt between them, and threw two more slices into the toaster.