Chapter 38

38

MASON

Earlier That Morning

T his was truly the city that never slept. Even in the odd hours of the morning on Christmas, the street outside of Fia’s apartment was bright in the glow of Christmas lights, streetlights, and the occasional passing car. I sat on the curb like the idiot I was. Fia wasn’t home. I already knew that. I could see the glow of her Christmas tree in the single window she had, facing the street. That felt like enough, for now.

Part of me wanted nothing more than to go to her parents’ house right then and wake everyone up so I could spill my heart and try to fix it.

But it was two a.m. on Christmas morning. I reached into my jacket for bottle number one, the first bottle out of my first barrel of my family’s recipe, my most prized possession, and took a long pull, enjoying the burn.

Crunching footsteps headed my way but I was used to that. I was another sad stranger on a curb in the middle of the city. But someone sat down beside me with a soft sigh and folded their arms around their knees. I caught the glint of Colin’s watch before I realized it was him.

“I’ve been calling you.”

“My phone died,” I said, debating taking another drink. I handed the bottle to him instead. An olive branch. A peace offering. I didn’t know. But Colin took a drink, sighing around the taste.

“Shit, that’s good.”

Silence settled heavily between us. We watched a group of young twenty-somethings drunkenly cross the street, laughing and hollering as they sang a horrible rendition of Santa Baby and promptly got yelled at by a bodega worker taking a cigarette break.

“I didn’t mean what I said,” Colin said under his breath.

“You were right, though.”

“She doesn’t even want to go to California. I thought I was protecting her.”

“I wouldn’t have ever hurt her.”

“I know.” He shifted his weight, taking another drink before handing the bottle back to me. “I was out of line. She’s my little sister and I saw how she was after what Jake did to her. I didn’t want that to happen to her again.”

I took another drink before tucking the bottle back into my jacket. A cop drove by, slowing down to peer at us before driving off again. How fitting would it be to be arrested for openly drinking on the street, on Christmas, from the most valuable bottle my company had ever produced? “Why are you here, Colin?”

“I think the better question is why are you here, sitting on the curb outside Fia’s apartment when you know she’s in Brooklyn right now, tucked in bed? Dreaming of cookies or however the song goes.”

“Sugar plums,” I whispered to myself. “And it’s a book, not a song.”

“You’d know, I guess, after spending the holidays with the Christmas Queen.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Why are you here, Mason?”

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Your apartment, maybe?” he asked. “Somewhere with a heater?”

I couldn’t bring myself to say that Fia’s scent was everywhere. That she’d already infiltrated my life to the point that my apartment felt empty and cold without her there. “I wasn’t going to sleep anyway.”

“I have a key if you want to go up.”

I shook my head. “No. I just—I just needed a minute.”

“I want to fix this.”

“I don’t think it can be fixed. Not after I walked away from her?—”

“She’s mad at me, not you. Hell, I’m shocked she didn’t go all scorched earth on me before I left the house tonight.”

“You talked to her?”

He nodded, stretching out his legs.

My chest tightened as he went silent. “How is she?”

“Oh, she hates me. But she loves you, still.”

I shook my head, stuffing my hands in the pocket of my jacket. “No, I messed this up. I’ve been trying to find a way to make it right, to apologize, but nothing?—”

“She’s in love with you. Like, actually head over heels. I could see it written all over her face. You can walk in for breakfast with my family in a few hours like nothing happened and she’d be fine with it.”

“That’s not what I want to do.”

“Then what are you doing out here, man?”

I pulled the ring box out of my pocket, sighing as I opened it. Colin went perfectly still. “It’s vintage, from Tiffany’s. It belonged to my grandmother, and then my mom wore it, and now I’d like Fia to wear it.”

“Did you ask my dad?”

“I didn’t really get a chance to talk to any of you about anything last night, remember?” I shot him a wry look. “Some dickhead dropped a bomb on the whole dinner.”

Colin nodded and sighed. “It wasn’t my finest moment. But my father would probably say yes as long as the two of you got married in the church.”

“I’m not even thinking about that right now.”

“How were you going to do it?”

“I don’t know. Tomorrow—Today. Christmas Day, her favorite day of the year. In the beginning she joked about how I needed to propose to her on New Year’s Eve and how she’d say no, ending the fake relationship. I guess I never imagined how I’d get down on one knee, not then, when it was just a game, and not now. I just wanted her to say yes. I was just thinking about the days after, you know. Being married. Having her as my wife. A life together.”

Colin stood, dusting snow and ice from his jeans, which he rarely wore. “Well, we don’t have much time.”

“Time for what?”

“I owe you both big time, so this is what we’re doing to do.”

The diner just across from Central Park was busy for Christmas morning, but I guessed it never closed, even on the biggest holiday of the year. Colin and I were both mostly frozen as we clutched our coffee mugs and ignored the suspicious glances of the waitress as she took our order, our teeth chattering between words.

I wasn’t sure how we pulled it off, but we did. My hands shook as I pulled a red envelope and a new pack of ballpoint pens from a shopping bag beside me.

“What do I even say?” I grumbled, shivering, my body tingling as it adjusted to the warm air inside the diner.

“I don’t know. I’ve never proposed to anyone.” Colin downed his coffee in a single go like the scalding hot liquid didn’t scorch his throat. He shivered violently, then shook his arms free of his jacket, stuffing it in the corner of the booth. “Talk about how beautiful she is, how she’s the light of your life.”

“You really think she’d appreciate that?”

He raised his brows in thought, then smirked. “No, she’d see right through it. You can’t butter Fia up about anything.”

“I know.” I sighed, triple-checking that the ring was still secure in my pocket. I scraped through my memories. I thought of Thanksgiving when she’d picked apart my decorations. I thought of the pink dress that forever rewired my brain. I thought of kissing her for the first time, of her eyes lighting up when I gave her that ornament shaped like a little vintage camera. I thought of Deck the Decks, when I’d closed my mouth over hers, and how right it felt to be with her, her arms wrapped around my waist and her body flush with mine. A perfect fit. Like gloves. Like the gloves I wished I’d had that night we got attacked by teenagers in the park.

The same park where I was about to ask her to be my wife.

I pulled out the card stock we bought at the only open bodega we could find. With a sigh, and maybe a little bit of prayer, I clicked a pen and wrote a letter to someone more important than Santa.

The waitress placed our food on the table. “This is on me,” Colin said, handing her a stack of bills.

I wasn’t paying attention, though. My mind reeled as I wrote Fia’s name on the card and slipped it to Colin, who promptly slid it into the inner pocket of his crumpled jacket.

Operation Get Fia to Central Park was a go.

Colin scarfed down his food like he hadn’t eaten in days and quickly left, clapping me hard on the shoulder on the way, telling me to be in that park, in the spot, at noon.

That was hours away. It wasn’t even five in the morning. Was it possible to get any sleep? I looked down at my mostly untouched breakfast and gathered my things, my heart in knots as I arrived at my apartment and crashed out on the couch.