Snowed Over (A Christmas Novella) (10 page)

He looked at it with disbelief. “Is this hot cocoa?”

“Yup.”

He took a whiff of the steamy drink. “Where’d you find it?” He was about to take a sip and then paused. “There aren’t mouse droppings in it, and you’re trying to get back at me, are you?”

She laughed. “No. It turns out the fridge was packed with food. Apparently, that’s where you hide stuff you don’t want the critters to find. We will be feasting big tonight.”

Alex sat near the fire and took a sip. “Oh, that’s good.” He closed his eyes and savored the taste. His sated expression reminded Katie of how she felt when he kissed her.
 

“Only thing better would be a shot of schnapps. Did you find any of that?” he asked.

“No schnapps, but I found three bottles of wine.”
 

“No way. That is awesome. Looks like we’re going to have a party.”

Katie relaxed, knowing they were over their earlier fight.
 

After a lunch of jelly on stale snack crackers and more hot chocolate, they sat on the braided rug in front of the coffee table and played Scrabble. Alex came up with one word after another, but the only words Katie came up with she couldn’t use: love, hug, kiss, lips. It took all her concentration to come up with words that didn’t make her look like a lovesick stalker.

Alex interrupted her thoughts. “What do you say? Should we open a bottle of wine?”
 

“I’m sorry. I know I’m taking forever.” She looked at her letters and all she saw was H U N K.

“Take your time. I just figured it might be a nice way to pass the afternoon. We’ll still have another bottle for dinner.”

“Sure. I’ll try some.” Her drinking experience consisted mainly of beer or flavored vodkas mixed with juice at college parties.
 
She’d only tried a few sips of wine at her cousin’s wedding.

Alex brought over an open wine bottle along with two mismatched drinking glasses. “They must keep the fine crystal at their other place.” He set the glasses on the coffee table and poured a little of the red liquid into each glass.

Katie lifted her glass, swirling it like a wine aficionado and sniffed. “It’s a very good year.”

“Says here it’s called Red Satin, bottled—” He spun the bottle around looking for a date. “—this year.”

“And a very good year it was... not,” she added, thinking of her parents divorce, their secrecy and her mom’s new Christmas activities. Katie was now the product of a broken home.

Alex lifted his glass. “Cheers to a less-than-stellar year.”

She clicked her glass to his. “I’ll drink to that.” She took a tentative sip, happy to discover the wine mild and easy on the taste buds. Alex took a sip and sat down across from her.

She watched him push a hand through his hair and sighed. “I know why my year sucked, but what was wrong with yours?”
 

“Well,” he said. “It’s a long story.”

“We’re sure not going anywhere soon.” The fire flicked light over the shadows of his unshaven face. She resisted the urge to reach out and touch the rough stubble.

He huffed.

“Is it school?” she asked.

“No. School is great. I love school and Madison and getting out of Ashland. School is the best decision I ever made.” He took another drink and set the glass down. “Aw hell. It’s a big cluster fuck.” He leaned forward with his head in his hands.

Katie couldn’t imagine what could be so wrong in his life. Her roommate said he was engaged. She didn’t mention anything about family troubles and it obviously wasn’t school. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

He rubbed his hands over his face. “No. It’s okay. Maybe if I actually tell someone, it’ll be easier for me to get through. You know about Trina.”

“Your fiancée.” She nodded.

He rolled his eyes.

“Not your fiancée?”

“No. She is. At least for the moment.”

“Oh.” The truth dawned on her. “You don’t want to be engaged anymore.” Hope blossomed inside her.

He grimaced. “Exactly.”

“And you plan on breaking up with her.”

He nodded.

“On Christmas?”
 

He nodded again.

Katie cringed. “Ouch.” But inside she felt a leap of joy. Kind of like her Christmas came early. She touched her mouth, thinking of his earlier kiss. Now it didn’t seem quite as wrong.

“I know. It’s bad.” Alex drummed his fingers on the coffee table.

“So, do you have to break it off now? I mean, couldn’t you wait until…”

“New Years? Because that wouldn’t hurt either? Or right before I head back to school?” He shook his head. “No matter what I do, I’m screwed. I’ll come off as ten times the asshole.” He started to bounce his leg.
 

The poor guy was a mess. She had to agree, his timing couldn’t be worse. Unless... “She doesn’t have a Christmas birthday does she? Cause that would be downright cruel.”

“No. That’s why I didn’t break it off at Thanksgiving.”

 
“Wow. You’ve been thinking about this for a while.” She took a large drink of wine.

“Pretty much every second since she told me she lost the baby.”

Chapter 11

There, he’d said the words. She knew.

Katie choked on her wine and coughed. “Baby? Back the truck up! Start over. From the beginning.”

He took a fortifying gulp of wine. “I’ve had problems for the last year and a half. Trina and I started dating our junior year of high school. She was the hot girl, and well, we had fun together.”

One glance at Katie and he knew she was still digesting the baby comment.

“After high school, I wanted to go to college and get on with my life, but Trina didn’t want me to go to Madison. She wanted me to go someplace closer to home like Sturgeon Bay or maybe Eau Claire. When she figured out I was sticking to Madison, she said that if anyone could make a long-distance relationship work, it was us. I liked her a lot and I was clueless, so I said I was willing to give it a try. But while I was at school, she turned into some small town prima donna, acting like she was better than everyone else.”

He glanced at Katie. She listened and didn’t say a word. He didn’t want her thinking badly of him. Everything about her was light and refreshing. He worried that sharing his shitty life with Katie would drive her away.

“I don’t know if I just didn’t see it before or if Trina changed. She was probably the most popular girl in school and she knew it. Still, I figured she’d do something with her life after graduation.”

“But she didn’t?”

“No. If anything she became more self-obsessed and mean. It’s like she wanted to be the queen bee of the whole town. She started sticking her nose in other people’s business and gossiping like an old woman. All she wants is for us to get married and start having kids. She even talked to her dad about me going to work for him. He owns the largest logging company in three counties. Trina has it all figured out.”

 
“Trina sounds like a real bitch as far as I’m concerned,” Katie mumbled then looked up. “Oh, did I say that out loud?”

He smiled weakly. “It took me a while to see what she was doing. After freshman year when I came home for the summer, I knew I needed to end it. She wanted us to move into an apartment together. It was like she wanted to play house or something. We were nineteen!”

“The more distance I tried to put between us, the more she held on. She was jealous of every friend I had and always thought I was cheating on her. I don’t know if she was watching those bridezilla reality shows or what. She mentioned getting married and when she saw the terror in my eyes, she backed off.”

“But you ended up engaged anyway,” Katie said.

“Yeah. She got pregnant, which was a miracle because we’d only been together one time since I came back from school. And that was after I got drunk on my birthday.”

“So you offered to marry her.”

“I didn’t want to be the jerk who walked away from his own kid. That wouldn’t be right. Before I knew it Trina and her mom set a date and she’s out shopping for dresses.”

Alex looked at Katie’s expression. “You think I’m an idiot for knocking up a girl I wanted to break up with.”

“No! I feel bad because you’re a really nice guy who was taken advantage of.”

He rolled his eyes and took another sip of his wine. “When she set the date for a Valentine’s Day wedding, I knew something wasn’t right. She should have been about eight months pregnant by then. When I asked her about it, she said she’d lost the baby and started to cry.”
 

“At first I was devastated, but that changed into relief. Relief that I didn’t have to be a teenage father and relief that I didn’t have to get married.”

“Alex, I’m so sorry.” Katie’s beautiful eyes showed a compassion he never saw in Trina.

His shoulders tensed. “When I started asking Trina questions about when she lost the baby, she went postal and blurted out that she’d never actually been pregnant at all, she’d only been late on her period.”

Katie’s lip curled into a sneer. “That dirty skank!”
 

He forced a smile and nodded. Katie had nailed it on the head.
 

“So, why are you still together?” she asked.

“Because I’m an idiot.”

Katie raised an eyebrow.

“Trina begged me not to break it off because she’d be humiliated and her parents would be heartbroken. She said we could work it out and promised to stop acting so jealous. She even talked about taking classes at the community college.”

“But you didn’t want to be engaged to her?”

“No.”

“But you stayed engaged?”

Alex raised his hands in the air. “I know. I’m such a doormat. I figured that as soon as I got back to school I could call her and break it off from there. If she wasn’t around to manipulate me, I could follow through and make it stick.”

“And?” Katie asked.

He stood and began to pace. “And then her grandma died. I couldn’t exactly break it off then. I called Trina’s mom to tell her how sorry I was that her mother died, and Trina’s mom kept going on and on about how happy it made her that Trina and I were getting married.”

“Are you always this big a pushover?” Katie shook her head.

“No! I’m really not. There’s something about Trina. She always manages to get her way. It’s like she has a Masters in manipulation.” Trina was a sneaky, spoiled brat who didn’t understand the word no.

Katie poured more wine into their glasses then set the bottle down. “I used to babysit for a family and the little girl always got her way. No matter how hard I tried to stand my ground, the little shit always out-maneuvered me.”

“That’s Trina!” He picked up his glass and took a sip. “But this time it’s going to be different.”

“And how is that?” she asked, clearly doubting him.

“Because she knows,” he said, pacing again.

“That you’re going to break up?”

“Yup. I’ve emailed her and tried to talk to her on the phone. She keeps evading me and saying that once we’re together it will all be okay. But that’s not going to happen. I am done with her.” And it was true. He’d had it up to his eyeballs.
 

“I really hope you do. You deserve much better. But how’s it going to be different this time?”

“I’m going to sit her down, along with her parents, and keep telling her until she understands. That or until her dad throws me out.”

“Yikes.” She cringed.

“I know it’s harsh, but it’s the only way I can think of to get it through her thick skull. With an audience.”

“I sure wouldn’t want to be you,” she said. He watched her swirl the wine in her glass.
 

He shrugged. “At this point, I don’t even care. I’m so immune to her drama. I need this thing over.”

“That explains why you weren’t looking forward to going home for Christmas.”

They were both quiet for a minute, watching the fire. Katie spoke. “Does anyone in your family know?”

“My brother, Jason. He knows everything. He’ll help run interference for me. My parents know she lied about the baby. I’m sure they’ve guessed the rest.”

“The brother who loves snow?”

“That’s him. Jason used to harass the hell out of me when we were kids, but if someone else gave me trouble, he always had my back.”

Katie glanced out the window. “Look! It stopped snowing.” She hopped up and ran to the window.
 

The snow and wind had died down. A thick white blanket of snow coated the yard and trees like icy frosting. “It looks like a Christmas card,” Alex said.

“It’s beautiful. I wish my phone wasn’t dead. I’d take a picture.”

“Let me check mine.” He went through his bag and pulled out his phone. “Let’s see if this baby will juice up.” He pressed some buttons, and a few seconds later the phone played a tune as it powered up. “Bingo!”