In Love Before Christmas (4 page)

“Not ever and you know that. There’s somebody out there. Keep thinking; maybe a name will come to us.” Keep thinking, that’s all they needed to do—that and pray for a miracle.
 
“Until that point I’ll just have to see what happens with Bob.”

Matt shrugged. He didn’t want to see her with Bob, but better Bob than Derek, that was for sure. He studied Lani for a minute. Why hadn’t she looked at him as more than a friend?

“What?” She said as she acknowledged his constant and intense gaze upon her.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. Had he ever told her that before? Had he ever even tried to make a move? They were best friends and he knew she loved him, he loved her too. The difference was he was in love with her and she wasn’t in love with him.

“Thanks,” she looked at him as if she were in shock. “You have never said that to me before.”

“I haven’t?”

“No,” she shook her head. “We’ve never focused on looks with each other I guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You focus on the important things, like the person I am. I love that you do that.” She smiled at him warmly. “But I liked the compliment you just gave me too, so thanks. The photographer and his assistant might disagree with you though. They thought I was fat.”

He laughed. “Oh yeah, I heard about the dress incident. I hear it’s a ten thousand dollar dress.”

“Fifteen thousand,” she said. “Derek came up there and pretty much showed me that he remembered our little pact and I just took one wrong step. I think I was trying to escape him…whatever, the dress wasn’t the right size for me anyway.”

“Was it the right size for anybody?”

She laughed. “The model could have worn it, and probably made it look good too.”

“I saw the photos that they got before you took the tumble. You looked good. I doubt the model could have pulled it off as well as you did.”

She blushed. He could see the blush in her cheeks and the slight look of vulnerable discomfort in her eyes. She was never good at taking compliments about herself. He liked and loved this woman, yet he was sitting here trying to help her fall in love with somebody else.

He looked her over once more, thinking hard about how he felt about her since the first day he saw her, compared to what he felt about her now. Back then he had a childhood crush, but it never fizzled out. He just fell in love with her. Well, now it was time to do something about that. He didn’t want to risk the friendship because he would rather have her as a friend than nothing at all. He would have to find a way to make her fall in love with him. His lips turned upward into a smile as he thought about what he might be able to do to meet his goal. Of course he would have to do it before he gave her her Christmas gift. He couldn’t have her feeling obligated to reciprocate his feelings or anything like that.

“What?” She poked him in his shoulder bringing his attention back to their present situation.

“I was just thinking about something,” he said. “I think we’re not going to have any problem at all making you fall in love before Christmas.”

“Now that’s the spirit,” she laughed. “Thank God,” she said. “Because there was no way I was going to be able to marry Derek and given the St. Mary’s Curse track record I’m not sure I would survive the punishment for breaking the promise.”

“Don’t worry, Lani. I have a plan.” He just hoped that plan worked the way he wanted it to work.

“Hey, do you want to go to the Noel Parlor for cocoa? I’ll buy.”

He laughed. “I can buy for you, Lani. You don’t have to always try to buy me food.”

She laughed. “I didn’t realize I
always
tried to do it,” she stressed the word always.

“Every time you ask me to go to the Noel, which is at least twice a month, Lani, you buy. I want to buy for you this time.”

She smiled. “We could go Dutch.”

“Why do you have such a hard time letting a man buy you something?”

She shrugged. “Remember when I went away to college?”

“Of course. I went away too, but I still missed you. I can’t believe we both came back here.”

“I thought you were going to stay in New York.”

He thought he was going to stay too, but that was when he thought Lani might be there with him. He thought when she finished school she would come out there, but instead of going to New York she went back home. Her returning to her home town was reason enough for him to pass up a lucrative offer at a New York magazine he had interned with during his senior year. He had always thought he and Lani would go off to school together, then work in the same place, then get married. He wanted to marry her for sure. But even though they had both applied to NYU, Lani hadn’t gotten in. He had. She had gotten into her second choice in Seattle and she had told him to go to New York without her. He was reluctant, but she said, “our paths will lead us right back where we belong.” He knew he belonged with her even if he were too afraid to speak the words. Everybody thought he was crazy for turning down the New York job, but he knew exactly why he had done it and he knew he was right. He wanted to be wherever she was and when he found out she was moving back to Ferndale he just knew it was the right move for him too.

“What happened in Seattle?” He brought the conversation and his mind back to their conversation.

“Well I dated this guy—a jock.”

He groaned and she laughed.

“I know he’s not my type, but he won me over with his sense of humor. He always made me laugh. Anyway, I noticed that every time we went out, after the first few dates that is, he seemed to think that buying me a cup of tea meant he should receive payment with sex. I wasn’t interested in sex with him so I always said no, but after a while I noticed a trend. Guys buy you things when they want something in return and that something is always sex—or money.” She shrugged.

“I’m not like that and you know it. You do know that right?”

“Of course. But I guess I just function on auto pilot. Plus I like buying you things, Matt. You’re my best guy.”

He smiled. He wanted to be her only guy. “Well, get your boots on beautiful we’re going down to Noel’s and you are letting me buy you a massive cup of cocoa, without any strings attached.” He winked at her. “And I’ll even buy the muffin with the streusel topping you like so much.”

“Oooh,” she giggled. “And we’ll split it as always right?”

“Yes,” he brushed her cheek with the back of his index finger. “We’ll split it as always. That’s a really big muffin, Lani.”

She laughed. “I know. I never buy it unless you’re with me because there is no way I could eat that thing by myself. It could feed like three people.”

“Four,” he mumbled. “Combined with the really big cup of cocoa that’s a lot for the stomach.”

“Which is why I always feel like unbuttoning my jeans after I have it,” she laughed. “Fortunately I don’t buy it as often as I go for the cocoa. How can you pass up all that whipped cream?”

He laughed. “Your nose surely never passes it up.”

She chuckled. “That is so not my fault. The first sip or two is always messy.”

“I don’t have that problem,” he chuckled.

“Oh please…last time it was your chin remember.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.” That had been a rather embarrassing moment, not because he walked around with whipped cream on his face—Lani would never allow that to happen, but because he had embarrassed himself in front of her yet again. She had sweetly taken her napkin and wiped the cream off his chin.

“What would I do without you, Lani?” He helped her get her coat on.

“The same thing you did without me for all those years in New York.”

“Suffer,” he said absently. He hadn’t meant to say those words out loud, but he had suffered. He had missed her every day.

She laughed. “You called me nearly every day, even on finals week. You weren’t suffering.”

He laughed. He was suffering and maybe that’s why he called her. He missed hearing her voice. Calling her made it feel as if he were right by her side.

“But,” she said. “I missed you too. I loved having you call. Having you call and being able to talk about nothing at all was awesome. Seattle wasn’t home, but if you had been there I might have stayed—I might have made it home.”

“That’s how I felt about New York.” He could have stayed. He did like it there even though he missed Ferndale he realized what he missed most was being with Lani, not the town itself.

She sighed as she wrapped his scarf around his neck and tied it. She was bundling him up as she had always called it. “We can’t have you getting sick now can we,” she would always say. He hated wearing scarves, but for some reason whenever she bought him one and brought it over he had no problem letting her put it on him.

“Lani,” he looked deep into her eyes.

“Yeah?” She said in a voice that was almost a whisper.

“You can’t marry him.”

“Oh I’m not,” she said with certainty. “That’s why I have to fall in love before Christmas. I am not marrying that fool of a man.”

He laughed. He loved her theatrics most days, but mostly he loved hearing her reaffirm that she wouldn’t be marrying that “fool of a man,” as she had called him. Thank God for that, he thought.

Chapter Four

Lani looked at Matt, her best friend forever. He was such a great guy. There was no way he should still be single. If they weren’t such good friends she would have probably gone out with him, but why ruin a perfect friendship by complicating things with a romantic relationship that probably wouldn’t work out anyway? Relationships never worked out for her—never. She wouldn’t lose the most important friend in her life over romance. Matt meant everything to her. He would always mean everything to her. If he weren’t in her life she didn’t know how she would make it.

She missed him so much at college. She had hoped they would go to school together, but they hadn’t. She didn’t get in to NYU while he had and it was his dream school just like it was hers so she couldn’t ask him to give it up and follow her to Seattle. He had applied at both as a “just in case,” just as she had. The difference was he got gold while she got silver and she couldn’t take his gold away from him. He deserved the best. She had been so happy that he called every day.

She had thought about calling him her first day there, but then she thought that was just too much seeing as though she had just talked to him the previous day. The only thing that changed her mind was that she figured she could just call and let him know she made it and that the apartment she was renting was sort of okay. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it wasn’t the dumps either. He had chatted with her for a few hours and when they ended the call she thought she wouldn’t hear from him again until the end of the week. She assumed she shouldn’t call too much because he might not really want her crowding his New York independent style. She thought their friendship would fizzle a little, but not die. She knew neither he nor she would ever allow that to happen.