My Kind of Christmas

for him.

Five
    A ngie spent Sunday morning feeding her fire, reading a dangerously romantic novel and staying under the quilt. Every now and then she’d let her eyes drift closed and pretend the characters were Patrick Riordan and Angela LaCroix. It wasn’t until about three in the afternoon that she emerged, showered, put on clean clothes and ventured into town. Tonight would bring the lighting of the tree.
    By the time she arrived, Jack was putting the final touches on the strings of lights and hooking up extension cords, Mike was hanging on to Ness and people had already begun to gather around, lending a hand here and there. Angie gave a wave to the people she knew and then made her way to the bar. There she found her aunt Brie behind the bar. “Hey,” she said, smiling. “You’ve been pressed into duty?”
    “I think the guys are worried about getting everything done in time to light it up at about seven. Cocoa? Soda? What’s your pleasure?”
    “Cocoa sounds great.”
    Brie poured and asked, “And how was your night with the youngest Riordan?”
    “You knew?”
    “Not till this morning,” she said. “Mel didn’t think you’d mind if I knew. Did you have a nice evening?”
    “Mmm-hmm,” she said, sipping her cocoa. “He made chili. Then I beat him at Scrabble.” And then he confessed he was probably going to marry another woman even though he flirted with me . She thought about telling, though she had promised she was good at keeping secrets. Was Brie the kind of person who would know what a girl was supposed to do with information like that?
    “Sounds pretty tame.”
    “Very tame,” Angie said.
    “You like him?” Brie asked.
    “He’s very nice,” Angie said.
    “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
    Angie put down her cup. “He says he’s too old for me.”
    “Oh. Is that so? Well, do you agree?”
    Angie took a breath. “Age seems pretty irrelevant. And I might have a crush....”
    “Really?”
    She nodded, dropping her head into her palms. “As in, world-class. And it would appear to be completely futile. Hopeless. Possibly ridiculous. He’d never be interested in someone like me.” No matter how he acted.
    “And why is that?”
    “I think there might be a million reasons, and age is just the first of them. And then there’s the fact that I’m not the kind of girl men like Patrick end up with. You have to remember—I’m a student, a nerdy student. And he’s a hero. A fighter pilot. A stud.”
    “Stud?”
    “Figuratively,” she added.
    “I see,” Brie answered, laughing. “And his type is…?”
    His best friend’s widow? “I’m not sure,” she answered. “Someone a lot more sophisticated, I would think.”
    “This brings back bittersweet memories,” Brie said. “When I was a law student, about your age, actually, I was in love with a professor. We were about twelve years apart in age, but God I loved him. Or thought I did.”
    “I said crush,” Angie reminded her.
    “World-class crush, you said. So, I loved the beautiful young professor, loved his voice and his gorgeous face and sense of humor and amazing body. And his brain — Oh, God, what a brain. I would have crawled across a sea of cut glass for a kiss, even though it was the worst idea in the world. I didn’t care. I was young and romantic. Young, romantic, hormonal women do the most unbelievable things....”
    “You’re suggesting this is hormones? ” Angie asked, affronted.
    “I’m suggesting I’ve had some. You’re responsible for your own hormones. In the end, I got a little bit of the professor—we had a brief dalliance after I was no longer his student. For about a month I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Then I realized heaven was full of women like me—he’d been very busy and young law students were his specialty.”
    “By ‘dalliance’ do you mean…?”
    Brie nodded gravely. “Boy howdy, as Mel would say.”
    “First, I don’t know if Patrick is like that and second…” She blinked. Dammit to hell, her eyes had clouded as if she’d cry. “I don’t have a second.”
    Brie grabbed one of Angie’s hands. “My heart was so broken. I got over it, of course, but it really hurt for a while.” She gave the hand a squeeze. “You’re a little vulnerable, babe. Accident and all.”
    Brie was spot-on. But what Brie didn’t know was that Angie was thinking—what difference was there between having your heart broken after one night or after one month?