Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses(54)

Abbey told her “thank you” and her mom let herself out with a nervous wave.

Max went to the kitchen sink and washed his hands for dinner. “Nick, can you get the soap, for me please? I can’t reach it,” he said.

Why was he asking Nick? Abbey was closer and he always asked her. She normally was conditioned to just pull the soap forward for him, but with Nick being there, she’d been a little sidetracked. Dutifully, Nick walked over and handed him the bottle. He shrugged off his coat, draping it on the chair in the small breakfast nook and rolled up the sleeves of his impeccably pressed shirt. Looking down at her son with a smile, Nick put his hands under the stream of water and washed beside Max.

Abbey knew why Max liked Nick so much. He was attentive, polite, and interesting. Max hadn’t ever had a man around the house before. He hadn’t witnessed a masculine presence. Even as they washed together, his movements, his stance—it was different than having a female around. So many times, Max had probably watched those fathers at his school, the men at church, or the coaches on his team and wondered what it was like to have a man in the house. Abbey wondered if Max looked at Nick and thought, “Finally, someone like me.” For whatever reason, Max looked up to him.

“Nick,” she heard her son say. “Will you come to school with me?”

Oh my God, Abbey thought. She was going to have a heart attack right then and there. This would put Nick in an uncomfortable position. Abbey knew he had work demands, and Max’s Daddy Day was during a workday.

Nick looked down at him again, ripping off a paper towel and handing it to him, then getting one for himself. Nick looked as though he had questions, but his expression was gentle for Max’s benefit. She could hardly stand to see him look at Max that way. It made her like him too much.

“We have ‘Bring Your Daddy Day’ at school, and I don’t have a daddy to take.”

Nick’s expression had changed. It was an understanding, caring expression. Was he sympathetic toward him? What in the world was he going to say?

Nick squatted down so that he could be eye level with Max, his wrinkle-free trousers creasing at the backs of the knees. “I’d love to go,” he said, and before Abbey could process what was going on, Max had wrapped his arms around Nick and was hugging him in thanks.

After Christmas, Nick would be gone from their lives. And Max would miss him. She knew he would, because she herself had already thought about missing him.

She’d always thought that she could provide all the love Max needed, but did he long for someone else like Nick in his life? She’d played soccer with him outside, built racecar tracks out of cardboard, all kinds of things. Was it not the same?

Nick stood up, grabbing the dinner bag. “If it’s okay with your mom, I’ll get her to tell me when it is, and I promise I’ll be there.” When he looked at Abbey again, she smiled to hide her thoughts. He pulled the bag open. “Are you hungry? Let’s eat.”





Chapter Fourteen





Max had spent most of the dinner talking to Nick. Abbey had eaten in near silence, still worried about her son. Nick talked to Max about their move into his home, which only sent her further into her thoughts. As she watched his caring smiles, the way he listened as Max was talking, it made her feel as though all of this could be real somehow. She caught herself wishing that Nick could be there every night, talking to them, watching over them. She felt safe having him there, and happy to see how Max reacted to him. She knew, without a doubt, that after Christmas she would certainly miss Nick, so it was only natural that Max would too.

Abbey had not only seen Nick, but she’d watched Max, too, from across the table. He’d even tried the linguini with roasted vegetables that Nick had brought. He would never have tried that for her. Max had talked more than she’d ever seen him talk. Max asked Nick about his job, what it was like to ride a horse when he played polo, his “fancy” cars, and she realized that those were all subjects that she wouldn’t have anticipated would interest Max, and also subjects that she couldn’t discuss at length because she didn’t have the answers he craved.

He was still talking to Nick after dinner, as they drove in her car to the grocery store to get the supplies for Adrienne’s party.

“Are you okay?” Nick asked.

She looked at Max in the rearview mirror and then back at Nick. He seemed to be waiting for her answer.

“I’m fine,” she said with a smile.

Nick nodded, but his eyes remained on her for a few seconds longer before Max pulled his attention away with more questions.

They parked the car in front of a pile of slush, left from the earlier snowfall. The big storm was still holding off, and Abbey was glad for that because she hadn’t bought new tires in a while, and she didn’t want to slip and slide on the roads. It was bad enough already. What had fallen previously had frozen, sheeting everything in an icy glaze. And now, they were predicting an upwards of ten inches of snow. The only problem with the storm holding off was that the grocery store was a madhouse. There were people everywhere, their carts full of food, anticipating the closed roads and slippery highways. Whenever there was a storm of this magnitude, it took days before the plows could clear the roads, so everyone had to stock up on essentials.