An Ex for Christmas (Love Unexpectedly 5)

Mark drops the mistletoe in my lap. “Don’t I?”

He slams the door before I can figure out what the heck that’s supposed to mean.

Kelly Byrne’s Ex List: Version Three

Jack Chance: Bad kisser.

Joey Russo: About to have a freaking kid.

Chad Morrister: Watch yourself. I’m about to show you that the ten-year age difference isn’t so bad anymore….

Doug Porter

Stephen Hill

Adam Bartley

Colin Austin

December 17, Sunday Evening

“I miss you too, Mom, but I’m fine, I promise. Better than fine—I’m having the best Christmas break.”

I deliberately do not mention my current scene is borderline depressing. I mean, yeah, I’ve lit my gingerbread candle and made myself a peppermint martini, and I’ve got Christmas with the Rat Pack playing in the background.

But…

The tree is also dark and lonely in the corner, and…heck, I’m lonely.

As mentioned, usually I put all of my Christmas tree energy into my family tree. My parents pick it up sometime during the week while I’m in the city, and then I go to their place the last Friday before Christmas and we decorate it together.

I thought if I duplicated my mom’s playlist and her trademark martini, and if I got a perfect enough tree, I could sort of recreate the whole thing, but I’m realizing belatedly that what makes the decorating of the Christmas tree magical is my parents and tradition, not the tree itself.

I give myself a quick little shake to reframe my thinking. Yes, I’m by myself, but there are perks to that! For starters, I started a new tradition: cutting down my own tree.

Sort of.

Also, my mom, bless her, is adamant about putting multicolored lights on her Christmas tree, and I’m sort of all about the white lights. So, guess what I got at Walmart? About a billion boxes of white lights.

I also got all new ornaments—I decided to go with a white and aqua theme, and found this huge package of assorted white and teal ornaments online for only twenty bucks.

A little generic? Sure. But it’ll look like a Tiffany & Company box, and it’ll save me from the extra punch of sad I’d get if I had to pull out the family ornaments with no family.

“Honey, hold on. Your father wants to say hi,” Mom says.

There’s a rustling noise as they do the handoff.

“Hey, Kelly.”

“Hey, Dad,” I say, taking a sip of my drink, then setting it aside so I can pull out the first box of lights.

“Will you please tell me that you’re having the time of your life so that your mother will stop fretting?”

“Time of my life,” I state automatically. “Really. Are you guys having fun?”

“Time of my life,” he says.

I smile, because though his tone is joking, I can tell by the relaxed sound of his voice that he really is enjoying it. My mom, too, as evident by the fact that she spent most of our conversation torn between wanting to tell me about the baby whales they’d spotted and fretting over my “aloneness.”