The Twelve Dates of Christmas (9 page)

“Yeah, sort of, I guess,” I said, drifting into a private little fantasy of shoving Bruce's wandering hands up his own butt.

“Great. Then how about we go out sometime?”

That snapped me back to reality. “What?” I blurted out. “Uh, we? You mean you and me? Going out on a date?”

“Sure, why not?” Andrew shrugged. His lower lip was twitching slightly. “Hope it's not too soon. I just don't want to miss my chance again.”

“Again?”

He winced, looking as if he wished he could take it back. “Well, yeah,” he admitted. “I thought about asking you out once
before. Back in eighth grade. I wanted to ask you to the Christmas Ball, but you and Cam got together before I could.”

Wow. That was so out of the blue I didn't know what to say for a second.

“Um, okay,” I said at last. “Sure. That would be . . . nice.”

“Great! Are you free tonight? How about dinner at Manfredi's?” Weirdly, he had that same triumphant gleam in his eye that he got on the rare occasion he received a higher grade than me on a test. I could only imagine what kind of theory Allie would come up with to explain that.

“Sounds good,” I said, trying to sound normal. “I love that place.”

“Fantastic. I'll pick you up at six.”

You could call it bad luck. You could call it a statistical improbability. Or you could just call it what it was—life in a small town. Whatever the terminology, I could hardly believe my eyes when Andrew and I walked into Manfredi's that evening and I saw Cam and Jaylene sitting at one of the tables for two along the cozy little restaurant's back wall.

Date number four,
I thought, Allie's
Dozen Dates Theory flitting across my mind.
But who's counting?

Cam looked up and spotted me. He froze in midchew. I didn't have to look to see what he was eating: fettuccine carbonara. That was what he always ordered at Manfredi's.

We stared at each other for a second. Then his expression relaxed into sort of a sad smile. He lifted one hand in a wave, and I waved back, feeling as awkward as humanly possible. I mean, what were the odds? Even in Claus Lake? I was still waving when Jaylene glanced around curiously. She waved back cheerfully, then leaned forward to say something to Cam.

Andrew had just turned after giving our name to the maître d'. Following my gaze, he took in the sight of the happy couple. I had to hand it to him—he was as cool as a cucumber. Only a slight twitch of the lower lip gave away that he'd noticed anything. Without acknowledging the situation at all, he reached out and put an arm around my shoulders.

“Come on, Lexi,” he said. “I think our table is ready.”

I was so distracted as we walked across the tightly packed restaurant that I'm surprised
I didn't trip over a table leg and land in someone's soup. When we reached our table by the front window, the maître d' stepped forward as if to pull out one of the chairs for me. But Andrew blocked him neatly, steering me to the other chair—the one with no view of Cam's table.

“Uh, thanks,” I mumbled, still trying to wrap my head around what was happening here. Was I doomed to spend the rest of my senior year running into Cam and Jaylene everywhere I went? And if so, would it ever get easier to see them together?

I lurched into my seat, somehow managing to half miss and almost fall on my butt. Putting out my right arm to catch my balance, I accidentally set it down right on the lit candle in the center of the table.

“Ow!” I yelped, yanking my hand away from the flame and in the process almost falling off my chair again. Smooth. Really smooth. This was rapidly turning into a how-not-to manual for making a sexy impression on a first date with a new guy. Not to mention playing it cool in front of an ex and his new squeeze. Too bad Allie wasn't there—she could have been taking notes for her next bestseller.

My face burned as several nearby diners glanced over in surprise and Andrew stared at me as if I'd just sprouted a second head. He reached out and righted the candle before it could set the little holly-and-ivy wreath surrounding it aflame.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine.” I stuck my singed finger in my mouth to soothe the burn. Then, realizing that wasn't helping make me look any more sophisticated or in control of the situation, I quickly removed it and surreptitiously wiped it on my pants beneath the table.

Fortunately the waitress appeared at that moment with a pitcher of ice water and our menus. I was able to hide my face behind the menu until I felt my cheeks start to return to their normal color.

Somehow, I survived the next half hour or so. I even managed to avoid peeking over my shoulder to see what Cam and Jaylene were doing. The trouble was, I couldn't seem to control my mind nearly as well. It kept drifting away from whatever Andrew was saying. Not that you could blame me too much for that. The guy only had one topic of conversation: himself. His choice of colleges. His predicted
SAT score. His grades and extracurriculars. Oh, sure, once in a while he interrupted his autobiographical lecture to ask me a question about myself. I would grunt out some distracted, monosyllabic response, and then the Story of Andrew would continue. Of course, there
was
that one totally awkward moment when he mentioned something about wondering when the Simpson Scholarship would be announced already and then caught himself and stopped talking abruptly, apparently remembering that his primary competition for said scholarship was sitting across the table from him. His cheeks had sprouted little red spots for a moment, then he'd shrugged and changed the subject. Back to himself, of course.

I was relieved when he excused himself to go to the restroom. As soon as he was gone, I slumped in my seat and stared at my burned finger. It still stung a little and looked kind of red. I hoped it wouldn't swell up and make it hard to type. I still had a few applications to finish.

“Lexi?”

I glanced up, but I already knew who I'd see standing there beside the table.
I'd recognize that voice anywhere.

“Oh—hi, Cam,” I said, quickly tucking my finger away out of sight within my fist. “Having a nice time?”

This time I couldn't resist glancing over my shoulder at his table. Jaylene was nowhere in sight.

He saw where I was looking. “Jaylene just went to the bathroom,” he said. “Um, I mean the little girls' room.” He smiled faintly. “That's what she calls it.”

“Cute.” I wasn't really in the mood to hear every little adorable thing about Jaylene. But I did my best to keep smiling as if it didn't bother me in the least.

“Anyway, I just wanted to come over and make sure you're okay.” Cam gestured toward my hand. “It looked like you burned yourself pretty good.”

“Oh.” I was touched. “Yeah. I'll be all right. Thanks.”

“You sure? Good.” He looked down at my plate. If he noticed I'd barely touched my food, he didn't say anything. “Having the tortellini, huh? That's one of your favorites.”

“Yeah. And let me guess—you got your usual fettuccine?”

“Believe it or not, no,” he said with a
slightly sheepish laugh. “Jaylene talked me into trying the lasagna.” He shrugged. “It's pretty good. Maybe not as good as the fettuccine, but good.”

“Oh.” Were we still talking about Italian food? I wasn't quite sure.

Cam shot a glance across the restaurant, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable. “Well, I'd better get back. Enjoy the rest of your dinner. And I hope your hand feels better too.”

“Thanks.”

He headed back to his seat. I watched him weave his way among the other tables. What a nice guy! Everyone always said that about him, of course, myself included. But until that moment, I wasn't sure I'd ever stopped to think about what the phrase
really
meant.

“I'm back!” Andrew announced as he returned to our table a minute or two later. He sat down and reached for his water glass. “So where were we? Oh yeah—I was just telling you about that weird essay question for the application to . . .”

I pasted a smile on my face and stared at him, still lost in the thoughts Cam's little visit had brought up. Andrew was
exactly the kind of guy I probably
should
be with. He was smart and driven and likely to succeed and all sorts of other things I generally admired.

But was he “nice”? No, not really. Not like Cam.

A few minutes later Cam and Jaylene finished their meal and got up to leave. I watched them out of the corner of my eye as he retrieved her silly little baby blue coat from the hooks near the door and helped her put it on. As she fussed with her blond hair, pulling it out from beneath her fur-lined collar, Cam glanced over and saw me looking. He smiled and waved. I returned the smile weakly and wriggled my fingers in return.

“What are you looking at, Lexi?” Andrew interrupted himself. He looked over just in time to see Cam open the door for Jaylene. “Oh.” He shrugged, then shoveled in a mouthful of lasagna before returning to his favorite topic. “So anyway, like I was saying, the admissions guy from Northwestern . . .”

As the door swung shut behind the happy couple, I picked up my fork and poked at my pasta, feeling a little sick. Would this ever get any easier?

I couldn't resist peeking out the window
as Cam and Jaylene emerged onto the sidewalk just outside. She said something. He laughed and put his arm around her. She snuggled up to him, her little white mittens sneaking their way around his waist. Smile, smile, kiss . . .

And this is where we came in. Their spontaneous, romantic kiss hit me like a punch to the gut. What had I been thinking all these weeks? All this time, the idea of Cam—
my
Cam—with another girl had seemed somehow speculative and theoretical. Like a science hypothesis waiting to be proved or one of Allie's crazy theories being tested in a double-blind study.

But now that the result was standing right there in front of me, kissing on a snowy evening beneath the twinkling holiday lights, I somewhat belatedly realized the truth.

I was still in love with Cam.

Yep, there was no denying it any longer. Stuck in a rut, opposites attract and all, I still loved him. All the logic in the world couldn't change that. Which meant, of course, that I'd just made the stupidest mistake of my life.

Was it too late to fix it?

I'm not sure how I survived the rest of my date with Andrew. For one thing, I was already calling him Annoying Andrew in my head—I had to be really careful not to slip and say it out loud. Somehow, I didn't think he would have the sense of humor to handle something like that very well.

But that was far from my worst problem. Being with Andrew, and with Bruce before him, had only showed me what I would be missing if I couldn't figure out how to make things right with Cam. Okay, so maybe that spark had faded a bit over the years between Cam and me. But I couldn't imagine ever feeling the spark at all with those two guys. Or with anyone else, for that matter.

No, the grass definitely wasn't greener for me. But what about for Cam? Based on that kiss I'd just witnessed, I wasn't too sure.

“Here we are.” Andrew pulled to a stop at the curb in front of my house. As I unhooked my seat belt, he leaped out of the car and raced around the front of it like a demented rabbit, slipping a little on the rapidly freezing slush on the road. Then he opened my door with a flourish.

“Thanks,” I said, climbing out without taking the hand he held out to help me. I didn't want to give him any ideas.

Unfortunately, he already seemed to have them. After he'd closed the car door behind me, he hurried to catch up as I headed up the front walk. He slung one arm around my shoulders, squeezing a bit.

I resisted the urge to elbow him in the ribs. Instead, I waited until we reached the porch steps and then scooted up them quickly, managing to extricate myself from his arm in the process. He was a smart guy, and I hoped he'd take the hint.

But no. He climbed the steps after me and watched as I fished my house key out of my purse. My mind wandered back to a similar but oh-so-different wintry evening
about four years earlier. Cam and I had just returned from our first real date—skating on the lake—and I'd been digging in my coat pocket for my key. It had been an amazing evening, and I hadn't wanted it to end. Cam and I had skated and talked and laughed and had a great time. I still remembered the tingle I'd felt, even through my wool gloves, when he'd shyly reached over to hold my hand as we'd glided along side by side across the ice and everything had felt so romantic and new. . . .

“This was fun,” Andrew said, snapping me back to the here and now. “We should do it again sometime.”

“Sure, maybe.” I finally found the key and pulled it out. “Although with the holidays and all, I'm sure we'll both be kind of busy, right? Anyway, thanks for dinner.”

“You're very welcome.”