“I didn’t stutter. Get out of here.”
When no one moved and all attention turned to the dumbstruck and now decidedly unsmiling Kate Buckner, Clark repeated himself.
“Get. Out!”
With that, the great exodus began. Everyone practically ran for their dishes, picking up what they could and filing out through the connected kitchen door, carefully avoiding Clark, who stood in silent rage. He’d deal with Kate once everyone else left. Only a few stragglers remained when Emily squared off with him.
She was ready for a fight.
“Hey, man. You’re being a real jerk, you know that?”
She passed passive-aggressive and dove straight for aggressive-aggressive. Clark didn’t care. He could be aggressive too.
“Am I? I feel like someone entered my family’s house without permission and spent our money on things I didn’t approve after she knew how I felt about it. How am I the bad guy here?”
“Because Kate’s trying to do something nice for you after you ruined Christmas. I don’t know why she’s going to the trouble. You’re the worst.”
“It would have been nice if she’d left me alone, which is what I wanted. And what I still want.”
Only the four of them remained, though Clark didn’t give Kate a second thought. Nothing mattered now but his own self-righteous frustrations. He opened his mouth to release even more steam, only to be cut off by Michael.
“You know what…” He ran a hand across his short-cut hair, fake sincerity dripping from every syllable. “It’s getting late, and I really need to go. You should come too, Emily.”
“Great idea. Walk me home?”
They headed for the door. A little voice from the corner of the room tried to stop them. Kate’s voice.
“No, guys… Wait—”
“You can come with us.”
“You should come with us,” Emily corrected. “This guy isn’t worth your time. You can stay at my house and we’ll have a real Christmas, just us.”
The fire crackled. The clock ticked. Kate stared at her shoes as if they held the divine secrets of the universe. Maybe they did. Maybe that was the key to her eternal belief everything would work out in her favor: her boots told the future.
“No one should be alone on Christmas.”
“He doesn’t care about Christmas,” Emily shouted, exasperation written in the creasing lines of her forehead.
“I don’t,” he agreed.
For the first time since their first fiery conversation on the steps of town hall, Kate’s firm grasp on her wide-eyed optimism fractured. It was her turn to yell.
“But I do!” She flinched at her own voice, shock visibly rippling through her body at her own reaction. They stared at her, waiting with slack jaws as she ran a hand through her hair and collected herself.
When she returned to them, she was quiet, but no less emphatic, and to Clark’s surprise, she didn’t deliver the end of her declaration to the two lifelong friends currently begging her to spend her favorite holiday together. She spoke to him. “I believe in Christmas, and I don’t think anyone should be alone like this. Even you.”
She left chills up the back of his neck. She’d said the one thing he didn’t want to hear. In the corner of his peripheral vision, Emily visibly deflated. Michael threw an arm over her slumped shoulders before walking her towards the door.
“Okay. We’ll see you when we see you, I guess. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, guys.”
They left, like the rest of the Miller’s Point crowd, through the swinging kitchen door. Eventually, they’d find themselves either leaving from one of the servant’s entrances or through the grand front entryway, but for now, their footsteps echoed in Clark’s ears and their absence carved a chasm between him and the woman who stayed behind.
Stayed behind with him. Because she didn’t want him to feel lonely.
Clark didn’t know what to do with that information except hate her for it.
“What is your problem?”
“My problem?” he repeated, incredulous. He thought he’d made his problem exceptionally clear when he told her he wanted her out of his house, out of his life…and, yeah, out of his head. She’d only been around for less than a day, and still she consumed him. Clark often heard of people describing themselves as “walled off.” They “built their walls” to keep themselves protected and others out. Clark’s heart wasn’t so much a walled castle as it was a vault in Fort Knox. With every word Kate said, he added another steel lock to the door. No one was going to catch him with his guard down, especially not the one woman who’d managed to get under his skin after twenty-seven years on earth.
“Yeah.” She crossed her arms, an indication he’d be seeing no more Miss Nice Elf. “I want to know why you’re like this.”
“I don’t need to explain myself to you. This isn’t tragic backstory time.”
“I want to understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand.”
“Something had to make you this way.”
Clark paused. His blood rushed in his ears. He wasn’t born this way. Statues like him were carved and sculpted and hardened over many years and many miseries. But he’d never told anyone why he hated this stupid holiday, and he wasn’t about to start with Kate Buckner, who’d probably end up feeling sorry for him or kissing him or forcing him to let her into his Fort Knox vault of a heart.
“Some people are just the way they are.”
“I don’t believe that. No one is born lonely.”
He’d given her too much room to breathe. The threat to expose his past, the intrusion into his life… It all added up to an attack he didn’t know if he possessed the armaments to defeat. He could just push her away until she backed down.
“Christmas is a time
