Dreaming of Christmas with You

It had been a week since Joel and the rest of the This Century boys had left for tour and the funk I was in had gotten worse. Thankfully things were pretty busy at the bakery thanks to the upcoming holidays so I was able to distract myself, but I definitely missed my boyfriend.

My IPhone started ringing and I smiled as I saw Joel’s name and a picture of the two of us pop up on the screen.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hey babe. We have a break for a couple minutes so I wanted to give you and call and see everything is.” Joel replied.

“Everything’s good here. Busy.”

“Yeah? Well that’s good. I told you all the hard work you and Lily have put into the bakery would be worth it.”

“I know, I know. We knew the holidays would be busy, but we didn’t realize how busy since this is our first year. So how are things on tour?”

“Babe, this tour is amazing,” Joel gushed. “To be on our first headlining tour blows my mind, and the crowds know all the words to Sound of Fire even though it just came out a little over a month ago.”

“See, I told you all the hard work you and the guys have put into This Century would be worth it,” I smiled.

Joel chuckled and I heard someone calling his name in the background. “Hey, I have to get going, but I’ll talk to you soon. Love you, Vee.”

“Love you too.”

“Oh, before I forget… we release our first tour diary update today. You should check it out.”

“Will do. Now go do your thing, Mr. Rockstar.”

Joel said bye once more before ending the call. I immediately went to the office in the back of the bakery and pulled up the tour diary on YouTube. I smiled and chuckled to myself as I watched the boys’ antics. The smile quickly slipped off my face towards the end of the video though when Joel popped up with his arm around Rowan’s shoulder.

“Hey everyone,” onscreen Joel said. “We just want to quickly introduce you to our photographer for this tour. Dirk was busy, so we asked our good friend Rowan to take them for us. She’s awesome and be sure to say hi to her if you see her while you’re at our shows. Honestly, she’s hard to miss with this crazy hair.”

Joel ruffled her hair and she gave him a side hug.

“I can’t wait to meet everyone!” Rowan said, and then the screen went black.

I slammed the laptop shut and marched out to the front of the bakery where Lily was putting up Christmas lights. We weren’t going to do full-on Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, but we wanted to do a few things before.

“Whoa, what’s wrong with you?” Lily asked as I angrily grabbed a string of lights and plugged them in.

“Oh you know, just that I don’t get to see my boyfriend for months, but the girl who is hopelessly in love with him not only gets to see him, but also gets to sleep like five fucking feet from him. And these damn lights aren’t working,” I cried out as I threw the broken string of lights on the ground.

“Whoa, I think you need a breather. How about you go pick up some more lights from the store?” Lily cautiously suggested.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” I nodded. “I’ll be back soon.”

I got in my car and turned on my “The Story So Far” cd. I knew their angsty, angry lyrics were what I needed at the moment. I felt a little better by the time I got to Target… at least good enough to be able to calmly walk through the store.

I walked down the Christmas lights aisle and was trying to decide what brand of lights to buy when I heard someone say my name. I turned around and almost groaned when I saw who it was.

“Ben, hi!” I plastered on a fake smile.

“Vera? Vera O’Callaghan,” the brunette at Ben’s side excitedly asked.”

“Umm, yeah. That would be me,” I said, wishing I was anywhere but here in this Target aisle stuck talking to my ex-boyfriend and his fiancée.”

“Oh my gosh, I have been dying to meet you ever since I read that article in Phoenix Monthly about Sweets and Sparkles. Your cakes look divine.”

“Vera, this is my,” Ben cut in before clearing his throat. “My fiancée, Liz.”

“How rude of me,” Liz exclaimed as she reached out to shake my hand. “I’m sorry for getting so excited. Although you should have seen me when Ben said he used to date you. I said we must invite you to the wedding. That’s not too weird for you, is it?”

“Oh, uh no. I’m looking forward to it,” I forced out.

“Perfect! Although please don’t judge our cake we’re having. Our originally baker bailed on us last week so now the only person available to do it is my cousin. Her only experience is making birthday cakes for her son. At least we’ll have a cake, but still. Oh well, that’s what we get for having a holiday wedding.”

“Yeah, this planning process has been one headache after another,” Ben muttered.

“Your baker bailed? I could do the wedding cake for you,” I said as my brain was screaming out wondering what I was doing.

“Oh no, we wouldn’t want to put you out. It’s such short notice. The wedding is only a month away,” Ben argued.

“Yeah,” Liz chimed in. “We want you to be a guest at our wedding.”

“No, I insist. Think of it as my wedding gift to you guys. How about you guys come by on Monday to pick out flavors and the design?”

“Oh my gosh, Vera. Thank you so much! You are too sweet. Ben said you were a great girl, but I never could have imagined how great,” Liz said as she unexpectedly hugged me.

I stood in shock unsure of what to do with Liz’s arms around me, but thankfully they turned to leave after that.

Ben turned around one last time though and said, “Thank you, Vera. You didn’t have to do this, but I really appreciate it. It was good seeing you, and you look great by the way.”

“Uh, thanks. I’ll see you guys on Monday,” I waved goodbye as the turned down another aisle.

Getting myself into complicated messes seemed to be a new skill of mine.