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“We live here now,” Katie panted. She put her hands on Wil’s waist and dug her fingers in so Wil would know she was serious. “In this bed. Everyone will have to adjust their own insurance, do their own lawyering, and hire someone else for theirSarah, Plain and Tallremake set in 1980s Brooklyn.” Katie pushed the damp hair away from Wil’s neck and kissed her.
Kissing her. So easy.
“I really liked that one,” Wil whispered. “I cried for hours.”
“Everyone does.” Katie didn’t know if she was sleepy or spinning or if this was just what it felt like when you wrenched open your heart. “That story is a nuclear explosion of longing and miserable love.” She kissed Wil’s neck again.
“Katie.” Wil pulled back and looked at her, her face a little bit serious.
“Yeah.” Katie cleared her throat against some feelings that were there—not exactly,exactlya nuclear explosion of longing and miserable love, but something she was afraid could end up in that neighborhood.
She didn’t want to be afraid. This was Wil. It would be okay. It would. Because itwasWil, and when she was with Wil, she was Katelyn Rose Price. She was Katie Kat. They had both decided on this together—for Wil to be here, dipping her beautiful manicured toes into Katie’s life, so that Wil could learn what it was like, and so that Katie could… could find out. Could know.
But she already knew.
“I have to settle Almond Butter in and sleep,” Wil said. “I’ll stay here with you. But in the morning, can we talk more about me here? In Los Angeles? I’m glad to be with you. Don’t look like that.I’ve been meaning to talk to you all day about how you’re doing and what you’ve been thinking about. But…”
“I know.” Katie slowly rolled over and looked at the ceiling’s raw wood beams, the dark glass. She watched Wil lean over the edge of the bed and realized she was reaching for her shirt.
“No. Don’t. Hold on.” Katie got up, the room too cool against her skin and too bereft of Wil, and pressed the panel in the wall that opened her closet door. She turned the lights on in the dressing room to grab a robe for Wil and her favorite jersey nightshirt for herself. “For you.”
Wil belted the robe on and held her arms out. “Come here.”
Katie took the hug. “Can I just say a little bit? So I don’t freak out?”
“Yes. Follow me around while I deal with Almond Butter.”
Katie did. She followed Wil to the living room and watched her squat down beside her beautiful geriatric cat and scratch her neck. She thought about Wil on the plane. She’d been cautious at first, but then she’d relaxed and laughed and talked with Cy.
Katie thought of how Wil had looked sitting next to Joel by the cat carriers, listening to Joel say more words in a row than Katie had ever managed to pry out of the man, even though she’d met him several times because he was Cy’s best friend.
She thought about Wil in her robe, Wil in her house, Wil in her bed, and it felt so completely, perfectlypossiblethat Katie didn’t know what to say, after all.
It was hard to know what was right for yourself. She’d gone to hundreds of therapy sessions to learn how to figure that out—how to identify her feelings and know what to do to help herself feel them and make choices.
But Katie had never learned how to know what was right for someone else.
Their luggage was in the entryway where the person who drove the van had unloaded and left it. Wil found the big duffel bag where she’d packed everything for Almond Butter. She located Almond Butter’s cat bed and heat pad and food dish and a bag of special cat food.
It would be Christmas in three days. Katie had spent Christmas a lot of different places, a lot of different ways. She’d thought she would be spending it in Wisconsin this year, so she hadn’t asked for her decorations to be brought out of storage.
“Have you ever spent Christmas away from home?” she asked.
Wil turned to look at her. “No. But I’ve spent Christmases feeling like my home was away from me.”
Katie swallowed over a sudden burn of tears.
She should’ve been there. Where had she been that first Christmas Wil and Beanie spent without Jasper? On set? Overwarm, her feet rubbed raw from her heels at an industry party that was super important to be seen at because of her next project? Hosting a charity event? She would’ve been twenty-two. Four years into her career, a year since she’d left Ben. It would have been her first Christmas since she’d arrived here that she’d spentwithoutBen.
She remembered. She’d fought with her mom at Thanksgiving in Green Bay and then flown to Iceland for the location shoot. She’d stayed through Christmas, by herself in a condo with a view of a cliff and the sea, even though she didn’t have to. She could’ve gone home. But she hadn’t, because she was mad at her mom, and mad that she didn’t know what Christmas meant to her anymore.
If she’d gone to Green Bay, she would’ve heard how hard a time Wil and Beanie were having, and she would’ve seen them, even if it was only to be kind. And she would have realized soon enough, probably on the way over to their house, that all she wanted was Wil.
Home.That was what Christmas was supposed to mean.
Wil had been her home, or she’d almost been. They’d almost been that for each other, but they were still children, with only the experiences of children, and no one to tell them what they were about to lose.
Katie stepped close and touched her forehead to Wil’s. “The good news is that we can do absolutely anything you want. You want a tree, we can have a tree. You want to drive out to the desert and lay on a blanket under the stars? That is an option. Beach bonfire Christmas. You name it.”