In Love Before Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

napkin and wiped the cream off his chin.
     
    “What would I do without you, Lani?” He helped her get her coat on.
     
    “The same thing you did without me for all those years in New York.”
     
    “Suffer,” he said absently. He hadn’t meant to say those words out loud, but he had suffered. He had missed her every day.
     
    She laughed. “You called me nearly every day, even on finals week. You weren’t suffering.”
     
    He laughed. He was suffering and maybe that’s why he called her. He missed hearing her voice. Calling her made it feel as if he were right by her side.
     
    “But,” she said. “I missed you too. I loved having you call. Having you call and being able to talk about nothing at all was awesome. Seattle wasn’t home, but if you had been there I might have stayed—I might have made it home.”
     
    “That’s how I felt about New York.” He could have stayed. He did like it there even though he missed Ferndale he realized what he missed most was being with Lani, not the town itself.
     
    She sighed as she wrapped his scarf around his neck and tied it. She was bundling him up as she had always called it. “We can’t have you getting sick now can we,” she would always say. He hated wearing scarves, but for some reason whenever she bought him one and brought it over he had no problem letting her put it on him.
     
    “Lani,” he looked deep into her eyes.
     
    “Yeah?” She said in a voice that was almost a whisper.
     
    “You can’t marry him.”
     
    “Oh I’m not,” she said with certainty. “That’s why I have to fall in love before Christmas. I am not marrying that fool of a man.”
     
    He laughed. He loved her theatrics most days, but mostly he loved hearing her reaffirm that she wouldn’t be marrying that “fool of a man,” as she had called him. Thank God for that, he thought.
     

 
    Chapter Four
     

     
    Lani looked at Matt, her best friend forever. He was such a great guy. There was no way he should still be single. If they weren’t such good friends she would have probably gone out with him, but why ruin a perfect friendship by complicating things with a romantic relationship that probably wouldn’t work out anyway? Relationships never worked out for her—never. She wouldn’t lose the most important friend in her life over romance. Matt meant everything to her. He would always mean everything to her. If he weren’t in her life she didn’t know how she would make it.
     
    She missed him so much at college. She had hoped they would go to school together, but they hadn’t. She didn’t get in to NYU while he had and it was his dream school just like it was hers so she couldn’t ask him to give it up and follow her to Seattle. He had applied at both as a “just in case,” just as she had. The difference was he got gold while she got silver and she couldn’t take his gold away from him. He deserved the best. She had been so happy that he called every day.
     
    She had thought about calling him her first day there, but then she thought that was just too much seeing as though she had just talked to him the previous day. The only thing that changed her mind was that she figured she could just call and let him know she made it and that the apartment she was renting was sort of okay. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it wasn’t the dumps either. He had chatted with her for a few hours and when they ended the call she thought she wouldn’t hear from him again until the end of the week. She assumed she shouldn’t call too much because he might not really want her crowding his New York independent style. She thought their friendship would fizzle a little, but not die. She knew neither he nor she would ever allow that to happen.
     
    She looked at him sitting across from her. If she were going to marry anybody he would be her first pick. That thought swooshed around in her mind until a nice old lady with the wrinkles of her age gracing her skin and the years of wisdom