Her Name Was Annie by Beth Rinyu (the little red hen read aloud txt) 📕

“Yes.” I laughed. “Seems like we passed our love for them down to Kara. She came home from the supermarket the other day with a whole case.”

“Come on, you know they’re a staple when you’re in your twenties.” Jack grinned. “Do you remember the first year we were married and our first Christmas in that little apartment?”

A smile spread across my face as the memories flooded my mind like it was only yesterday. Jack and I had spent Christmas Eve with his parents, and then did our annual Christmas breakfast with mine. I was determined on cooking him our first Christmas dinner in our home, which was a shoebox-sized apartment with a miniature antiquated oven to match.

Lasagna was always Jack’s favorite, and I had meticulously prepared it the day prior into a picture-perfect creation. All that was left to do was bake it in the temperamental oven that had a mind of its own, lowering and raising the temperature out of the blue like it was possessed. I would normally keep a close watch over it whenever it was in use, but when Jack snuck up behind me, lifting my hair away, then kissing the back of my neck, I threw all caution to the wind. We ended up in the bedroom for quite some time, and the lasagna ended up being burned beyond recognition. The only options we were left with for Christmas dinner was frozen pizza or ramen noodles. Since we didn’t want to mess with the oven again, we opted for the latter. My burned lasagna had become a secret joke between Jack and me throughout the years. He’d make little innuendos, sometimes right in front of both my and his parents about going home and burning lasagna—which became his code words for having sex. They would always look at us so strangely when I would scold him at first for saying it, then bust out with laughter. I often wondered if they ever caught on.

“Would you like some ramen noodles?” I asked.

“I’m game if you are.”

“Why not?” I got up and grabbed a package of noodles, flipping it over and reading the directions.

“You actually have to read the cooking instructions? You used to be able to make them in your sleep,” Jack remarked.

“It’s been a very long time. In fact, today is exactly twenty-five years since we started the tradition. Thankfully, we never carried on with it through the years.” I crinkled my nose.

A boyish grin spread across his face. “How the heck do you know it’s been twenty-five years?”

I guess he had forgotten that we would’ve been married for twenty-five years this past October. It wasn’t something that most divorced people kept track of—even a lot of married people for that matter, but I did. “I don’t know. I guess because it was the first Christmas we were married…do the math,” I replied nonchalantly as if it had just come to mind, and not something I dwelled upon when the date popped up on the calendar.

His smile faded, and I was certain it had hit him at that precise moment that if we had lasted, we would’ve made it to our silver anniversary. “Wow, I guess you don’t realize how fast time really flies. Do you?” he muttered. I nodded and turned back around, avoiding his gaze and tending to the boiling water on the stove.

Once the noodles were done cooking, I dished them into bowls and carried them over to where we were sitting. “Now, since I was a little out of practice with cooking these, they may not be up to your usual standards,” I teased as we twisted the noodles around our forks and took the first bite in unison.

“You haven’t lost your touch.” Jack smiled as he swallowed the forkful he’d just taken. “I’m probably going to get a massive headache after eating these. Something I have learned in those past twenty-five years…I’m allergic to MSG.”

“Oh no! Then why are you—”

He held up his hand to stop me. “I think a little migraine is worth reliving one of the most memorable Christmases.”

I stared down at my bowl, twisting my fork round and round, trying to evade his prior statement and the emotions it stirred up inside of me. He reached over and took the fork from my hand, placing it down on the island. His hand skimmed the side of my face and there was nowhere else for me to look but into his eyes.

“I thought a lot about what you said the last time I was here, and I felt really bad for the way I left things. I don’t want you to think I don’t want to be your friend. It’s just hard because when I’m around you and we’re getting along like the way we are now, part of me wants more. I know that’s totally selfish on my part, and I promise I’m working on overcoming that.” As his head inched closer and his lips skimmed mine, I knew he was doing a bad job at keeping that promise. I found myself in a heated internal battle, yearning for more while at the same time trying to find the strength to stop it.

“Jack, what are we doing?” I whispered as our kiss ended and our foreheads remained pressed together.

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he whispered back. “I’m so confused.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

The somber expression shrouding his face gave way to a playful grin. “But I say we burn some lasagna until we figure it out.”

Suddenly, I was staring at the twenty-three-year-old Jack back in that little apartment from all those years ago. I was feeling much like I was in my own weird version of a Christmas Carol, visiting Christmases past. Only contrary to the classic, I was able to partake in mine, being given two choices—to burn the lasagna or not.

Chapter 31

LYING IN JACK’S arms definitely beat watching bad Christmas