Now he’s not the only one who’s mad. “Ouch, prancer.”

“You’re goddamn right, ouch. Now you know how I felt when I woke up alone. I’m surprised you didn’t leave money on the dresser for services rendered.”

I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to feel bad. It was just a mistake.”

He reacts like I’ve kicked him in the stomach. He steps back, the blood draining from his face, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

“A mistake?”

I realize instantly that the real mistake was using that word, which was obviously an incredibly bad choice. “No—Cam, listen, I didn’t mean it like that—”

“I know exactly how you meant it, lass,” he says bitterly, blowing past me. He’s out of my apartment, across the hall, and slamming his door before I even have a chance to get another word in edgewise.

I stand there for a long time, fighting the urge to run across the hall and throw myself into his arms, but eventually I give in to the inevitable reality of the situation and go back to bed, dragging the covers up over my head.

Mr. Bingley jumps down, wanting nothing to do with me.

I’m still in bed at five o’clock that afternoon when the phone rings. I pick it up with a dull “Hello?”

“Hi, honey! Merry Christmas!”

“Hey, Mom. Merry Christmas. Eve.”

She laughs. It sounds like California: bright, beautiful, breezy. “I know I’m a day early, but we’re going over to your sister’s tomorrow morning and staying over. You know how crazy it gets over there with the kids. We probably won’t get a chance to call.”

I know she doesn’t try to be mean, but it’s times like this I have to bite my tongue from saying something bitchy like You mean won’t make the time to call.

Jacqueline and her husband, Jack—don’t get me started on that alliteration—have two-year-old twins. Their names also start with the letter J, because my sister’s astrologer told her the energy would be good. You wouldn’t think Satan could inhabit two bodies at one time, but boy, would you be wrong. The amount of projectile vomit and green snot those kids produce belongs in an exorcism movie. As do their screams, which could scour paint from the walls. I have no idea why my mother is so desperate to add more of the little monsters to our family, but she’s of the opinion I won’t truly be happy and fulfilled until I’m a mother.

Or a size two.

“Oh, we got your packages in the mail yesterday, sweetie! Thanks so much for that cute mohair scarf.”

Cute is her code word for hideous. We enjoy sending each other gifts that we know the other one won’t like, because mother-daughter relationships are minefields and murder scenes and a whole bunch of other super things like that.

“And thanks for the new Grumpy Cat calendar you sent me, Mom. Can’t wait to get that sucker up on the wall and spend another year staring at his constipated face.”

“That reminds me, honey—have you heard anything about your promotion?”

My stomach sinks because I know she’ll freak out when she hears I’m going to be fired. But then, out of nowhere, I have a moment of pure epiphany. Another fuck this shit kind of clarity, only way bigger.

It really doesn’t matter what my mother thinks about anything.

Wow, I had no idea how heavy that particular piece of baggage was until I dropped it.

“Yeah, bad news on that front,” I say. “My boss—you remember Michael, the one I told you I was in love with years ago and you said he’d be perfect for Jacqueline?—turned out to be a major douche canoe and tried to feel me up in the ladies’ room at the holiday party. Apparently that promotion was a kind of pay-to-play deal, and I wasn’t playing. The office is closed until after New Year’s because of the holidays, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be fired first thing when I go back.”

My mother squawks, “What?”

“Bummer, right? You might want to make up the spare bedroom for me. Oh, also? Cameron McGregor invited me to go back to Scotland with him. We’re having some kind of confusing sexual relationship I’m really not emotionally qualified to handle, but I knew you’d be interested to know he’s incredible in bed.”

I hear a thud and wonder if I just killed my mother.

Christmas might not be so bad after all.

Only it is, because I spend it entirely alone, eating cold barbecue beans from a can I scrounged from the depths of a cupboard and drinking a bottle of cheap Syrah while staring morosely out my living room window with only a deaf, judgmental cat for company.

The irony isn’t lost on me that I named him after my romantic “ideal” of a man. Mr. Bingley was everything Mr. Darcy wasn’t: polite, charming, popular. Even after it turned out in the end that Darcy was more than just a brooding alpha-hole—that he was, in fact, a man of incredible character and depth—I always thought the Mr. Bingleys of the world were preferable, because who really wants to deal with all that smoldering machismo when you can have a light and fluffy marshmallow of a man?

An idiot, that’s who.

December 26 dawns to a blizzard, which is convenient because it matches my mood. I decide to spend the next few days watching all the holiday movies I hate as punishment for a) wasting ten years loving the idea of Michael Maddox and b) ruining a perfectly good friendship with Cam by having wild, uninhibited sex with him, falling in love with him, and then immediately freaking out. I’m deep into my third rewatch of It’s a Wonderful Life when the knock comes.

I freeze, a handful of microwave popcorn in my fist.

The knock comes again. It’s Cam’s knock, but it’s different, because it somehow sounds somber.

I put aside the bowl of popcorn and go to the front door, my heart hammering like mad. When I open up, Cam is standing there in jeans and a T-shirt, looking as devastatingly sexy as ever.

We stare at each other. The first thing out of his mouth is, “I can’t believe you didn’t wish me a merry Christmas, you dick.”

“Well, we sort of weren’t talking, I thought.”

He scowls at me, a lock of hair flopping attractively into his eyes. This goes on for a while, until he sighs and curses under his breath. Then he reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and produces a key. He thrusts it at me. “Here. In case you want to make any more mistakes before I leave.”

Filled with trepidation, I look at the key, which is apparently to Kellen’s apartment door. Oh God. Oh no. Don’t do it. Don’t make this any worse than it already is.

But of course I take it. I’m stupid, but I’m not insane.

We look at each other in uncomfortable silence for a few moments longer, until Cam says, “Okay. So. See you around. Or not.”

He spins around and stalks back to his apartment, slamming the door just so I know that even though he’s inviting me to come over whenever I want for more mind-blowing sex, he’s still mad.

I stare at the key in my hand, wondering how long it’ll take before I use it.

I last an entire day, which I think is pretty good. Actually, it’s a few hours more than a day, because when I find myself unlocking Cam’s apartment door, it’s a quarter after nine o’clock the next night.

All the lights are out except for a small reading lamp burning dimly in the living room. For a moment I wonder if he’s not home, but then he comes out of the bedroom and heads right toward me, looking angry and scary and hot.