CHAPTER1
LOGAN
Dear Santa,
You don’t know me, but I know you because you’re famous.
Here’s what I want for Christmas:
A hockey stick
A hockey net
(I already have skates, but maybe I could get even better ones. Tacks please)
some pucks
a Boston Brawlers Jersey (because grampa says they’re the best team)
But I don’t really need any of that stuff. Even though I love hockey I don’t care if I never get any of the hockey stuff if I can just get what I want most.
What I want most of all for Christmas is a daddy because my daddy went away and he’s never coming back. He went to heaven and mommy says you can’t ever get out once you go there. I hope he likes it there.
I try not to cry or miss him because that makes mommy cry. But maybe if I get a new daddy, I won’t be sad. Maybe my new daddy could take me to hockey.
Do you think you can get a new daddy for me for Christmas?
I promise I’ll be good forever!!!
Love,
Nicky
Shit. Even being the hardened bachelor bastard that I am, the letter pulls at my heart-strings, the ones I thought were all shriveled up by now. It seems like a millennium ago, but I remember writing a letter to Santa once upon a time. It was nothing like this letter because I was a lucky s.o.b.
Shaking my head to dispel the sadness that emanated from the letter, I take a swig of my coffee. How the hell did I get this letter? Somewhere along the line, someone at the post office made a big mistake…
Or did they?
Picking up the envelope from the pile of discarded mail, I flip it over and check the address. No name.My address. What the fuck?
Then I check the return address, and my gut drops all the way to hell.
I recognize that return address even if I don’t remember the name. Could it be a coincidence?It has to be.My heart races as if someone shot a starting gun. My heart doesn’t believe in coincidences like this, and neither does the rest of me.
My first instinct is to reach for my phone, and at the same time, I reflexively close my hand on the paper, crunching it into a ball.
Calm down. Think rationally. I want to talk to the girl I used to know from that address, but I know she doesn’t live there anymore. No matter, I crave her like always, albeit usually in my dreams.
Hell. Get a grip, man. Think. I know she’s not there because she took off and married some banker dude and lives in New York City.
I know she has a kid.
My heart resumes the stampede in my chest as if it has somewhere else to be, as if it needs to chase down that girl from my past. The one I was head over heels for until she tossed me aside like I was a piece of shit. What a messed-up situation that was. I can’t believe how my chest tightens now so many years later. I should be over it. Even if I’d been convinced, and the sinking feeling in my gut now is telling me it’s still true, that she was that once-in-a-lifetime love. The one woman who was meant to be mine.Except she’s not.
She would have been. Could have been. Until she refused to trust me, didn’t believe me, didn’t believe in us. She believed her girlfriend over me. Raising my first, I catch myself before I slam it against the wall of my condo. I’m not a hormone-driven teenager anymore, so I reign it in, disgusted with myself for still having such a strong reaction to her—not even her. I’m having damn palpitations at seeing her old address on a letter, for pity’s sake.
Jesus, am I that pathetic? Still?