Free Tinsel My Heart by Christi Barth

disappeared back into the kitchen.
    “Sure you don’t need help?”
    “When was the last time you made chicken parmesan?”
    “Ah...” Chicken parm. Thank God. When she offered to make him dinner, he’d been worried she might serve the typical Minnesota hotdish—a flavorless combination of Tator Tots, ground beef and cream of mushroom soup. The uncomplicated dump, stir and bake recipe was all his dad had been capable of in the kitchen. Jack’s stomach roiled at the memory.
    “Or cooked anything more complicated than a bowl of cereal? You live in Manhattan, land of twenty-four/seven delivery, right?”
    “I plead the fifth on the grounds my answer might incriminate me.” Sounded great, though. The smells coming out of the kitchen were heavenly—if heaven was in southern Italy, and didn’t stint on the garlic. He certainly didn’t want to do anything to screw it up. A little restless, Jack paced back into the living room. And stopped dead in his tracks, wholly shaken by a trio of Christmas ornaments on the mantel.
    Three lopsided, wooden cutout bells. He recognized them right off as his, Ty’s and Becca’s. Everyone in the drama club had made one to decorate the Christmas tree for the auditorium stage. Then the shop class students cut them out on a jigsaw. Jack’s was the most lopsided bell. He’d tried to spruce it up by painting it lime green and covering it with glitter, but it still looked like something a first grader made.
    All of them had been die-hard drama geeks. Their senior year, they ran the school’s holiday pageant together. It was Jack’s only good Christmas. Due, in large part, to all the extra time he got to spend with Becca. Her sparkling smile, the way she could laugh through any situation, no matter how messed up, how they’d effortlessly worked as a single, well-oiled unit. How he’d recited Latin declensions sixteen times a day—or more—to beat back the non-stop hard-ons that he’d been unable to control. It all came rushing back to him.
    Why had she kept the ornaments? Put those god-awful ugly things in a place of honor, no less? Nostalgia? Or was it even possible that those long-ago days meant as much to Becca as they did to him?
    “Can you grab the corkscrew? It’s in the drawer of the end table.”
    “You betcha,” Jack said. Then almost bit his tongue. That Minnesota colloquialism had been scrubbed from his vocabulary the day he left the state. Along with everything else that reminded him of home. How’d it slip out of his lips so easily?
    Jack sank into a knobby brown wing chair. Before the drawer was halfway open, a stack of papers caught his eye. Funny after all this talk of contracts, to see the one for what had to be her next show lying right there. Jack picked it up—only to find another contract beneath it. The first was an eight-month contract for a dinner theatre just down the road in Minnetonka. Looked like they wanted her for the rest of the season and through summer. It offered a good chunk of stability, something quite rare in the theatre world.
    But underneath it lay an offer from an Off Broadway theatre. Good reputation. One that attracted big-name actors for star vehicles. In other words, it was a job that could catapult her career to the next level. It started in February. She’d have to choose one or the other. Not that it was a choice at all.
    “Hey, Becca?”
    “There’s a bottle of chianti on the top of the wine rack. Yes, you can go ahead and open it now.”
    “Thanks.” He grabbed the wine and the corkscrew. Chances were good they’d both need a drink for this conversation. Back in the kitchen, Jack opened the bottle with tight twists of his wrist. Figured there was no point in beating around the bush. “Why didn’t you mention that you’re moving to New York?”
    Her spoon clattered against the pan. “I’m...I’m what now?”
    “Moving. To my city. The Big Apple.” Interesting the way her face scrunched up as if she was about to pop