Cheat With My Boyfriend Best Friend

Why Not Breakup?

Christmas was coming, whether I wanted it or not.

Mariah Carey was playing in on every speaker, and each of the small shops along the street were decorated with red and green ribbons. Starbucks was serving their annually seasonal drinks (btw, they all tastes the same), and the sweet smell of baked gingerbread wafted around every corner.

Everyone was welcoming the Christmas spirit, except me.

And it wasn’t just my work that was getting me down.

I knew trying to yield any results before Christmas would be hopeless. It would take a miracle to make that kind of progress in a week, and it was a little too late to ask Santa.

I swallowed a mouthful of my pumpkin spice latte as I worried: Where on earth was I going to spend Christmas?

For most people, it’s a no-brainer. They were going to go see their families. All in all, Christmas was the festival for families.

But my family was just a headache to deal with every year.

Last night I found a dirty package in my mailbox from my parents. It came with a postcard that said, “Sweetie, we’re sorry we won’t be able to spend Christmas with you this year either. We’ve reached a critical stage of our research, but we still made sure to get you a gift.”

I wasn’t surprised when I opened the package.

It was a stuffed penguin.

unreliable around the holidays, but the sight of the

They’ve been sending me a stuffed penguin for

penguins. They fell in love on an icebreaker headed to Antarctica for research. Most researchers would get sick of the environment after a few months, but not my parents.

school that would accept someone as young as three months old. If they

is a Christmas card attached to a stuffed penguin. They probably considered the little

No one wanted to be alone while everyone else was out throwing reunions with

Instead of being left

people.

from a big family with religious parents. Ever since I was first invited to one of their Christmas parties, I’ve fantasized

how much of my “love” for Vincent

I definitely didn’t want to spend the holiday with the

Cinder invited me to go to a ski resort in

we were younger. I was there because of a scholarship opportunity while she was there because her father made huge donations to the school’s library. Before Vincent, I spent all of my Christmases

Her father had been married four times, so his number of children was in the double digits, and that’s not even counting the illegitimate ones. Her entire family got together for Christmas, and it was always a good show. Sometimes, Cinder went home to see the fun for herself, but this year, it seemed like

friend to keep him company. This year, he was planning on taking a cruise! The ship was set to depart from Greece and sail along

there

me to spend Christmas

couldn’t figure him out. He acted like he’d mentioned it on a whim, which made me wonder if it

a woman’s heart, even though they didn’t want to get

Like Vincent.

we were coming over.” Vincent asked. “She said she had an extra gift for you since we just got engaged. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably my great- grandma’s