Chapter 1 Misty
MISTY
“You have got to stop dyeing your hair. It’s been eleven months.”
“Blondes are Austen’s type. He’s only ever dated blondes.”
Sienna flips her glossy blond hair over her shoulder. “I’m going to dye my hair green just because you said that.”
“She’s right.” Granny Keagan bustles behind me.
I squeeze against the café counter as she rummages for another tray of snowman cupcakes, freshly baked this morning while I contemplated the epic disaster that is my life.
“You need to wear a wig if you want to keep that blond color.”
“What? No! I can’t wear a wig.” I grab at my hair that is admittedly feeling a little fried. “What if Austen comes to his senses and we reconnect, and then my wig falls off when we’re rekindling our romance? Then I’ll lose him forever.”
Sienna shakes me. “You’ve literally been planning an engagement party for him and Brielle the bitch for free. An engagement party that is happening tomorrow. You are not ever getting back together with Austen.” Sienna sighs to Lucy. “I thought she’d grow out of it.”
My younger tween half sister is scrolling on her phone and pretending to work on her reading homework at one of the café tables, my corgi sprawled on her lap.
I dollop a mound of whipped cream on the peppermint hot chocolate I’m making for my little sister. Then I put more whipped cream with some bacon bits in a cup for Cocoa since I dragged her out of bed into—Gasp!—the cold.
“You should steal him back.” Lucy looks up. “Men get jealous easily, right?”
“Well, that’s a disparaging way of looking at masculinity, and not every man acts like—”
“Hell yeah they do!” Granny Keagan sucks in a breath.
“Men are territorial, like hamsters. That’s why they—Morris, I told you this is a Christmas café.
I am not running a charity. If you want to sit in here, you have to buy something.
Don’t argue with me! Or you can go down the street to Janine’s café.
She wouldn’t know what to do with a dollar if it crawled up her snatch.
I thought for sure she would be out of business by Thanksgiving. ”
She turns back to me. “That’s why they only realize that they like you when some other man pays attention to you. If Austen sees you with a hot, muscular, rich guy, then he’ll fight to reclaim you!”
“Or you could just stop giving him free PR help and see how quickly he comes crawling back.” Sienna raises her eyebrows.
“It’s nice to be needed.” I sneak another bite of the leftover Thanksgiving pie. I have been stress-eating all year, and now I’m in the endgame.
It all changes January first.
“The Tinsel he has been using you. I told you to go cold turkey. He doesn’t get to humiliate you on your own wedding day—in front of people you can’t stand, no less—then run off with your sister, showing his sorry ass at family gatherings, and then expect you to still manage all his public relations, endorsements, and fan mail for free. Not to mention his taxes.”
“It just didn’t seem right to quit on him in the middle of the season.” I take another bite of Pumpkin Chiffon Pie.
“You could have quit in the summer.” Lucy sips her hot chocolate.
“You don’t understand,” I wail to my little sister. “He’s my entire life.”
Granny Keagan swats me with a rolled-up copy of the Maplewood Falls Chronicles. Blazing on the front page is the headline about the arrest of half the front of house of the Rhode Islanders for illegal sports gambling.
“Ow! I mean to say I hate Austen’s guts,” I lie and look down at the floor. “I’m trying to keep my skills up, you know, in case I get another PR or marketing job.”
“How’s that job search coming?” Lucy accepts her Holly Jolly Turkey Melt from Sienna.
“Not so great. It’s hard because I’m not currently employed in the industry.
I did not get my old job at the Direwolves back after the wedding that wasn’t.
My old boss ghosted me after I emailed her tentatively asking about the position, then when I finally showed up at her house with homemade cookies to beg for my job, she confessed that the president of the team thought rehiring me would bad publicity, especially since they’d just signed Ryder O’Connell and didn’t want any whiff of controversy that could taint his wholesome image. ”
“And yet you haven’t even applied to other marketing jobs. Even here in town.”
“I tried at the city, but as soon as I walked in for the interview, all the ladies started laughing, so I turned around and left and said I actually couldn’t right now.”
“You need Santa to bring you some self-esteem for Christmas.” Lucy feeds Cocoa some turkey.
“Forget that! She needs Santa to bring her a man. Let me call.” Gran pulls out her phone and pushes up her glasses to peer at the screen. “You gals are too sheltered. You’ve never hired a male prostitute before.”
“Fake boyfriend,” I say desperately. “No one’s having sex. I just need a pretend relationship to make the love of my life jealous. You know, normal stuff. Not paying for sex. I haven’t reached that level of rock bottom.”
Even my dog is looking at me like Girl, please.
“You need to get laid by a man who knows his way around a clitoris.”
I clap my hands over Lucy’s ears, almost spilling her hot chocolate.
“I know how babies are made,” Lucy scoffs. “I think Mom’s pregnant again.”
“No, she’s not. She can’t be. I’m supposed to be pregnant right now.” I fan my face.
Sienna hands me a napkin.
“Even if she’s not, she will be soon, and so will Brielle. They’ll have babies at the same time, and you won’t have any.”
It’s a kick to my ever-expanding gut.
A sob escapes me.
“You need this.” Lucy holds out her phone.
I sniffle. “You’re right. I am pathetic. I do need to make a change, or I’m going to be still living at home when I’m forty.”
Through blurry tears, I dial the flashing number on the screen. Please just be a prank line. Please don’t be real.
“Merry Christmas!” A cheerful girl answers the phone.
“Hi, yes, um…” I lick my dry lips. “Is this the, um…” I can’t say it. I’m in a public place. I can’t say the words escort service.
My old middle school teacher is sitting at the table by the window with her kids who are visiting home from college for St. Nick’s sake.
“The… you know.” I lower my voice. “The place where you can make things happen.”
“Ah!” the young receptionist says knowingly. “And what exactly do you need to make happen?”
Are they seriously going to make me say it?
I cup my hand around the phone. “I need a, you know, a man to show up at a party and take care of things.”
“Shock and awe delivered from the back of a sleigh!” Granny Keagan bullies her way in.
“Not that serious. More along the lines of we just need his milk to my Christmas cookie.”
“That sounds even worse.” Lucy snickers.
“Oh my gosh, it does.”
“She needs her chestnut roasted. Lit like a Christmas tree, if you know what we mean. Ride the Nutcracker’s candy cane off to never-never land.”
“That’s not the right—you’re mixing up fairy tales. She means the Land of Snow,” I correct.
“Mhm!” The receptionist can be heard typing something.
“Of course, you know all the Nutcracker lore,” Sienna teases.
“This is why she needs a man!” Lucy says pointedly.
“Shh!” The receptionist must think we’re absolutely insane.
“Also, we want your holiday special,” Granny Keagan says loudly.
“Our what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Granny Keagan demands. “I know you’re not legally supposed to do these things, but we have a certain someone here who needs to be taken care of. You know, the Merry Christmas package—wink wink—for your extra-special high-paying customers.”
“How much extra are we talking here?” I wince.
The number the receptionist gives me almost makes me pass out. I grab Lucy’s hot chocolate and take a big swallow.
“Hey!”
“You were letting it get cold.”
“Hot chocolate? You need some of Mrs. Claus’s hooch.” Gran pulls a flask out of her bra and dumps it into the half-empty hot chocolate mug.
I drain it. I need something a little more substantial than the Christmas spirit in these trying times.
“This is worth it if Austen Langley eats it,” Sienna insists. “You need payback.”
“Wait, can you just hold on a moment?” I croak out and mute the phone.
“I can’t spend that much money on an escort!
” It’s all the money I’d been saving since age nine, when I started babysitting and Granny Keagan set me up with a secret bank account because my mom kept “borrowing” my babysitting cash.
This money was supposed to help fund the start of my real life with a man who adores me, children who love me more than anything in the world, and foster dogs so Cocoa could have friends.
The corgi looks up at me reproachfully, muzzle covered in whipped cream.
“You’re a bit introverted, Cocoa,” I remind her gently. “You could do with a little socialization.”
Lucy pats her furry head. “You’re never going to have a daddy, are you, Cocoa?”
Granny Keagan gives me more alcohol then grabs my phone and unmutes it. “We need some clarification. Is he hot?”
“Errr… what?” The girl on the other end sounds confused.
“We’re not paying all this money if he can’t deliver the goods.”
“Oh. Ohhh! Yes, I see.” The girl assures us, “He will deliver.”
“Fantastic! He’s hot, ladies, and he puts out,” Granny Keagan announces. “We’ll take him! Where should Misty send the money?”
“We need half now and half on-site before he completes the job,” the receptionist instructs. “Wink wink.”
“I don’t know,” I say as I set up the wire transfer from my phone. “This seems like a bad idea.”
Several of my mom’s book club members are in the café now. Sienna does me a solid and takes their orders while I prepare to empty out half my bank account.
I hesitate before pushing Send and look around the café.
The past year, all I did was work in this café, waste my fertility, and wish that Austen would wake up and realize he made a mistake and rush to the café and scoop me into his arms and tell me he loves me and he’s going to marry me right now.
Gran and Sienna are right. Shoot, my nine-year-old sister is right.
I am pathetic. I do need to do something about it.
I can’t show up at that engagement party alone.
I need to fight for my man.
It is a lot of money, though.
If it helps me get Austen back, it’s worth it. True love doesn’t have a price.
I take another slug of the burning liquor and approve the wire transfer.
“We confirm receipt of the money!” the receptionist says brightly. “Please note that there are no refunds.”
“Right.” I feel nauseous.
What have I done?
“Merry Christmas to you! This is good for you.” Sienna hands me a pistachio cookie shaped like the Grinch.
I wave it away. I can’t stomach food. Even a cookie.
“Hmm, that kind of looks like Brielle.” Sienna takes a big bite.
“She’s going to be so jelly when she realizes you have a hot new guy.” Lucy giggles.
“Did you check to see if he can dance?”
“Who cares?” Granny Keagan wails. “He just needs to put out.”