Chapter Two
Lissa
“Fuck!”
The sweat running down Lissa’s back had long since turned the light blue of her jeans into a dark swampy mess around the waistband, and now all her hard work was for nothing.
She was tempted to toss the cracked hunk of glass across the workshop, but not even her temper could override her ironclad adherence to safety protocols.
Moving slowly so as not to create a bigger mess for herself, she rose up from the small stool that loved to give her a numb ass and took her failed project over to the reclaim pile.
Dumping what should have been a beautiful glass ornament onto the heap of brightly colored shards, she sighed.
Christmas was in six days, and she still had thirty more ornaments to make.
Mr. Ginatti, their marketing rep, hadn’t been very forthcoming about what his exciting PR stunt entailed, saying only that she needed at least fifty ornaments ready to go by Christmas Eve. An endeavor that was proving challenging when she couldn’t get her mind off the party happening in the lobby.
A party where her girlfriend would no doubt be getting tipsier by the minute—something she should be there to monitor.
Lissa ran a hand through her chin-length pink hair in frustration as the sound of laughter tugged at her to abandon the shop and join the celebration.
She normally adored the Christmas season and all the food, lights, and festive cheer that came along with it, but this year she just couldn’t bring herself to embrace the fun.
How could she sing bad karaoke when her entire livelihood was resting in the hands of some big marketing corporation in the city?
Belting out “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” wasn’t magically going to erase her worries.
So instead of joining Lexi in the lobby, with the rest of the coalition artists who rented space in the studio, she picked up her blowpipe and trudged back over to the yoke.
“Lissa, baby, what are you still doing back here?” a syrupy sweet voice called out behind her.
So much for getting any more work done.
Returning the pipe to its holder, she turned to face Lexi, grimacing when she noticed the slight sway to her girlfriend’s movements.
“I thought you weren’t going to be drinking much tonight?
” she demanded, probably harsher than was necessary, but her patience had started to run out somewhere around the tenth straight hour in front of a hot furnace.
They had only been together a few months, but Lissa was starting to think she couldn’t offer Lexi the amount of support the girl needed.
The vivacious potter had captured Lissa’s attention when she started renting space from Smooth Expressions, but the drinking quickly became a point of contention between them.
Lissa loved fun as much as the next person, but when too much fun had caused her girlfriend to knock over a rack of ornate glass sculptures last week, it was time to re-evaluate the relationship.
“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud. It’s Christmas,” Lexi whined, gesturing wildly with her half-empty champagne glass.
A glass Lissa had blown last week and set aside to be sold in the shop.
Smooth Expressions couldn’t exactly afford for any pieces to end up shattered on the floor when Lexi inevitably started dancing on a table and forgot she was drinking from a thirty-dollar piece of art.
“Lex, this isn’t cool. Hand over the glass.” Lissa reached for the drink, but Lexi skipped away before Lissa could snag the endangered flute.
“If you want it so bad, come and get it.” Lexi took a slow seductive drink then licked her lips.
The action reminded Lissa of all the wicked things she knew that mouth was capable of, and in the past it might have been enough for her to hang up the blowpipe and pull out a different long thick object.
Yes, please do that, her vagina argued, feeling neglected as of late.
You still have a lot of work to do, her brain pointed out in response. Blow now, fuck later.
On a better day, she might have let her nether regions make the decision, but tonight she was simply too tired to play Lexi’s games. “I’m not doing this, Lex. I need that glass.”
Lexi pouted and held the flute over her head. “You never want me to have any fun. I like drinking, Liss. I like how it makes me feel.”
Lissa rubbed at her forehead. Of course her girlfriend had no clue what she was holding.
Lexi had never even shown the smallest inkling of interest in Lissa’s work.
Seeing her glass waved around so casually solidified the decision Lissa had been struggling with for a few days.
She’d hoped to stave off this conversation until after the holidays, but it was looking less and less like she was going to make it.
“Lexi, can’t you go get a different drink?” Lissa asked. “I won’t even stop you if you’re so dead set on messing up your life. Just hand me that glass.”
“This glass?” Lexi dangled it out in front of her. “This is what you want so badly?”
“Yes, now hand it over.”
“Fine.” Lexi held out the glass, but right as Lissa reached for it, she opened her hand.
The flute dropped to the cement floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.
“Oopsie,” Lexi cooed, one brightly painted fingernail pressed to her lips.
Lissa’s mouth opened and closed, her Monroe lip piercing clacking gently against her teeth as she stared at the shards now littered across the floor. She could almost see the last vestiges of her patience mixed in with the other sharp bits. “Lexi, we need to break up.”
Her now ex-girlfriend gaped at her for a second, then let out a small shriek of indignation and stamped a stiletto on the floor, looking less like the hot blonde Lissa had first been attracted to and more like a petulant child.
The cutesy red and green dress with color-changing sequins she’d donned for the party only accentuated the image.
“You’re breaking up with me right before Christmas?” Lexi wailed. “Because of a stupid glass?”
“No,” Lissa replied through gritted teeth, the tight leash on her anger slipping a little.
“I’m breaking up with you because you care more about partying than you do about me.
I’ve been busting my ass at this shop for years as an apprentice, and right when I finally get to start designing my own pieces, you come along and destroy one.
Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through lately?
How much I’ve been struggling to keep this shop afloat?
Briggs couldn’t care less if it goes under since he’s about ready to retire, but this place is my home.
If it doesn’t start showing a profit soon, he’s going to shut it down. ”
“So what?” Lexi said dismissively. “You can go work at another studio.”
Lissa took a step forward, wincing as glass crunched under her combat boots. She’d been with Lexi long enough that a proper breakup explanation was due, but sometimes it felt like she was talking to a two-year-old who just wanted to play in the mud.
“Do you even know how many glassblowing studios exist in Seacliff, Lex?” she asked once she reigned in her annoyance.
“Two. This one and Marge’s shop. And I’d die before going to work for Marge.
Which means I need to save Smooth Expressions, and I can’t do that when I spend every night making sure you stay sober enough to get home safely.
I care about you, Lex. I really do, but I can barely take care of myself right now, and you need more than I can offer. ”
Lexi put her hands on her hips, her chin jutting out defiantly as she scoffed.
“More than you can offer? Please, Lissa. You’ve never been able to offer anything.
You live in this studio lately and forget about the whole world out there.
I enjoy my pottery, but I don’t make it my entire identity.
Sorry if I want to have fun while I’m still young. ”
Lissa sighed. She was pretty sure a few years ago she would have sounded exactly like Lexi, but she was starting to accept the party couldn’t last forever.
“We’re not kids anymore, Lex,” she said, rubbing at the spot above her left eye where the stress headaches always began.
“I’m turning thirty in a few months, and maybe I’m tired of bouncing from job to job.
I love blowing glass, and I want to keep doing it.
If that means I don’t have time for a relationship right now, then so be it. ”
Lexi’s lower lip trembled as if she might start crying, and it tugged at Lissa’s heart. She knew full well Lexi often used that pouty look to get what she wanted, but there was a reason it worked. She looked so helpless Lissa couldn’t resist cuddling her in her arms.
“Look,” Lissa began, closing the distance between them to take Lexi’s hands in hers. “Maybe if this mysterious marketing campaign works and things calm down, we can try again.” Lissa waited for the sniffle and nod that usually ended their arguments, but it never came.
Lexi yanked her hands away from Lissa’s, anger flaring in her eyes. “Try again? Like you can push pause on us or something? Sorry, Liss, but I have too much life to live. Have fun dying in this sweaty studio.”
Lexi spun on her heels, wobbled for a heartbeat, and stomped back to the lobby.
Lissa stared after her for a moment before turning her back on the party.
She could hear Lexi shouting for everyone to do shots, but it was no longer her concern.
Somebody would make sure she got home safely.
They always did. That was life in a small town like Seacliff.
People looked out for one another. Lissa just couldn’t be the sole one responsible for Lexi anymore.
She should have been sad she was now staring down the barrel of a very lonely Christmas, but the only emotion left in her body was frustration.
Frustration Briggs had let the studio flounder to the point they had to hire a fancy-ass Portland marketing firm to revive them.
Frustration she was the only one dedicated to saving the shop most days.
But mostly frustration at a world that cared more about buying cheap garbage online than supporting local artists.
Maybe she was naive to try so hard to save Smooth Expressions, but that wasn’t going to stop her.
Mercer Marketing promised they had created a one-of-a-kind marketing stunt that would save their business.
She didn’t love the fact they kept it secret from her and Briggs, and she didn’t love how Briggs was such a pushover he allowed it, blindly jumping onto their hype train that touted secrecy would only make it that much more exciting.
They told him if anyone leaked the plan, it would be ruined, and he stupidly accepted that without question.
Well, whatever they were planning had better work.
Smooth Expressions couldn’t close down. It just couldn’t.
She’d moved to Seacliff five years ago, and from the moment she set foot in the town it felt like home, like a place where she belonged.
Selling her cottage and relocating to another city would devastate her, because if she didn’t have Smooth Expressions, what else did she even have these days?
That depressing reminder of just how empty her life was had her snatching up the blowpipe instead of sweeping up the broken glass. The mess could wait, but thirty ornaments weren’t going to blow themselves.
The sound of “Jingle Bells” drifted through the studio, and she stuck her earbuds in to block it out. She hated giving up her favorite holiday, but it would all be worth it in the end.
It had to be.