Chapter 3
Ten Days Before Christmas
I do not need a new sweater. I do not need a new— The ringing of my cellphone interrupted my mantra as I stared into the boutique window, which I’d been doing long enough that the salesgirl with the high, sleek ponytail was giving me a concerned look.
Rather than going all out for Christmas in their display, the store had opted instead for a glitz-and-glitter New Year’s vibe I could totally get behind.
My credit card, however, could not.
“Hello?” I pressed my nose against the glass, staring at the adorable royal blue sweater that would pop my red hair, hit that perfect spot on my hips, and, better yet, have nothing to do with Christmas.
“What are you wearing?” My brother’s voice filled my ear.
I frowned into my phone. “I’m assuming you have a reason to ask, but it’s still weird, Ryan.”
He exhaled a long-suffering sigh, like I was the problem. “To Mom and Dad’s house. You’re driving up tomorrow, right? Like we talked about?”
His voice pitched toward mild panic by the end of his question, and it was my turn to sigh. “It’s down, Ryan. Driving down. North is up; south is down.”
“I don’t see why that’s important.”
“But asking about my wardrobe is?” My breath fogged the glass and I leaned back, offering an apologetic wave to the salesclerk.
Ponytail waved back, cautiously. She beckoned me inside, her dramatic eyebrows furrowed.
I shook my head.
She squinted.
Great. Now I looked like I was casing the joint.
I turned away from the window, pretending the conversation on my phone was so important.
Down the street, a horn honked and someone yelled out their car window.
Men in suits wearing AirPods and women in yoga pants toting Lululemon bags pushed past me on the sidewalk.
The wind picked up, tempting my naturally wavy hair to go full curl.
“Just answer the question.” My brother sounded impatient, which was odd. He always sounded busy, but rarely annoyed.
I pulled my puffy coat tighter around me. “I don’t know, sweats? If I have to go home for Christmas, you can bet I’ll be eating the homemade cookies.” Of course, I’d scrape the red and green icing off first on principle, but a carb was a carb.
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t eat cookies? That’s bossy, even for you.” I risked another glance over my shoulder at the mannequin, who, upon second look, probably wore that sweater better than I would. But still. The detailed stitching on the shoulders, the cuffed hem…
“Wear something nice.”
I grunted. “Okay. Where’s Lydia? Go bother your wife—isn’t that why you got one?”
“First impressions matter, baby sister.”
I love-hated when he played the sister card. “You’re older by not even two years.” Then his words registered. “What do you mean, ‘first impressions’? Is that some kind of sarcasm about how I rarely go home?”
Not that he’d be wrong. Mom and Dad traveled to me way more often than I went to them. But with Ryan only a few hours away from me, our oldest sister, Olivia, roughly four hours south, and my sister Kat stationed at Fort Knox, they could make a big loop and kill several birds.
On second thought, it probably wasn’t healthy to associate quality family time with the death of animals.
“No, but now that I think about it…yes.” Ryan snorted. “I’m bringing a friend.”
I scuffed one booted foot against the dirty sidewalk. “Hate to break it to you, but if your friend has a problem with my sweatpants, then he’s no real friend, big bro.”
“He’s more like your friend.”
Ryan was officially making no sense. “It’s a little early in the day to be drinking.”
“I don’t drink,” he sputtered, which was funny, because I knew that he not only never drank but also that he was incredibly proud of the fact.
I resisted the urge to look back in the window. I did not need that sweater. “I’m just trying to come up with a valid reason for the most cryptic phone call ever.”
Dang. Now he had me thinking…what was I going to wear?
There was a mandatory Christmas Eve service, and the sweatpants wouldn’t fly there.
And Mom would insist on her holiday family photo, which, whether I liked it or not, always ended up in a hallway frame or scrapbook at some point after New Year’s.
As much as I hated Christmas, I hated more looking like a frump between two stickered pages for all of eternity.
Maybe I did need that sweater after all. I spun around to face it. The salesgirl was standing an inch away from the glass.
I shrieked.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ryan’s voice grated my ear.
“Me?” I had to go in the store now, or Ponytail might call the police. I lowered my voice to a hiss as I wrenched open the door—and was immediately assaulted with the scent of peppermint. “I’m almost thirty and unemployed. At least my crazy has an excuse. What’s yours?”
Ponytail approached, wariness lurking in her smoky eye shadow. “Can I help you?”
“Tell her you’re beyond help,” Ryan joked in my ear.
“I’d like to see that sweater in the window, please.” I lifted my chin, like I was a legitimate shopper with adult money and supposed to be there.
Her gaze swept over me. “What size?”
God bless her for not guessing. “Medium.”
She bustled over to the window, ponytail swinging across her narrow shoulder blades.
I turned my attention back to Ryan, ducking behind a table laden with red nail polish and Santa-shaped bath bombs.
A tween next to me was digging through a box of elf-patterned makeup bags.
“Ryan, I’m apparently wearing a blue sweater at some point over the holidays, if that answers your weird question. ”
“It helps a little. But lose the sweats, got it?”
“Oh, right. Because of my friend ?” I accepted the sweater from the salesgirl, nodding my thanks as she held open the dressing room curtain. I hated shops that were too fancy for doors.
The curtain swished shut behind me, and I debated whether to actually try the top on. Literally nothing between my dignity and the entire city of Detroit except a thin layer of polyester. I’d never understand people who lived their lives without good old-fashioned locks.
Ryan cleared his throat, and I could picture him shoving his glasses up on his nose. “The friend is Nick Kinsley.”
“Your co-worker?” Oh, forget it. How much dignity did I really have left, anyway? I put Ryan on speaker and wrestled out of my coat.
“Yeah. You met him that time you came through town and had lunch with me.” Ryan’s tone grew pointed, buzzing through the phone speaker. “That one time.”
I tugged my shirt over my head and tossed it on the bench next to my jacket. “Spare me the guilt trip. The highway runs both directions, big bro.”
Ryan tsked into the phone. “I would make a comment here about being super busy with my job, but it’s probably too soon for work jokes, huh?”
My throat knotted and I paused. “A bit.” Not that I would miss the next ten days of creating holiday social media reels.
I would, however, miss things like being able to afford rent and groceries.
Ugh, enough of the Christmas carols playing overhead.
I made a face in the mirror as I fiddled with the sweater, trying to find the neck hole.
Store window aside, the Santa bath bombs should have tipped me off that Michael Bublé was inevitable.
“So why are you bringing Nick? And why are you calling him my friend? I met him for, like, ten minutes.”
He’d been cute enough, and funny. He’d joked around with me while I waited for Ryan to finish tweaking his latest ad, which, for my perfectionist brother, took forever. Nick finally had to wrestle the mouse away from him so we wouldn’t miss our reservation.
Ryan let out a breath loud enough that my cell hummed with static. “Nick needed somewhere to go for Christmas.”
“Oh. Well, that’s nice of you.” Awkward, but a nice gesture. Though, on second thought, maybe having a stranger there would calm some of Mom’s holiday crazy and we’d only have to trim one tree.
I twisted in the mirror. I was right about the blue making my red hair pop. And only slightly off about the sweater hitting the perfect spot on my hips. Maybe if I paired it with a pencil skirt instead of jeans—
“Plus Nick’s single…”
I shot a look at my phone, half-covered by my coat. “What’d you say?”
“You’re single…” Ryan’s voice grew softer, as if he knew he’d delivered the death blow.
I froze. My reflection froze back.
“A Christmas date wouldn’t be the end of the world, huh?”
That freeze thawed fast. “Are you matchmaking ?” I grabbed my cell and took it off speaker, pressing it to my ear. The rest of the holiday shoppers didn’t need to hear this, even if Taylor Swift had taken over the store speakers.
“It’s not that deep, Holly.” A pen clicked double-time, which Ryan used to do back in high school when studying for an exam he knew he was going to fail.
It was deep. It was “haven’t been on a date in a year because that last guy I met up with from E-Love only ever wanted to take me to IKEA’s coffee shop” deep. I sucked in a breath and prepared to let him have it.
“Besides, Nick was into it.”
My mouth snapped shut. Taylor blared on about giving her heart to someone special. I swallowed. “He was?” Cute, professional, funny Nick…wanted to be my holiday date?
“Well, I didn’t hold him at gunpoint.” Ryan laughed.
I stuck my tongue out at my phone.
“ Yes, Holly. He wouldn’t have agreed to be your date if he didn’t want to.”
My stomach fluttered. In that case, I needed to see if they had this sweater in white too.
“You’re right. It’s not that deep. Count me in.” I schooled my voice to sound like I didn’t care either way, because that’s what twenty-nine-year-old single gals did with their big brothers when discussing their love lives. “But what did he say, exactly?”
“I believe it was in Klingon.”
I flinched. “Okay, never mind.”
“Inside joke.” Ryan laughed. “Don’t worry about it. He’s normal.”
We’d find out.
Ryan continued. “Nick hates Christmas too, ironically.”