Chapter 10 Derek #3
“Derek, they have Christmas shakes,” she leans in to tell me. “You can only get stuff like this for a few weeks each year, and it’s always the best. A man can’t live on protein alone.”
“Okay then. Order for us,” I tell her, leaning back. I’ll humor her and take a sip of some artificially colored bucket of sugar if it makes her happy.
“I’ll have a gingerbread shake,” she says to Ellen, with a triumphant gleam in her eye like she just won the New York City marathon. “And he’ll have peppermint.”
She does know me. I’m a fan of anything mint.
Ellen hurries off to do Darcy’s bidding and Darcy smiles at me across the table.
“Thanks,” she says. “Sorry if I’m being needy. My sister and I always get the holiday special if we go out at this time of year.”
“Always?” I tease.
“Always,” she tells me with a big smile. “Even if it sounds awful.”
“Like what?” I ask her.
“Like eggnog egg salad or a fruitcake smoothie—she almost choked on that one,” Darcy giggles. “And, oh yeah, mince pies.”
“Mince pies?” I ask. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“They’re full of meat, Derek,” she says, as if that’s the worst thing she can imagine. “They’re called pies and they’re not even sweet.”
“It must have been a real sacrifice,” I allow.
“Oh, I didn’t eat those,” she says. “Mandy did. She’s the champion of Christmas menu specials.”
“She sounds like a fun person to spend time with,” I say.
“She is,” Darcy agrees, with a wistful smile.
“Wait, are you supposed to be seeing her for the holidays?” I ask, suddenly feeling guilty.
Darcy just shows up for me, uncomplaining, no matter what. It never hit me before to wonder what she was canceling to make that happen.
“No, no,” she assures me. “She’s way too busy this year. But I might get out there to see her next year.”
Ellen reappears with our order before I can ask what Darcy’s sister is busy with, or what I can do to help.
And any trace of sadness is gone from my pretend fiancée’s face the moment she spots her treat.
It’s an enormous glass of gingerbread-colored shake, topped with about three inches of whipped cream sprinkled with red and green sugar and a single cherry to finish it off.
It’s the kind of thing you could get a cavity just by looking at.
And just as I think it can’t get any more decadent, Ellen places a metal canister of extra shake next to it, because apparently the thing was too big to fit in the glass.
“Wow,” Darcy says happily. “Thank you.”
When my own shake is set down in front of me I just want to start laughing. The presentation is pretty much the same as Darcy’s except that my shake is pink with crushed candy cane sprinkled on top.
And for some reason the waitress has given me three cherries.
“Thank you, Ellen,” I say politely as she thunks down the canister with my excess shake.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” she says with a wink.
Across the table, Darcy looks a little annoyed.
“Are you mad that I got three cherries and you only have one?” I tease her. “If you want them, all you have to do is ask.”
But instead of half-crawling across the table for the cherries, like I would expect from my little sugar-obsessed zombie, she’s scowling after Ellen.
Is she… jealous?
Ellen was maybe barely flirting with me, barely.
And besides, this relationship isn’t even real.
“Are you okay?” it’s my turn to ask.
“Oh,” she says, turning back to me with a guilty look. “Yes, definitely. But I need to send Mandy a picture before we get into these. Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” I tell her.
She grabs my shake and pulls it next to hers before taking what I’m sure is a very cute selfie.
“Send that to me,” I tell her before I can stop myself.
She grins and a moment later my phone buzzes.
I grab for it, pulling up the photo and saving it so I don’t lose it. I was right. It’s exactly the kind of picture you can’t see without smiling.
“Bottoms up,” she says, holding up her shake to me.
I lift my own, wondering how I’m going to manage not to hurt her feelings when I don’t take more than a sip, and a little worried she might try to finish mine too and end up in some kind of sugar-induced coma.
She touches her glass to mine and then pulls hers back and puts the straw to her lips.
Her eyes close in ecstasy, and she makes this little sound of satisfaction in the back of her throat that has my pulse pounding.
“Drink,” she tells me, without even opening her eyes to see that I haven’t touched my shake.
So I take a small sip.
Sweet, creamy, peppermint goodness bursts in my mouth and I feel like every cell in my body literally starts singing Christmas carols.
“It’s so good, right?” Darcy asks me.
I take another pull, a big one this time, and let the sweetness melt in my mouth.
It’s only temporary, I tell myself. I have to live a little sometimes…
I suck down the rest of my heavenly shake, groaning a little just because I know it will make Darcy happy.
She claps her hands and cheers for me, and I know this is crazy. I’m making every wrong decision and indulging in every wrong call.
And yet somehow this is the happiest I’ve felt in a long, long time.
What am I supposed to do when this is over?