You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology

by Karina Bliss

  Her belly growled. She’d eaten a small breakfast at Babe’s before the restaurant opened, but otherwise that undrunk cup of coffee was the only thing she’d tried to put in her stomach today.

  She poked at her food, picking out a piece of red pepper and setting it on her rice. “I’ve burned through most of my friends’ patience staying with them.” Sauce glistened on the pepper as she examined it and considered her parents. “I think my mom will actually be worried. She ran away when she was young, got pregnant, and here we are.” She dropped the pepper in her mouth.

  “You can’t move out?”

  “Well, now I can’t go back, not after tonight. But—” she shook her head, knowing that she didn’t have any place else to go and so would probably find herself crawling back. Then she swallowed and answered “—Babe barely makes enough to keep that place open, so she can’t pay a lot. Plus, anything I make extra goes to paying for college classes and gas and textbooks. And groceries and rent sometimes, and the electric bill.” She poked at her food. “You didn’t make your escape until you sold your work for millions. I don’t need millions, but I need more than a diner waitress’s salary.”

  He looked up from his own plate and met her eyes, his expression serious. “You should come with me.” He blinked in evident surprise. “Yeah,” he went on after a beat. “Come with me.”

  Chapter Four

  As soon as the words were out of Marc’s mouth, he knew it was a good idea. Whatever pleasure he’d gotten driving around the wilds of the Rocky Mountains on his own was long gone now, replaced by nothing but loneliness.

  Judging by her narrowed eyes, Selina wasn’t quite as thrilled with the idea. “Come where with you?”

  A piece of hot pepper sailed through the air as his hands opened up in offering, drawing an arc in the air with his chopsticks. “On my adventures!” He was bouncing up and down on the cushion and couldn’t stop himself. “If you want, I’ll bring you back here after my week skiing at Snowdance is over. Until the first of the year, I don’t have anywhere else I have to be.”

  That was a sad truth.

  “Even better,” he went on, “maybe you can spend the week I’m skiing looking for a job in Salt Lake. Maybe something that pays better. Maybe a roommate. They have to have a community college there and you could sign up for classes.”

  A strand of her pale hair fell in front of her eyes, breaking up the suspicion on her face. “How do you know I’m not crazy?”

  “How do you know I’m not crazy?” he countered, putting his chopsticks down.

  “That was going to be my next question.”

  He laughed. “That’s part of the adventure.”

  Her head shook quickly, her hair bouncing about her chin. “No. Crazy men in my life are no adventure. One’s enough, thank you.”

  “Do you really wonder if I’m crazy?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning on the table, leaning in toward her.

  “I guess not.”

  “You guess not?” He chuckled, but her words sliced through him. For all that he sympathized with her distrust, being lumped in with any group that included her stepfather felt like being shoved into a tiny closet filled with people who smell like cat piss.

  “Who but a crazy person asks a complete stranger to come with them on a road trip?” she asked.

  True, but . . .

  “Driving around the country on my own isn’t as fun as I hoped it would be.”

  She blinked. God, when she decided to take a man’s measure, that man—at least Marc—felt the need to put his shoulders back and stand as tall as possible. He never wanted Selina to look at him and find him wanting.

  “I’ll believe that, especially for you. But what if I’m crazy?” She raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t answered that yet.”

  “If you were crazy, I think you would’ve jumped at the chance.”

  She actually harrumphed. “What about money? I just said that I don’t have any.”

  “I’m twenty-five and just sold an app for millions of dollars. I’m not asking you for money. I’ll already be paying for gas and hotels. You’ll be an extra mouth to feed. If you want to pay for your own dinners, you can. But I’m happy to pay for those, too.” Her company would be worth the minor additional cost.

  “Because you’re lonely?” With her brow furrowed, she was the cutest mystified person he’d ever seen.

  But lonely sounded scarier when she said it. “Well, yes. I’m lonely and need the company. You’re trapped and need the escape. We’re both getting something from the other.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him again. “What’s the catch?”

  “Does there have to be a catch?”

  “You just sold your app for millions of dollars and are now wandering around the mountains alone. Sounds to me like there’s a catch to everything, even winning the lottery.”

  Her words felt like someone swatting his nose with a small switch. Sure, it hurt, but more than the pain, what she’d said made his eyes water and he had to refocus on the world around him. “I guess that’s true. So then the catch is that you don’t know me and I don’t know you. If you say yes and we make horrible traveling companions, then we’ve both learned a lesson. If that happens, I’ll probably be willing to pay to get you away from me. And you’ll have to go. That seems like catch enough.”

  “What about the last of my classes?” She was still protesting, but he could hear how halfhearted they were.

  The great idea rushed out of him like a balloon releasing air. “Right. Tests.” He’d forgotten about those terrible things, blocked them out of his mind, really, because he’d never been good at taking tests.

  “No tests this semester. Just a final paper.”

  “You can e-mail that, then. I’m sure the professor will take it.”

  Her mouth twitched. “You seem mighty sure for never having met this professor.”

  “Do you have good grades already? I mean, if he’s pissed that you didn’t go to the last couple classes and e-mailed in the final paper, how bad off will you be?”

  “Not too bad, I guess. I’m getting an A in the class right now. I probably couldn’t get the job, though,” she said, more to herself than to Marc.

  “What job?” he asked, genuinely curious. It was a good sign for him if she already had a job in mind in Salt Lake.

  All the stagnation she felt in her life seemed to come out with her sigh. “My professor has a friend who owns an art gallery. It’s silly, but it seems like the coolest job in the world. Not practical and I’d probably starve and be homeless on the salary, but I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to work among pretty things.”

  “You don’t know if you don’t ask.”

  “Well, yes, but . . .” In the space between her words, he could hear her deciding to say yes to his plan.

  “I’ll up the ante.” He pushed his hands across the table, palms up, maybe offering her the trip of a lifetime, maybe trying to get her to place her hands in his. He wasn’t sure. “If the guy punishes your grade for skipping out at the very end, I’ll pay for one of your classes. In Salt Lake City. Here. Wherever you want. That will give you some safety net, at least.”

  “I’ll be leaving Babe in a lurch.” Her pitch rose with the last of her objections, and he knew he’d gotten her.

  He closed his fists. “She seems to have real affection for you. Do you think she’ll be angry?”

  “No,” Selina said, her O long and drawn out.

  “Do you want to ask her?”

  The more Marc pushed for her to say yes to the idea, the more he wanted it. Not just because he liked to succeed—though he acknowledged that was part of it—but because Selina’s company on this trip was one of those ideas that got better the more he thought about it.

  Her objections made sense. She might be crazy. He might be crazy. They might end the trip hating each other. But her presence would stop him from thinking about encryption and random session keys and message fragmentation. A
nd he couldn’t start a new life if he was mulling over the old one.

  At least he didn’t think he could. No one seemed to know what to tell a twenty-five-year-old who had succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams but was too young to retire. Go volunteer with Doctors Without Borders was all anyone ever suggested, as if they’d never met him at all. He’d been looking for an equivalent Tech Geeks Without Borders, but nothing he’d found had caught his attention.

  “I want to talk with her,” she finally said. “I should talk with someone before I say yes, absolutely. I’d rather talk to her in person, though. This is too complicated to talk about over the phone.”

  “That’s understandable. If you think she’s home, we can head over now.”

  Marc had never had a “real job,” and Selina and Babe’s bond impressed him. Maybe he was even a little jealous. Working in his underwear in the middle of the night, a pile of orange peels next to him on the desk wasn’t a real job in any way his parents understood it.

  Once he’d dropped out of college, he’d attached himself to projects he’d found on various technology postings—some aboveboard, some not. The people he’d worked with had been acquaintances, and he had a good network, but he’d never been close with any of them. Except Curtis. He and Curtis had come up with the idea for the encrypted texts, and Marc had thought they were friends, not just geek buddies.

  “I’m going to assume Babe will think this is as great of an idea as I do.” If he reached out, success—and Selina coming with him—was close enough he might be able to grab ahold of it and kiss it. “Should we find your mom to tell her, too?”

  Hesitation pulled at the corners of her eyes. Crap. Saying that had been a bad tack when he was trying to convince her to come.

  “Yes,” she said and then gnawed on her lip. “But I don’t want to tell her in person. She’s guaranteed to think this is a bad idea.”

  “Afraid she’ll talk you out of it?” Marc was convinced this idea was great and was certain Babe would see reason, but he didn’t believe Selina’s mom could even find reason in an empty, well-lit room. Otherwise, she’d have done something to protect her daughter from that awful man she’d married.

  “I’m afraid she’ll try—or Gary will—and we’ll fight.”

  Right. One of the breadwinners was thinking of driving away in the bread truck, and her stepfather seemed like the type who would respond with abuse toward the nearest woman handy rather than getting his own job. “Should she talk you out of it?”

  He wanted Selina to come with him. The trip would be better with her in the car. But he didn’t want to be a dick and force her into anything.

  Selina gave a vigorous shake of her head. “No. Maybe going with you is a bad idea, but staying here is a bad idea, too. I’ll talk to Babe about it, but . . .” She paused, then nodded, apparently at the thoughts in her own head. “But I think I’m coming.”

  Being the best of two bad ideas pricked his ego, but quibbling or objecting wouldn’t help him win Selina’s company.

  She waved a hand between them, seeming to dismiss any more objections she wasn’t sharing. “I’ll call my mom from the road. Babe has a detached garage that I can leave my car in. And if I decide to stay in Salt Lake City at the end of the week, I trust her to sell it for me and send me the money.”

  “Do you need to go home to pack?” Decision made, Marc’s mind moved to the practicalities of this trip.

  “No.” She looked sheepish for a moment. “When I left last night, I took a backpack I’d already had packed in case I never wanted to go back. And I’ve had a suitcase in my car for weeks. Gary has been getting more, uh, persistent, and I wanted to be prepared.”

  That he was persistent might be the biggest understatement Marc had ever heard to describe what he didn’t want to imagine had been happening in Selina’s home.

  “Well then,” he said, clapping his hands together, “of all the diners in all the towns in all the world, I’m glad I walked in to yours.”

  “You’re cute,” she said with a sweet smile, which made his chest swell. If he could keep her smiling with cheesy jokes, they would be A-okay.

  He picked up a piece of onion, eager to finish his food and get to Babe’s house. His stir-fry had gotten cold, but it tasted better than any food he’d eaten in the last couple of days, including Babe’s wonderful pancakes.

  *

  “Selina,” Babe said, her neutral voice a sure indication that she was worried, “let’s go into the kitchen and pack you some food for the car trip.”

  Selina dutifully stood and followed Babe out of the living room. They hadn’t even crossed the threshold into the other room when she whipped her body around. “What are you thinking?” her boss and friend hissed.

  Selina glanced over her shoulder to where Marc sat on the floral couch under the painting of a craggy mountain, an icy lake, and the clear blue sky of a perfect Idaho summer day. He had to know that they were talking about him, and he could probably guess that Babe was questioning Selina’s judgment. But he wasn’t fidgeting and didn’t otherwise seem nervous. He was just leaning against the back of the couch, his ankle resting on his knee, looking for all the world like a man at complete ease with himself and his situation.

  Confident, which of course he had every right to be. Programming his app had probably been hard, but all the work had paid off. Marc had what Selina wanted: the knowledge that effort toward a goal brought results. Not more treading water.

  She wasn’t sure where leaving for a spontaneous road trip with a stranger fell in her plans, but it got her out of this town. And that was an accomplishment in and of itself.

  She turned back to face Babe’s concerned eyes. “Marc will take me to Salt Lake, and I’ll have a place to live for at least a week while I look for work. This isn’t how I’d planned to get out of Idaho, but it would be stupid to turn down the opportunity.”

  Babe blinked several times. “You know nothing about this man. He might be a rapist. Or a murderer. Or worse.”

  What could be worse than a rapist or a murder? Selina didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know how Babe would answer.

  “Maybe,” she said, instead. “But he’s who he says he is. I’ve read the news articles, and they’re credible sources, too. And I need to be out of town the next time Gary gets drunk enough to forget that he’s supposed to be my stepfather.”

  As she said the words, her palms got clammy and fear pounded in her ears. She’d been afraid of Gary before, but last night was the first time she’d felt honest-to-God terrified. Admitting it to herself didn’t calm her body down, but it made her feel better about her decision to run off with Marc. Yes, he was a stranger, and maybe he would snore or his farts would be unbearable, but never once had her gut flickered with fear, especially not for her safety.

  Babe cocked her head, her eyes searching Selina’s face. “Okay. I know you need to be out of that house, and you want to be out of this town. Do you have money?”

  Selina smiled with relief. “Yes. Some,” she corrected. “I have enough. What’s in my savings account right now should pay for rent for a couple months if I don’t get a job right away.” She was trying not to hang all her hopes on a job at the gallery. Practicality had to trump dreams. “I’ll be okay.”

  Babe’s lips thinned. She didn’t look as though she thought this was a good idea, but at least she wasn’t arguing anymore. “Okay, then. You have my support. I’m not sure this is a good idea, but you’re clearly convinced it’s not a bad one and that’s good enough for me. You’ve always been a sensible girl. One of my oldest friends lives in Salt Lake, too. If you need help, give her a call.”

  Selina’s heart leaped and bounded with joy before leaning in to Babe and giving her a big hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Selina hadn’t realized how much Babe’s approval and encouragement mattered until she was pressed against the woman’s soft bosom and wrapped in her tight embrace. Happy tears welled up in her eyes, quickly
dampening Babe’s shirt.

  “Are you crying?” Babe asked. She was sniffling, as well.

  “Yes, but I’ll be okay. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss the diner.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.” Babe patted her on the back. “Now let’s really get some snacks packed for your trip.”

  They stayed in each other’s arms for several long moments, though, with Babe rubbing her hand along Selina’s back. Even though her boss’s hair was damp from an earlier shower, Selina could smell the diner grease under the sharp odor of Irish Spring soap. She took a deep breath, trying to memorize the scent, the feel of Babe’s arms, and the sound of her breathing. There wasn’t much about this place that she would miss, but Babe represented all of it.

  *

  Selina’s suitcase was heavier than Marc had expected. Having misjudged its weight, he’d had to tug several times to get it out of the trunk. A light snow was starting to fall as he moved his own luggage around in the back of his SUV to make room for Selina’s luggage. One flake hit the bull’s-eye, slipping down the neck of his jacket and melting between his shoulder blades.

  When he turned, Selina was standing behind him, the collar of her coat turned up to protect her neck and her hands clasped in front of her chest. The glow of the streetlight fell in a halo on her head, making her hair look almost white. Snowflakes danced about her, and she looked like a winter angel. Not a fairy, who tricked and played games, but someone who would provide steady comfort at the precise moment he needed it.

  Standing next to Selina, Babe didn’t look nearly as serene. Selina was looking at him, but Babe was staring at Selina with a mixture of love and worry in her eyes. There were tearstains on both women’s cheeks.

  Marc slammed the trunk of the SUV, the noise echoing in the cold night air and adding a new finality to their decision. When he turned back, the women were walking toward him. He took a step toward her, which she matched with a large step toward him.

  If they could continue to meet each other halfway, they would be okay. No, they’d be better than okay. They would be great. He gave her a reassuring smile, which she returned before turning back to give Babe a hug.