Her Pretend Christmas Date: A Lesbian Christmas Romance

by Alexa Woods

  That’s why she was here, digging out the leftover food she’d been sent home with as some sort of peace offering.

  It was just an apology.

  Because Laney did care, even if she pretended and acted otherwise. Even with the bullshit layers and the persona she’d built up in order to survive.

  Once she was at the door, she debated about turning around and getting back in her car, but she’d never been a coward and she wasn’t going to back out now. She was here. She’d driven all this way. She knew it was the right thing to do.

  Morgun probably wasn’t even home, Laney reminded herself. The chances of her answering the door were slim. She’d ring the buzzer, say she tried, get back in her car, and send a message in apology and that would be good enough. She could then put Morgun far out of her mind and not think about her again.

  What about that hollow space? Are you going to not think about that again too?

  Laney ignored that thought, balanced the containers of food in her left arm and hand, and pressed the buzzer with the right.

  As she expected, there was no answer. She buzzed again but was met with silence. She shuffled her feet on the concrete step, re-balanced the container of mashed potatoes that was slipping through her arm, and tried one more time. Still nothing.

  She blinked hard, tightened her arm around the other container of turkey and gravy, bit down her bottom lip until she tasted metal, then turned and headed back to her car.

  Chapter 14

  Morgun

  After going through the usual interview-type questions, Morgun waited while David Wilkes, head of HR, folded up her portfolio and slid it across the table. He hadn’t interviewed her the first time. She was floored and honored that he’d taken the time to meet with her. He hadn’t sent someone else and that meant something to her, even if his current body language was giving off all sorts of energy that she wished she wasn’t interpreting correctly.

  He was going to try to let her down gently. She could just tell it was coming.

  David folded his hands neatly on the table. He was well groomed, probably in his early fifties. He had a large, athletic build which was still trim and the black suit he had on fit him impeccably, even if it wasn’t one of those suits that was tailor made or cost a couple grand. David’s salt and pepper hair was neatly cut, and he sported a beard that was trimmed and immaculate as well. He had dark, soft brown eyes that were too kind and sympathetic for someone in his position.

  So when he sighed, Morgun knew.

  “I have to say that I was intrigued when Laney Sterling sent your profile along to me. She’s a rare gem, refuses to give up control of any of her photos for editing unless we specifically ask her to. She’s worked for us for a few years now and we couldn’t be happier with the time and effort she’s put in. She’s never once recommended another photographer, so when she sent me your information, I took notice.”

  “Uh, thank you?”

  Morgun shifted nervously in her chair. It was soft leather, stiff and high backed, with wheels on the bottom. It matched the other ten chairs around a long oval table in a classy, tasteful boardroom with expensive art on the walls, huge windows, and whiteboards on the far end. A projector sat in the middle of the table. There were all sorts of cords wound up at the far end of the room. She could only guess at the creativity that went on in here. God, she wanted to be part of that. She wanted it so badly that she knew that when David finally said the words, they were going to sting worse than any wound or injury she’d ever had before.

  “Your work is great. Beyond great. You’re very talented.”

  “But…I’m not the right fit.” Morgun decided to spare David and just say the words herself.

  His shoulders slumped inwards. “Look, Morgun. Can I give you some unsolicited and probably unwanted advice?”

  “Sure.” She forced a smile because she knew David’s job couldn’t be easy. “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve been doing this a long time now. Nearly thirty years. I started at the bottom here and I’ve been at the top of HR for quite a while. I can’t count how many interviews I’ve given over the years. How many people I’ve hired, and, unfortunately, how many I’ve had to let go. I’d like to think that I have a good idea of the type of person who is a good fit for us. I know for a fact that you’re too nice. It’s not just the clients who would eat you alive, but some of your coworkers too. That’s not to say that we only hire mean people or condone workplace harassment of any sort. I just see you and I see what a nice, caring young woman you are. I looked through your website and your social media and you have a good thing going. You’re your own boss. There’s something to be said for that. I know that the market is oversaturated with photographers, since everyone thinks they can pick up a camera and that’s all that counts, but obviously not everyone can make a living at it. You’re doing that, even if it takes a while to get established. The grass isn’t always greener.”

  “I-I can take constructive criticism,” Morgun stammered. “I promise, I can. And I would work hard. So hard. Twice as hard as anyone else here.”

  “Tell me, do you think of yourself at all like Laney Sterling? I’m not sure how you know each other, but would you say you’re anything like her?”

  “God, no,” Morgun said before she could think better. As soon as the words were out, she wished she could snatch them back, but it was too late.

  David nodded. “I know. You’re not like her at all. Laney is a good person, but she’s determined. She has this drive and this fire and that burns a lot of people up. Clients have tried her on and gotten nowhere. She books her own travel. Manages her own schedule, dictates how and what she’d like done for her shoots. She does all her own editing. We didn’t plan on any of that, and at first, we found it hard to work with, but over time we adjusted. The point is, Laney’s survived in a tough industry and it takes that kind of personality and backbone to do it. Here.”

  “I could…change.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to change. There’s nothing wrong with being kind and big hearted.”

  Morgun could feel her eyes welling up with tears. She hated it. Hated that she was proving David right just by sitting here. She’d been so excited about this. She’d been right two years ago, and she was right now—it wasn’t her work, it was her. That hurt worse than anything, because she could always get better, change her work, learn better techniques, but she couldn’t change herself.

  “I might have something for you. Real estate, if you think you’d like to try it out. It’s mostly independent work and the clients are more forgiving. Plus, you can always reshoot a building. It generally won’t change from day to day or have anywhere to go. It’s a good way to get your foot in the door. We have quite a few people in that area already though, so it would be very casual. Maybe only once a month, if that, but if you’d like to try it, I can offer you that. Who knows? People are always moving on, finding new opportunities and whatnot. Maybe it could become more regular. I just don’t want to promise you something and then not be able to deliver.”

  “I understand.” Morgun blinked hard, her eyes stinging for another reason now. It wasn’t much, but she hadn’t expected even that, and she was grateful. So grateful she felt like she might break down right there. Her lip trembled and she bit down on it hard to keep David from noticing. Her hands were shaking too. She finally got control of herself and broke into a huge grin. “Thank you! Really. That would be great. I really appreciate it.”

  “I do have quite a few other contacts in the industry for people who do more family stuff and weddings, babies, that type of thing. I could pass your work along, if you’d like, but if you did get hired there, they’d likely need you full time. They’d be demanding. You’d probably feel overworked. You wouldn’t get to set your hours or choose your clients most of the time. I’m just telling you this because I don’t want you to give up a good thing, your own company, and then end up hating it and wishing you’d never gone down that road.”

>   “Yes.” Morgun nodded. She bit her lip again. “Thank you. I’ll consider that. I’ll make sure I ask questions at the interviews, if I get any, so that I can get a feel for the fit. And I’ll consider what you said. About my own company.”

  “Your still shots are very impressive. Some of the best I’ve ever seen. You’re very young and you’re very talented already. I think the real estate will be a good fit. Keep up with that and you never know. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear today, and I’m sorry I can’t offer you more.”

  “No.” Morgun stood and pushed back her chair gently. She offered her hand to David, who shook it gently. “I really appreciate you giving me a chance. Any kind of chance. I thought you were going to just up and tell me that I sucked and that I was always going to suck, so thank you for not doing that.”

  David smiled warmly. “Glad I could help. We have your contact number and we’ll be in touch when jobs arise. We’ll get your information before the first one and we’ll get you to fill out the hire forms. It’s a stack, I warn you.”

  “That’s alright.” Morgun felt like she was swimming. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Something more than she’d had and that meant a lot.

  She gathered up her portfolio and tucked it into her mustard yellow tote. It was barely big enough to hold everything, but it worked for her. She slung it over her shoulder and thanked David again before heading out of the room.

  She was basically floating as she stepped out into the hallway and walked into the reception area. She treated the receptionist, a different lady than last time, to a smile and walked over to the elevator. She pushed the button to go down and waited. The thing took forever before the light even came on, and Morgun found herself tapping her right foot not out of impatience, but out of habit.

  Finally, the metal doors slid open to reveal an empty elevator and Morgun stepped in. She hit the button for the main floor and waited. She was so happy about her new position, even if it was very casual, just once a month, that she didn’t even mind that she was in the world’s slowest elevator.

  All of the sudden, a blur of motion flew through the doors just as they began to close. It shocked Morgun so badly that she dropped her tote off her shoulder and tried to stab at the control panel to keep the doors from crushing the person, but she couldn’t manage to find the right thing to press.

  The doors opened slightly, then changed their mind and continued to shut and the blur of motion smoothed back her hair and stood ramrod straight in the other corner of the elevator.

  That blur was Laney Sterling, and Morgun just happened to currently be trapped in the elevator with her for the next sixteen floors.

  Chapter 15

  Laney

  “Morgun, Morgun, wait!” As soon as the elevator door opened, Morgun burst out like she was in there with a deadly snake waiting to wrap itself around her body and squeeze the life out of her. Laney power-walked after her. She had to get through the building’s lobby and out the front door before she could catch up with her. “Morgun! Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Morgun turned, more fire in her eyes than Laney had ever seen, and her heart basically stopped dead. It restarted painfully, slamming in ways she couldn’t ignore. Her blood surged and her pulse leapt at all her pulse points. Some of them very south of where people usually take a pulse.

  “What? Can you please just leave me alone? You got what you wanted, a date for your brother’s wedding, and I got my interview. Can we just leave it at that?”

  “It went that well, huh?”

  “I did get a job,” Morgun admitted. Her cheeks flushed red and she turned to the side, surveying the busy street like she might consider running between the four lanes of traffic just to get to the other side where Laney couldn’t talk to her. “Thank you. It’s casual. Doing real estate photos. I’m glad for it. It’s a foot in the door, or whatever stupid thing people usually say.”

  Laney could tell that Morgun was disappointed. She was disappointed for her too, but she could imagine how it went, and though Morgun clearly didn’t know it, Laney privately thought that David had done her a favor.

  “I shouldn’t tell you this, or maybe I should, but honestly, I think that’s the best fit for you. Sometimes this job can be, well, draining. It’s not for people who have big hearts and really care about their artistry and their clients. That sounds horrible to say, but when I said that you have to have a thick skin to survive, it’s kind of true.”

  Morgun’s eyes flashed again. “Why does everyone think I’m made of glass?” she hissed.

  “No one thinks that, but David probably told you that he’s seen a lot of people come and go. He has. He knows exactly what kind of person won’t last.”

  “Thanks. That’s so reassuring.”

  “It’s not like that. That’s not what I’m saying. You’re hearing the words, but you don’t really understand.” A huge truck whizzed by them, the wind throwing dirt and dust into their faces. Laney blinked and rubbed at her eyes. Morgun rubbed hers too, and maybe that grit was well-timed. She seemed totally frustrated, and Laney didn’t blame her.

  “Then tell me, because I work with draining people already—families, crying babies, unhappy people, bridezillas!” Morgun rubbed her eyes furiously. “I do all my own bookings. My own editing. I have no assistant. I carry all my own equipment. It’s just me and me only. How could I not handle it?”

  “It’s not that you couldn’t handle it,” Morgun tried to explain, more gently than she could have ever spoken to anyone else. It didn’t escape her that she suddenly felt invested. In what, she couldn’t quite say. “It’s that you’d have those bad experiences that we know will happen and it will ruin photography for you and that’s a shame. Really. To hate what you once loved, that’s hard.”

  “Do you? Hate it?”

  “No! I love my job. But there are days, moments when I hate it. When I resent my clients. When the demands and the scheduling and the stress and the travel gets to be a lot. If I had a dollar for every time a client was rude to me… People get angry about not getting the position they wanted because their headshots weren’t good enough; the modelling job they were trying out for because their shots showed a blemish, or the lighting was off. People get angry when their house doesn’t sell after a week on the market because their listing photos are clearly to blame. A lot of our clients come to us because they want something that most other people can’t give them. They want perfection. They want what’s unattainable. They think that anything can be fixed with edits and with the right lighting and angle, and most of the time, they’re right and that’s why they pay two or three grand for ten minutes of our time and a few head shots.”

  “Are you for real?” Morgun asked. She didn’t look like she believed Laney, but there was enough of her that did, that grain of doubt that brought with it an equal amount of horror.

  “Yes. It’s always my fault when a shoot doesn’t go right. If the client wants their money back, they get it back. There aren’t any reshoots. I’m not my own company and I represent someone else, so when my work isn’t perfect and they hear about it, that sucks. I’ve learned not to perfect my art, but to make my art perfection. That’s not the kind of photography that I wanted to do. That’s not what I imagined myself doing.”

  “It sounds awful.”

  “It’s not. Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. For me, at any rate. I guess I’ve learned to just deal with it and move on. I don’t really even think about the remarks or the pissed off clients or the irrational ones anymore. For every bad client, there are ten more good ones. I love my job, but if you can’t take the good with the bad, if you can’t handle a pissed off client blaming you for something that isn’t your fault, insulting your work, and swearing at you, promising to end you in the industry, or even sending you death threats, then you won’t make it long.”

  “Death threats?”

  “Yeah. Once.” Laney grinned. “Anyway, I’m making it sound terrible, but it’s not.
But that’s what David means. If you can’t deal with that, then you won’t last long. He probably told you the grass was greener where you are, and he’s right. Aside from the messy newborns and the bratty kids and the bridezillas, I almost envy you.”

  “What? Me?”

  Even Laney looked surprised at that, like she’d just discovered something about herself she never expected to find. Buried treasure of the personal variety. “Yeah. I guess. I don’t want to work for someone forever. One day, and one day freaking soon, I want to be out on my own, running my own company.”

  Morgun grunted. “Want to give me a job, then?”

  “Ha!” Laney snorted. “Not a chance.” Morgun could see that she was just kidding.

  Somehow, during the whole conversation, Laney had softened. To the smallest degree, but it was still there. Like choosing a really bad fabric softener over a good one and noticing that your favorite sweater wasn’t so scratchy afterwards and being pleasantly and unexpectedly surprised at the notable difference. It was a difference she could feel.

  “Morgun, I didn’t catch up with you just to ask about your interview. I wanted to, um, apologize to you for the other night. At the wedding. You were right. When you asked me what was wrong with just being me? I’m not mean and nasty, at least, not all the time. I don’t like to act that way. I love my life and I’ve been very blessed. I know I got good breaks when I needed them and I’m happy where I’m at. I’ve practiced it for so long, pretending that things don’t matter, not letting anything get to me, that I probably come across as being really terrible.”

  “Yeah. You do. Kind of.”

  Laney grasped at that kind of, since it watered down the harshness of the first bit just a little. “I just freaked out. I’m not good with intimacy, I guess, and it was unexpected. I don’t usually do impetuous things like that. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. Or that I regret it. Sorry, that came out wrong. Ugh. I’m not good at talking about any of this.”