by Brynn North
Luckily, it worked. “Sounds fun,” Steve said, nodding. “I told my granny about it. She’s pretty excited. Got her Tuesday night poker crew planning their outfits already.”
Cute. Luci smiled, thinking of the adorable Christmas sweaters they would wear.
“Yeah,” Steve continued. “I promised her I’d drive her and a couple friends to Hot Topic this weekend. I guess she saw some good ones online.”
Blinking, she wondered just what kind of Christmas sweaters came from Hot Topic, then decided she really didn’t want to know.
Once Steve was out of her cube, Luci grabbed her phone from under her leg.
Luci: Gotta go soon, work on my Christmas event.
Sebastian: Hey, want to drop the center with me tomorrow morning? It’s my day to volunteer, do my rounds with the members there. You can’t stay in the room when I’m doing my work obviously, HIPPA and all that, but you’ll meet plenty of people, and we can chat with the director personally.
Luci fell back in her chair. Sebastian wanted to take her with him to volunteer? Meet people he saw all the time? He must be thinking of her long term. Why else would he be willing to introduce her to somewhere he cared about so much? Alex had no idea what he was talking about, she decided. This was a good, caring man.
Luci: I’d love to come with you! Drop by tomorrow when you’re leaving so we can ride together?
Sebastian: Perfect. See you then.
Luci was still walking on air the next morning when they arrived at the door of the center, clinging to Sebastian’s arm upon his insistence that he help her on the icy sidewalks.
“So I need to make rounds, but let me introduce you to a few of my favorites first. You can get to know them a bit while I’m doing my thing.” He smiled at her and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. Luci grinned back.
“Wonderful,” she said, despite the butterflies in her stomach. They’re just people who happen to be older than you, she told herself. For fuck’s sake, quit acting like they forgot how to talk or something. They’ll be perfectly fine.
Sebastian walked her down the hall to a large gathering room. With a Christmas tree in the corner, and a fire going in the middle of the room, it was surprisingly cozy.
“I’m not sure what to do,” she whispered.
“Just go up and talk to them,” he answered in a low voice. “So many of them are probably desperate for new company. They’ve been talking to one another for years. There’s only so many times you can listen to the same shit over and over.”
He led Luci over to a woman reading on a Kindle by the fireplace, and murmured to her, “Talk to Molly here. She spent years as a nurse in the military, then ran an animal shelter in retirement. She’s a hoot. One of my favorites.”
Looking at the older woman in a wheelchair, Luci wasn’t so sure. Molly just looked like a quiet older woman to her, but be damned if Luci would let Sebastian think she couldn’t handle some older people.
“Ms. Molly!” Sebastian boomed. “Let me introduce you to my friend, Luci.”
“Well hello there, Luci. Looks like our handsome doctor brought himself a lady this time. Lucky you!”
That broke the ice. Grinning, Luci plopped in the chair next to Molly and gave her a little wink for Sebastian’s benefit. “Yes, lucky me indeed.”
“You know, when I was your age, I had me a string of good-looking men like him.” Molly leaned closer. “And I got about ten men chatting me up on the SilverSingles app too.”
“Got any tips for me?” Luci was only half-joking.
Sebastian smiled at the two of them. “Sounds like the two of you will be just fine?”
Luci waved him away, already engrossed in what Molly was telling her, mainly to not become some man’s caregiver, amongst other nuggets of gold. Huh. Apparently having a license at that age was quite the draw as well. Luci must remember that in about fifty years.
All of Luci’s nerves disappeared within minutes of Sebastian leaving, and she began to feel more than a little ashamed of herself. Who knew old people were so much fun! Once people caught wind of Molly to talking to someone new, the crowd grew and grew until before she knew it, there were ten people sitting around the fire in a circle, trading dating stories from their past.
“So you’re telling me you just play on your phone, do some swiping, and a boyfriend shows up for you? And they call this Bumblebee?” An older English man named Harold was incredulous about the new way of dating in the twenty-first century. Guess he hadn’t heard of SilverSingles yet. “I would have killed for that! In my day, we had to ask the lady and grovel to her dad a bit too.”
Luci snorted. “Sounds like Molly has to tell you about the SilverSingles app then. But trust me, it’s anything but easy. Too many choices. You and thirty other people competing for the same pool of men. At least you guys knew your dates were one on one.”
That got everyone talking about dating back in their days, and what would have been better. Luci sat back and listened with a smile on her face, chiming in here and there.
Just then, Sebastian appeared back in the room.
“Oh, it’s our handsome doctor,” Evelyn whispered. Or at least tried. With her hearing aids, she wasn’t great at volume control.
“You guys having fun?” He addressed the crowd but put his hand lightly on Luci’s shoulder. She beamed with pride at being recognized as ‘his girl’ as Harold would have put it.
“Oh, yes. This young girl here has been telling us all about herself. Do you know that she pays crazy money every week at the gym to get yelled at by someone on an exercise bike?”
Sebastian threw back his head and laughed. “I always wondered why people do that myself. Hey, did she talk to you about the party?”
“No, I meant to, but I got sidetracked!” Luci eagerly addressed the crowd. “I think most of you heard my company, Logical Solutions, is sponsoring a holiday party for East Village, right?” Luci went into detail, discussing how the Christmas party would be decorated, have entertainment, and catered with some favorite holiday foods.
The crowd was silent for a moment after her spiel. “Dr. Molina, you have a great girl here,” one of them finally said, and Luci’s heart felt like it doubled in size. Right now, the party was no more than a mental list of things she had to look into, but this got her excited to start the actual planning.
“They really liked you,” Sebastian said back in the car, impressed.
“I liked them too!” Luci burst into stories of all they talked about, and how she taught them about some new technology she worked with, and apps she used every day. “You should have seen a few of them when I showed them the Instacart app!”
Suddenly she realized that she was blabbing on and on and caught herself. “Oh! How were your appointments?”
“They were fine.” He smiled tenderly. “And don’t worry. I love hearing how you got along with everyone. Stories like this make all the stress and long hours of my job worth it.”
Luci felt giddy with the effects of the whole morning. It had been a long, long time since she’d felt useful for something besides her work, and even longer than that for when a man had complimented her and meant it.
Sebastian walked her to her door, one floor below the apartment he shared with Alex. “Got to take a nap before I head to work tonight, but I really had a great time with you this morning.” He pulled her in for a hug, and before she even had time to react to being so physically close to him and smelling his delicious Armani cologne, he bent down and suddenly, his mouth was on hers.
And he tasted amazing. All thoughts of senior citizens and work flew out of her head as Luci wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Oh, God. It was the first time she had kissed a man in months, and the last time was just to break a dry spell so she could say she kissed someone in that calendar year, at least. She parted her lips, just slightly, and tasted him, losing herself in the moment.
Sebastian pulled back right as she was contemplating asking him into
her apartment and rested his head on top of her head, her face pressed up against his muscular chest. “That was nice,” he muttered.
“Yes.” It came out in a whisper. Partially because she couldn’t breathe.
Giving her one final squeeze, he promised, “I’ll call you,” before heading up the stairs.
Alex laid on the couch, flicking through Netflix movies, trying to find something to watch that wasn’t some cheesy holiday movie where the main characters found out they were perfect for each other. He couldn’t handle that kind of love story right now. Better to watch some story where things got blown up.
He knew he should be doing something more productive, hell, there were pregnant women out there training for marathons in the snow, or teenagers feeding starving puppies, or, as he heard the key in the lock, men giving free checkups to senior citizens on a fixed income. Fucking heartbreak. He knew he should pull his head out of his ass, but it just took so much energy to take the first step, energy he didn’t seem to have right now.
“How was the center?” Alex said as Sebastian perched on the chair next to him.
“Good. Just love the people there. Favorite part of the week. Luci did well too,” he said, not looking up from his phone. Alex glanced over.
“Wait, are you on Tinder? Didn’t you just go out with Luci?”
Sebastian’s thumbs were working overtime, swiping away. “Yeah, so?”
Alex was dumbfounded. “Well, she likes you.” Surely even Sebastian wasn’t that oblivious, right?
“She’s cool. But we’re not a thing yet, so ain’t no harm in keeping options open, yeah? I bet you’re hitting it hard too after you broke it off with your girl. We probably got some of the same people in our queue. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?”
With a shake of his long hair, Sebastian headed to his room.
Fuck. Alex didn’t have Tinder on his phone. Never even considered it while he was getting over Dani, and was pretty damn sure Luci wasn’t using it right now either.
Furious, he stormed right downstairs to Luci’s apartment, rapping on her door urgently.
“What’s up?” Luci looked worried at his sudden arrival at her door.
Alex noticed that Luci was in another one of her new fancy outfits, this time with torn jeans and a form-fitting long sleeve shirt. Her bare toes were polished. Alex just grew angrier. She looked this good and Sebastian was still chasing other women? Shouldn’t he just be damn happy with what he had going for him?
“You’ve got to quit seeing Sebastian, Luce.” He pushed his way in and flopped down on her couch. He noticed the stack of letters on her kitchen table hadn’t moved since he over last week. That or she was putting them in the same scattered position as they left them.
“What the actual fuck? I told you to stay out of it! You just can’t see me happy, can you?”
“Sebastian will NOT make you happy!” The words shot out before Alex could stop them.
She snorted. “What do you think will make me happy then? Being single on the holidays for the twenty-fifth year running? Browsing through Target slowly for the third time this week, hoping that the men there aren’t picking up tampons for their wives? You haven’t been single in years, you don’t know how hard it is.”
Alex’s stomach dropped because he knew Luci’s words had at least some truth to them. He had realized that he hadn’t wanted to marry Dani, but he still hadn’t been lonely year after year like Luci had been.
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt. Sebastian is a guy who can hurt a girl.” Alex cringed at how lame that sounded as it came out of his mouth, but still unwilling to break her spirit by telling her Sebastian was on Tinder as they spoke. He didn’t want her to feel ditched by yet another man.
“Alex. Stay the fuck out of it!” Luci’s voice rose at the end and Alex went cold. “You’re just used to me being the single friend, the one you can call on when you have a free night, throwing me scraps of your free time like a dog. Now I’m finally getting happy and you just can’t stand to see it, can you?”
They stood there, staring at each other. Luci finally broke the silence.
“You need to leave, Alex.” This time she wasn’t yelling. Her voice was calm and measured, which made it a hundred times worse.
Alex stared at her for a few more seconds before breaking eye contact. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
With that, he turned to leave.
6
The snow fell outside the window beside Luci’s desk, but she barely noticed despite how pretty the scene was. Luci always loved the first few fresh snowfalls of the season. It was just when Minnesota got to the millionth snowfall of the season when she started fantasizing about moving out of the state to somewhere with more reasonable temperatures. Like Florida, she briefly considered, finally looking out at the snow. Maybe moving to a different zip could get her out of this mess. Naw, Florida had too many bugs. Better just power through than get eaten by a black widow.
Sighing, she pulled up a blank spreadsheet and her fingers started flying over the keyboard.
1. Confirm venue
2. Advertise party
3. Get casino games
4. Get people to donate boxes
5. Confirm food and drinks
On and on her list went until she put her head in her hands and groaned. So much to do and less than three weeks to do it. She’d be working all weekend.
Guilt started eating away at her. She hadn’t meant to let things slip so badly. She was just so damn distracted the last couple weeks. Texting with Sebastian and trying to think of the right thing to say took so much brainpower.
And Alex. Their argument ran over and over in her head. Alex hadn’t reached out since their fight and like hell she would be the icebreaker. Not after the way he talked to her. But she missed him so much. Maybe she should give him a break. The poor guy was going through a hard time after all.
No. She thought to herself. Hard time or not, a best friend should be happy for her. The only other time in the history of their friendship that he let her down was that time after prom that she flat out refused to think about. Alex rejected her, and it took all she had, both back then and since, to pretend it didn’t happen.
Luci’s thumbs hesitated over her phone. She desperately needed help, and the only other person who could help her besides Alex was Sebastian. She just wasn’t sure if they were at the stage where she could ask him for help with something like this. She was desperate to know where things were going, but equally desperate not to have the DTR talk.
Well, they were texting every day and saw each other when he had a rare free night, so that was pretty close to commitment, right?
Luci: Free tonight by chance? Would love to talk more about the party.
Surprisingly, Sebastian’s answer was immediate.
Sebastian: Sounds great. I get off at 8. I can come over after?
He wouldn’t get there till nine, which sounded kinda late to get started, but he was a busy young doctor. She needed to accept his schedule and go with the flow. At least, that’s what she read on Google. Luci’s credit card bill was hurting, but her closet was hurting even worse now that she had seen Sebastian several times and worn all her good new clothes. It was way too early to repeat outfits. Time to head to the boutique for something new.
Maria snapped her gum as she listed to Luci’s rationale a few hours later. “I guess,” she said doubtfully.
Luci placed the peppermint mocha she brought Maria to bribe her into a good mood on top of a stack of glossy brochures advertising the perfect Christmas party dresses. “Come on, you know a doctor has a harder job than we do, with me just typing at my computer and you selling clothes.”
Maria gave a one-shoulder shrug as her arm shot out for the mocha. “Hard jobs are in the eye of the beholder,” she said serenely, further raising Luci’s suspicious that she was a psychology major. “But I still think he can make time for what’s important to him. Sure he might not be available to
hang out every hour, but why not text you ideas during lunch or have that director of the center you told me about call you? He does enough for them. I mean, what do you guys talk about when he texts?”
Luci started picking through the clothing racks, too embarrassed to admit that their conversations amounted to light banter. “I don’t know. I just try to keep it light for him. Stressful job and all. But it’s going somewhere. I know it. He texts me almost every day.”
Luci avoided looking at Maria, not wanting to see what she thought of that. Instead, she held up a camel-colored knit sweater. “What do you think of this?” she asked brightly.
“Hey, gorgeous.” Sebastian entered her door, pushed her up against the wall, greeting her with a kiss that left her breathless.
Yes! She knew it! Maria and Alex were wrong. Dead wrong.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, finally breaking away, noticing Luci’s table, cluttered in paper.
“Oh, so much to do with the party,” she admitted. “And it’s only a couple weeks away.”
“Poor baby,” he said, putting his arms around her, making her forget about the party. Almost.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “But what am I going to do?”
“Just walk through it one step at a time.”
The hell. No kidding. What else could she do, all thirty things on her list at once? If she could do that, the whole damn thing would be done already. She wouldn’t be calling him over at 9:00 p.m. in a desperate call for help.
“I was thinking maybe we could go over a few ideas together?” She treaded carefully, not wanting to stress or annoy Sebastian.
“Absolutely. Let’s get comfortable first though.” Sebastian crossed over to her wine rack and pulled out a red. Luci’s most expensive red, she saw. If you can call twenty bucks expensive, which she did. “Can you find us something on Netflix?”
Wondering what the heck Netflix had to do with party planning, she nonetheless started flicking through the channels, stopping on a cheesy holiday movie, figuring that it didn’t require much brainpower to watch. At least their relationship was progressing from going out to a night in. That had to be good news. Getting comfortable with each other.