The lone tear that had tracked down her cheek had been a life preserver saving him from a decision his body was still angry at him for getting bloody wrong.
But he wasn’t there for his needs. Certainly not the kind that made him want to jump across the front seat in all his brutish glory and determine whether Marisa tasted as sweet as she always smelled.
No, tonight, he was there for her, acting the part they had agreed he’d play.
Though he’d yet to meet her family, judging by the decorations in the foyer alone, when he did meet them, he’d do well to look for a ring to kiss or a firstborn child to offer.
Holy shit, he’d never seen so many lights in his life.
“This is brilliant,” he breathed out, hanging up his coat and taking in far more twinkling lights than any Christmas tree, real or fake, could hope to safely wear.
“You get used to it. Here.” Marisa opened a drawer within one of the tables near the entryway and, after digging around a bit, pulled out two pairs of tinted glasses. “They’re to help with light sensitivity and irritability. Dad always keeps a bunch on hand this time of year, as Aunt Gail doesn’t know what the word understated means.” She plucked one from the pile—a horned-rimmed pair with rose-tinted lenses—and tucked it into the pocket of her cardigan.
Alec just stood there, unsure whether accepting a pair would imply he thought the décor too harsh or whether not accepting a pair would be akin to refusing the host’s hospitality.
As if she sensed his unease, Marisa’s eyes softened, and God fucking bless the woman, she helped him through his moment of analysis paralysis. “I’m going with the blue-tinted frameless ones for you, and why don’t I just hang onto them for the time being?”
“Uh, thank you. Is this . . .”—Alec gestured at the rows of long tapered white candles bracketing the stairs, the blue-and-white icicle lights cascading at the opening of every entranceway, and the glittered gold paper lanterns shaped like dreidels hanging from the ceiling before pointing back to the glasses—“normal for Hanukkah parties?”
“Oh, God no! This is purely a Silver family thing. Even though it’s my parents’ house, it’s my Aunt Gail’s party, and the woman is nothing if not severely over-the-top and disgustingly wealthy. She married young to a rich businessman who’d gotten in on the ground floor of a few very profitable investment opportunities. And to my Aunt Gail’s misfortune, or fortune, I guess, her husband died young and left her a shit ton of money. And though she remarried my uncle, my dad’s stepbrother, technically, she still insists on maintaining the prestige she enjoyed while her first husband was alive. It’s why she won’t accept no when she throws her money at the rest of the family and offers to pay off student loans, fund vacations, and replace roofs and furnaces and whatnot.” Marisa dug her hand into a crystal bowl full of gold and silver chocolate coins on top of the entryway table and began peeling one. “Unfortunately, she can’t host the size of crowds she wants to in her condo, so she throws her parties here and foots the bill instead. Pisses the neighbors right the hell off, I can tell you that.”
“Why?”
She handed him a chocolate coin before popping another one into her mouth. “Because all the street-side parking is taken up by her guests, so there’s nowhere else for people to park to gawk at the Christmas decorations the neighbors worked so hard to display. The McCauleys three doors down sync their lights to music and have a sign on their lawn to tune into a certain radio station so you can hear the music in your car in time to the light show, but it doesn’t do them any good if people can’t find a place to park to enjoy it.”
“Isn’t it a public street? Can’t anyone park anywhere they’d like?”
Marisa winked at him and scooped her arm through his. “Exactly. It’s a whole lot of not my problem and one of many reasons I was more than happy to leave my hometown.”
When they entered the kitchen, a silver-haired woman, barely taller than the counters she was somehow lording over, cut off her conversation with a small group of people, untied her apron—another glittery number, except this one had powdered sugar all over it and said Fryer-in-Chief, so I’ll take no grief!—and gave Marisa a huge hug.
“Happy birthday, my dear!”
“Thanks, Ma.” Despite the squishy hug that passed between the two women, Marisa’s shoulders still had a stiff set to them.
“Now,” her mother said with a tone that had quickly slipped into social director mode, “I told all the guests who brought birthday presents to put those over on the kitchen table, while any Hanukkah presents can go on top of the piano. And look, I made it nice and easy for you.” Her mother scurried over to a blue-and-yellow grocery store shopping tote with a big, blaring menorah on the front and jangled it next to her head. “There are mainly cards inside, but I couldn’t resist the gift bag. Don’t you love it? You can take it home with you, too.”
“Ma, it’s not a gift bag. It’s a shopping tote.”
“Which I’m using to gift you things. You see? It’s all a matter of semantics. And you know how hard it is to find Hanukkah items out in the wild like this during the holiday season. I couldn’t not buy it. Besides, I figured you weren’t really in a position to turn it down. Weren’t you telling me recently how all your grocery bags were so tattered?”
Next to him, Marisa’s hand clenched into a fist so tense he suspected it could smash the marble counters—or his jaw, if he wasn’t careful.
“Yup. Thanks,” she clipped out.
“My pleasure.” Then her mother’s eyes lit with an impossibly livelier interest as she noticed Alec. “And who is this?”
Alec stepped forward and extended his hand, hefting an ocean’s worth of charm into his smile. “Alec Elms. A pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Your daughter’s told me so much about you.”
“Beatrice Silver. How lovely to meet you.” Her mother shook his hand with far more force and enthusiasm than he thought capable, but he was also smart enough to know not to question it. “Did Marisa get you some glasses?”
“I believe she did, yes.”
“Wonderful! Most guests don’t need them the first night, as there aren’t as many candles to light, but we do love our opulence when it comes to the Festival of Lights.” Then she flashed him a smile that showed a bit too many teeth for his liking. “The McCauleys aren’t the only ones who get to be extra.” The last word was said with air quotes that made Marisa wince.
“Ma thinks everyone should be able to drain down the power grid from time to time. She’s an equal opportunity electricity hog.”
“I am not! I just think that there are plenty of watts to go around, and just because we don’t have illuminated lawn ornaments or Christmas twinkle lights lining our eaves and railings for two months shouldn’t mean we can’t throw off our own sparks during this time of year as well.”
