The gelt that Marisa had pounded earlier threatened to revolt. She looked to Alec, desperately hoping mind reading wasn’t actually a made-up thing and just hadn’t been widely studied yet.
Yeah, his tense stare returned a big fat nope on that front. She could practically see the question mark thought bubble ballooning above his head. Wonderful.
“Well, we actually met at a party in New York.”
“Yes,” Alec chimed in, trying to follow her lead. “A party for . . .”
“Rugby players! Alec plays rugby. For Great Britain! Which has Scottish players, too, because he’s, uh, Scottish!” As soon as the words left her mouth, Marisa cringed and wanted so desperately to call them back. Or alternately, find a table to crawl beneath, preferably one with half a ton of silver weighing it down.
Which has Scottish players, too? Because he’s Scottish? Fucking really? Is he also a masculine man who prefers things made out of wooden wood, as opposed to metallic metal?
“Hmm . . .” her dad mused, smearing his chin with powdered sugar as he put on his proverbial thinking cap. “Can’t say I know much about the sport, but I sure know a Scottish accent when I hear one.”
“Right,” Alec said, forcing out the fakest chuckle that had ever been chuckled.
Meanwhile, her mother had somehow unearthed another bottle of wine, uncorked it, and was letting the liquid breathe . . . on its way down her throat. “What were you doing at the rugby party?” she asked Marisa. “Were you on the catering staff?”
“Um.” Marisa’s wherewithal was falling as fast as her spirits were sinking as they continued to get pummeled by the lies surrounding her truths. Her insides twisted with indecision. How could she tell her mother, in front of all these people, that even at a fake party where she would have met her fake rugby star of a boyfriend, she’d still just been a fucking cater waiter?
“Actually,” Alec broke in, surprising her, “Marisa was selling her gourmet confections. Sweetest Heart’s Desire had a booth at the media event. There was this beautiful dark-haired lass handing out loads of sweet tea-infused caramels, and I’m a sucker for anything my dentist hates, so I couldn’t resist. And that’s where it all started.”
A wellspring of emotion lodged itself in Marisa’s throat, but it was immediately forced out by the smile she couldn’t contain. In the short time she’d been around Alec, she’d never known him to use the word lass. As far as she’d heard him tell it, where he was from in Scotland, the only men who still called young women lasses were working on great-grandfather status and solidly collecting their state pensions.
Regardless, it worked like a freaking charm and added a thrilled sparkle to the eyes of every woman in the room.
Except for her Aunt Gail.
“How long have you two been dating?” her aunt asked, folding her arms across her chest. “It can’t be that long, or I’d have heard about it.”
“It only just happened?—”
“About a few months or so?—”
Shit on a fucking shingle.
Marisa turned to Alec, her panicked gaze colliding with his as quickly as their words had. “Uh, I mean,” Marisa hedged, widening her eyes and hoping Alec got the freaking hint that he needed to come up with something good pretty damn quick.
“What Marisa means is,” he said, drawing out his words, “that it feels like it only just happened. It’s all pretty new still.”
“Do you know what else is new?” Marisa hurried out. “My birthday and Hanukkah! First night turning the big 3-0 and first night we all get to experience shared regret over the amount of fried food we all stuffed our faces with.”
Her dad leaned toward her mother, silently stole a sip of the woman’s newly refilled wine—which already had been drained by two-thirds—and lifted the glass in solidarity. “It’s game time, honey bun. I’m so ready for this.”
After she and Alec fielded a few more of what Marisa deemed as requirement questions—How much time is Alec on the road? Is the long distance between the two of you challenging? Can I get free tickets to a match sometime?—the festivities commenced, for better or worse.
Marisa snaked her arm around Alec’s bicep and held on for dear life as she whispered, “Safety glasses on,” a Bill Nye reference she was thrilled he understood when he chuckled softly. She gritted her teeth through “Happy Birthday” and then chanted along softly when the blessings were said to light the candles.
“I’ll say, Alec, I do have to commend you,” her dad said after swiping off his light sensitivity glasses and stowing them into what Marisa always thought of as the Dad Pocket on the front of his button-down shirt, “you’re braver than I was the first few times we went all out for Hanukkah. My poor corneas couldn’t take this much light, even with it being celebrated in the evening.” He gave Alec a friendly pat on the back, then threw his hands up. “Just don’t send me any optometrist bills. I haven’t quite met my deductible for the end of the year, so I’m still on the hook for our healthcare costs.”
Marisa’s mom moved the tray of cookies farther out of her dad’s reach. “Then you should have taken your Lipitor before you got into the sweets. C’mon. Help me get the paper plates out so we can start serving, or do you want to keep stealing bites and pretending I don’t see?”
“You mean I have a choice?” he asked, though Marisa wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a genuine question or her dad mocking his lot in life. She decided she didn’t want to know.
With the ceremonies out of the way and the guests having finally been released from their assigned spots and given free rein to mingle toward the food, Marisa was left to take in all the high-production value of the spectacle around her.
“You know, this would be a good time to take some pictures and post them. Most of Aunt Gail’s friends have already started carving out their feeding troughs, so who knows when we’ll get the star centerpiece of the party all to ourselves.”
“I’ll do it,” Alec offered, pulling out his phone.
