“Sorry,” I murmur. “I was just thinking about marrying you.”
She blinks, then her cheeks flame. “How is that important when we don’t have any Christmas decorations beyond the teeny-tiny little tree Fawn let me get at a Dollar General three years ago?”
“She wouldn’t let you decorate beyond a tiny tree?”
“She kept saying it was her apartment, too.”
I arch a brow. “Wouldn’t that go both ways?”
“That’s what several of my argumentative essays focused on, yes. But in her responding essays, she insisted that she was allergic to holiday cheer and would die, which took priority over my carefree wishes for gaiety.”
“She is so weird.”
“She issoweird.” Mirabelle huffs, dividing cookies and slices of bread into dedicated snack-pack freezer bags. “I love her somuch. I wish I hadn’t been so nervous around your friend, and I wish Fawn hadn’t interrupted every possible conversation with laughing her head off. Forrest seemed nice. I would have liked to get to know him better.”
I date the freezer bags when Mirabelle passes them to me and hum. “You could get to know him at a wedding, or while we prep for a wedding.”
She snaps her fingers in my face. “Damion,focus. We need to prep forChristmas. What if my parents come?”
Frozen in front of the freezer, I blink. I have heard nothing about Mirabelle’s parents. I’d assumed, given her modest livelihood, career path, and general cautious demeanor that her parents were either gone or better off gone.
But if she’s bringing them up as though they might come by for Christmas, that means I’ve beenwrong.
She grew up here, which is why she went to school with idiots like Jeffry who also grew up here.
That means…either her parents are here, or they’ve moved away. Would they really have moved out of their quaint and quiet little town and away from their daughter, though? That seems unlikely, somehow.
A prickle of unease settles in my stomach. “Mirabelle…”
“Yes?”
“Where do your parents live?”
“Off Azure Lane, why?”
Azure Lane?That’s ten minutes from here.
I stare at her. “Why…weren’t they here today?”
Horror creases her brows. “Why weren’t theyhere?Today? AtthisThanksgiving? The one Fawn cackled through?”
I nod.
“Possibly because there is a merciful God. What do youmeanwhy weren’t they present for this train wreck?”
“It’s Thanksgiving.”
“Your parents didn’t come!”
“My parents are on the other side of the world, launching extensive business plans and making social calls in places that don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.Yoursare down the street.” I swallow, cut my fingers through my hair. “Do…do they know about me?”
Mirabelle fixes her attention on the last few slices of pumpkin pie and toys with the cling wrap covering the dish. “I…told them I got a new job. Back when I got this new job.”
So, no, then. Her parents don’t know we’re dating.
“Doyourparents know…about me?” she asks with the tone of a woman who already seems to know the answer.
“Yes.”
