“No offense, but you’re also pretty ‘had two tickets to Hawaii.’”
“That too,” Petey agreed without missing a beat. “I have lots of things going for me. Anyway, I have to go to a holiday luau right now, and you’re so busy being in love that you’re not even jealous, which is taking half the fun out of it.”
“I’d be jealous if I could go with Mira.” What could be a better way to get to know someone than a week in Hawaii? It was clearly working out fine for Petey and Anne.
“Maybe next year,” Petey said. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Wade let Mira’s podcast keep him company through dinner. Even with only one episode under his belt, he could already see how she made a living off this: she was knowledgeable, witty, appreciative, and colorful. She wove easily back and forth between trivia, analysis, and sheer enthusiasm without ever missing a beat, and her love for her subject matter was clear. He picked one of her “hate-watch” episodes for a follow-up, just to hear how she handled a movie shedidn’tlike, and even when she was poking a lot more fun at something, she was still insightful and generous.
“I need to watch some more romance movies,” he said to Fiona, who—in between meowing plaintively for bites of his dinner—had been listening to the podcast almost as avidly as he had. She must have liked the sound of Mira’s voice.
So did he, but that was hardly surprising.
“We’ll pull together a list from her show,” he told Fiona, running his hand down her back until she let out another rumbly little purr. “She’s bound to have a bunch of good recommendations.”
She looked up at him with her lamplight-yellow eyes. Fiona had two expressions: surprised and judgmental. Right now the dial was set to “judgment.”
He was going to have to hope that in addition to liking cats, Mira would also think it was totally reasonable for him to have whole conversations with his. Otherwise he was going to be in big trouble.
“How am I going to tell her? That’s what that look’s about?” He scratched around her ears again. “I don’t know. I’ve never had to do this before, obviously. I can’t drop it on her out of nowhere, but I can’t let it go on too long without telling her, either, or it gets weird. I’ll have to find a quiet time this week to ask her out and then go from there.”
Fiona narrowed her eyes, as if asking him if he even remembered how busy things had been today. Or as if falling asleep, but Wade liked to pretend it was the former.
“I know, but this was my first day,” Wade said. “It’ll calm down.”
Then he remembered the fortune cookie’s promise and felt a shiver of trepidation.
Chapter Six
December 21
“STARTING TODAY—”
Whenever Mr. Marsh addressed the assembled Christmas Village troops, he always sounded like a drill sergeant getting ready to knock a few heads together.
“STARTING TODAY, WE ARE GOING TO GET RID OF SOME BAD HABITS.”
An elderly part-time elf in the front row winced at his bellowing and adjusted her hearing aid. Mira tried to imagine following suit, turning down the volume on her ears.
“We have grown complacent,” Marsh said. “We have gotten sloppy. We need tostep it up, everyone. These are the last few shopping days before Christmas, and we need to make our presence here count.”
Technically, Mira understood why Marsh was so gung-ho about making the Christmas Village a no-holds-barred holiday extravaganza. In his own way, he was a seasonal employee too. This was his chance to make a good impression on his bosses, and if he handled it just right, maybe he could spin it into a permanent Honey Brook management position that would matter even after the holidays were over.
It made sense. She would have been on his side about it if he hadn’t decided that management-job-in-waiting gave him a God-given right to run them all ragged.
Andif he hadn’t kept her in the Galadriel costume. She couldn’t help holding a tiny grudge about that.
But to be honest, it was hard to remember any petty squabbles with Marsh when Wade was sitting next to her. All the folding chairs were crammed together so tightly that she couldn’t help her thigh brushing his—and since she couldn’t helpit, she might as well enjoy it. The delicate frisson of attraction between them woke her up way more than her morning coffee had.
Of course, she wished it was keeping her awake for something more exciting than Marsh’s rundown of all the impractical, last-minute changes he wanted them to make, but hey, you couldn’t have everything.
“Starting today, we’re going to wrap more presents!”
They already wrapped all the presents anyone brought them to wrap. They couldn’t wrap gifts that didn’t exist.
Marsh’s second command was more doable but also more groanworthy: they were going to change carol-oke, a daily event where the elves coaxed kids into scream-singing Christmas carols, into anall-dayactivity.
