“As someone whose company recently went through an audit, I’m here to say that you guys can be total assholes.” Before my outrage can fully spin up, she adds drily, “Then again, I imagine your clients can be total assholes right back.”
A startled laugh escapes me, and she laughs too. It breaks more of the ice, and she picks up our newly orderly lights and indicates for me to help her start winding them around the tree. After that, she starts to place her boring—okay, fine, traditional—ornaments at precise intervals around the tree, strictly alternating the red with the green. To offset her structured design aesthetic, I take more of a free-flowing approach. I fling my pink spheres onto whichever branch catches my fancy, then start unpacking the army of madly grinning nutcrackers I picked out last week. They range in size from eight inches to four feet, and they all look demented enough to cause nightmares if they came to life. I love each and every one of them.
Reese gives the nutcracker closest to her a wary glance before returning to her favorite subject.
“I shouldn’t be venting.” She repositions one of my pink ornaments that apparently ended up too close to one of her red ones. “He’s a really thoughtful guy. He’s always trying to figure out what I might want so he can surprise me with it. I’m talking concert tickets, new restaurants to try, movies, jewelry…”
I strangle my tiny spurt of jealousy. “That sounds amazing.”
“It would be if he actually knew what I liked.” She frowns the tiniest, woe-is-me frown. “Sometimes, he nails it. But other times, it’s like he has no idea who I am.”
“Yeah?” I peek around the tree to study her. She looks expensive and pulled together, with stick-straight blonde hair and minimally elegant makeup. Her dark brown boots have a pristine, glossy finish, and the pearls in her ears scream I’m classier than you can ever hope to be. “I’d say you’re a professional woman who likes quality things, values her time, and doesn’t like to waste it.”
“Exactly,” she says in exasperation. “Thank you. So tell me why he wants us to go on a New Year’s trip to Napa.”
I blink in surprise. “You don’t like the idea?”
“I mean, it’s a slow time of year for our division—we work for the same company,” she says. “So I guess it makes sense to take a trip that week. But why there?”
“Um, because wine? Spas? Sunshine? Fine dining?” I say. “That sounds like an incredible way to start the year.”
“Yeah. I suppose most women would be excited.”
“That’s me. Hi. I’m most women.”
She laughs and grabs some garland to wind around the tree. “I’ll tell him to take you instead. While you’re keeping him company, I’ll be off meeting with some of our peer companies in California to talk best practices.”
I shudder theatrically, then try to picture the kind of man Reese would end up with. She’s already said he’s a workaholic, but is he as brisk and businesslike as she is? Probably not; otherwise, he’d be using their vacation time to meet those competitors with her. As for his looks… she’s beautiful, so he’s probably beautiful too. But she’s the angular kind of beauty that’s the complete opposite of my fertility goddess curves, as my mom always refers to them. So I’m guessing her boyfriend’s similar: lean, compact, precise.
Okay, my imagination’s straight-up galloping away now. I refocus and ask, “How long have you two been seeing each other?”
“We’re celebrating our two-year anniversary next month. Hence, Napa.”
“Hence,” I say. So she was being swept off her feet while I was still licking my wounds over losing my dream man and my dream job. God really does have favorites. “You said you met at work?”
She nods absently, picking up the little nutcracker nearest to her.
“It was past time. We’d been flirting forever, and he was clearly into me, but he didn’t make a move until I came up with a plan to push back on that terrible audit I mentioned.”
Alarm trickles down my spine. “The audit was two years ago?”
She sets the nutcracker down and picks up the big one next to it. Each wooden figure is painted in different colors and styles, but all of them look ready to go to war. For some reason, that spoke to me. Reese pulls up the handle on the man she’s holding, then lets its teeth snap together with a loud clack.
“Shit,” a voice behind me says. “That thing could take off a real man’s nuts.”
Reese’s face brightens. “You made it!”
I turn around slowly, and my first thought is nope, her boyfriend isn’t lean or compact in any way. He’s broad and muscular, and he also has a beard now.
“What the...” Wyatt stops in his tracks, clenching and unclenching his hands, before continuing his unhurried stroll to join his girlfriend. “Well, that explains the castration theme.”
His little dig breaks my temporary paralysis.
“Yep, that’s exactly what I was going for.” My smile bares even more teeth than the nutcracker in his girlfriend’s hands. “Feminist rage for the holidays.”
“Actually,” he says, rocking back on his heels, “I’m not sure why you bothered to bring the little men when you’re capable of smashing a man’s nuts all on your own.”
And here comes my temper, riding to the rescue. “If that were true, you’d be even more of a ball-less wonder than you already are.”
