Her next leveling glare is a priceless work of art. “It’s none of your damn business if I’m sending pictures.”
“You should send them videos,” I encourage.
“Videos?” she shouts, blue eyes widening before nearly closing as she gives an apologetic smile to a small group across the bar. To me, she angrily whispers, “Are you insane?”
“I’m just saying—” I push myself from the bar and start pouring another beer. “I’d appreciate a video.”Very much.
She presses the back of a hand to her cheeks; I could have told her she’s flushed.
“Don’t do it, Hollis,” Marv yells from the kitchen. “The internet is a one-stop shop to losing your identity.”
“Noted,” she shouts in response, squeezing her eyes closed before opening them with a sharp exhale. To me: “This conversation is over. I am fine. Thirsty and fine. I will not be telling my date about beertending because there’s nothing to tell anyone.”
I wave my palms like white flags. “Fine.”
As I fall into brief conversation with a couple while pouring their beers, Hollis scrubs the glasses in a sink like they personally attacked her. She’s muttering. She looks good—damn good—and judging by the caught phrase ofI should have never worn this stupid outfitshe’s mad. At me.
I lean next to the sink, alittleguilty. I should have let her have her fun. Should have gone along with the internet dating show.
“Listen,” I say in a voice low enough only she can hear. “I?—”
“No,” she scowls, shutting off the sink with a slam. “You listen. I know what you’re doing.” Her voice is an angry whisper. “And you know what?”
“Hollis,” I say calmly.
“You’re right,” she says over me. “I was never going to send a picture. Or online date. I, foolish as it is, am very attracted to you, Jay the brewery owner. I was trying to—” She drops her head back and groans, and all I can think about is how damnadorable she is and what her mouth tastes like. “To make you jealous by pretending I was.”
“Hollis.”
“It is purely seasonal psychosis making me act this way,” she goes on. “And it’s noted that you do not reciprocate, and you think toying with me is funny. Surprise: I’m an adult woman who swoons over hand holding.” She laughs like it's not funny. “I invited myself to be your tagalong Holiday Club member, and that’s all. I know you?—”
“Hollis,” I say a little louder and with a laugh, finally getting through to her. “Stop. Talking. I want to show you something.” She snaps her mouth closed and I gesture for her to follow me to an empty adjacent room with one large window filling the wall. We stand at it, her eyes following the night-covered hedge of trees lining a driveway until they land on the lit-up clearing at the end.
She squints. “An Airstream?”
“I live there,” I tell her. “With Goose. My dad was—is—a lawyer with his own firm. I worked there—with my brother and sister—as a lawyer—for years. Didn’t love it—wanted to brew beer. I bought this property. Bought the Airstream. Built the brewery.”
“A lawyer?” she asks, stunned, looking at me like she’s seeing me for the first time.
Her reaction isn’t unique. Most people think it’s weird. Some people wonder if I couldn’t hack it as an attorney and had to tuck tail to the woods; others think I’m too poor to afford a real house. When I made the decision, my sister was convinced I was having a midlife crisis, while my brother told me I had the right idea choosing a life of solitude. My parents, however, thought it was a phase I would outgrow.
The truth is, I like it. The simplicity. The ease.
“Real estate law, mostly. I wanted you to know.” A hint of self-consciousness leaks into my voice. This woman bleeds all things tradition, so there’s a good chance she won’t appreciate this. Get it. Want to have any part of it. Judging by the look on her face, she’s thinking those same things too.
She stares at the lit-up silver camper in the woods, chewing her lip. I wonder if she sees the chairs under the striped awning we could sit in sometime or the picnic table we could eat burgers at. Her silence lasts almost the entire time the band plays “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
Finally, she says, “My kids asked me to bake cookies with them this week, and I almost told them no because I was mad at Ryan for everything he’s done.” She doesn’t look away from the window as she talks. “I realized how stupid I was before I could. So, we baked the cookies—with store-bought dough—in the middle of the week. It was fun—even though I refused to turn on Christmas music. Then they told me they didn’t go watch the movie in the park because their dad took them to see something different in the theater. It didn’t bother me as much as I expected.”
She pauses, seemingly lost in thought, both of us staring at the lit-up Airstream.
“Either way, this night every year, I’m usually with them at a table selling cookies, but I’m not. And the truth is—” She looks at me for the first time since she’s started talking. “Tonight, I don’t mind. Being here, I mean. I’m happy. Really happy. That I’m here with you instead of there with them. I’m not sure if that makes me a bad mom to say out loud, but there it is.” Her eyes bounce between mine, not a drop of judgement in them.
“One day, I hope you invite me inside your home,” she says. “And the next morning, I hope we have coffee under that awning in those two chairs.” She points at said chairs out the window, scrunching her nose as she does. “At sunrise.”
She smiles shyly, and without her even knowing it, plucks my heart right out of my chest.
“I’d like that.”Tonight.“Mostly the part about the next morning.”
