Page 75 of Not Home Alone

“You have rehearsal today?” he asks.

“Yes, but I’m going to stop by the store first. The mayor’s doing his proclamation photo op today, and I want to make sure my dad’s eyebrows don’t look too crazy. What about you?”

He brushes hair out of my face and says, “I have a lunch meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Schoeffling, actually, but it should be a pretty slow day.”

I don’t know why that makes me feel icky, and I wish it didn’t, but it does. He met them through me, because I brought him to the Factory. They liked him because they saw that I had forgiven him. Soon, he won’t need me by his side in order to win the people of Holly Grove over, and I guess that makes me feel insignificant. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.

“I don’t suppose you can join us?” he asks, while stroking my leg over the comforter, all the way down to my cartoon feet.

I instantly regret feeling icky. “I would love to, thank you for asking. But rehearsal starts at noon today and goes to five. Please give them my regards and tell Cindy to keep her hands off you.”

“Pretty intense schedule for community theater.”

“Well. I am doing something special this year and, unfortunately, I can’t play all the parts or handle every technical aspect of the production, so I have to make sure everyone else sucks less by Christmas Eve.”

“It’s so hard being smarter and better than everyone else,” he says, with a smattering of irony.

“Indeed. But that’s why I get paid the big bucks as a community theater director,” I say, with tremendous sarcasm.

“In a perfect world…” He kisses my cheek. “I’ll see you tonight, though, right?”

“Eventually. We have a one-hour dinner break, and we’re all eating together at the auditorium, then rehearsing until eight. It’s the only day before Christmas Eve that everyone can be there for longer than an hour.”

He picks up the napkin from the tray—one of the creepy Christmas napkins that he said he hated—and wipes my chin with it. “You’re telling me I have to wait until after eight to see you again?”

“I said no such thing. But I don’t expect you to come by or anything. It would be boring for you.”

He doesn’t confirm or deny that he would be bored if he joins me, so I stir my hot chocolate with the candy cane and stare at his handsome face, trying not to think about how I’ll feel when it’s not there for me to stare at anymore.

I am so screwed.

Not just because Harold is always so grumpy and keeps farting during our scenes and it’s getting harder and harder for us to pretend we don’t notice.

Not because my lighting designer has somehow run out of blue gels, and it will take two to seven days for the ones I ordered to be delivered, and blue gels are essential for one of the scenes.

Because Grant Moody decided to surprise me and the entire cast and crew by showing up with takeout for everyone from Vinny Sarducci’s. I don’t know how he knew I’d forget to order food for our dinner break, or that Joy would be held up at the office so she couldn’t order it. But he knew, and he took care of it, and I now want to believe this is real even more than I want to avoid getting my heart broken again. It’s like a 55–45 split now, on the side of wanting it to be real, but things have definitely shifted.

“Let’s take five,” I call out.

“We have dinner in fifteen,” April says.

“Great, that will give us ten minutes to run through Scene Three again.”

“Can I meet your boyfriend?” she asks, eyeing him from the stage.

“Maybe later, we should probably⁠—”

“Cool, come introduce me,” she says, hopping off the stage and heading straight for him.

I follow right behind her. He’s taken a seat in one of the folding chairs on the auditorium floor. It’s not set up for a full audience yet.

“Hi,” April says, stopping right in front of him.

“Hello,” Grant says.

“I’m Merrily’s stepsister. She’s annoying in a lot of ways, but if you hurt her, I will end you.” She turns and walks back to the stage.

“Roger that—nice meeting you!” Grant calls out. Lowering his voice, he says, “She’s intense.”