Page 14 of Miss Humbug
Marlowe moved a spare chair from the corner and squeezed it between two place settings. “Ethan is helping me get re-acquainted with Holly Days.”
Shawn made a production of sniffing the air. “I smell a rat. You up to something?”
“Not any more than you,” she said lightly.
Shawn pointed at me. “No cheating, Sawyer.”
I threw my hands up. “I don’t even know the rules. I’m just here to—” Why was I here again? Oh, right. I wanted something from them. Something my family had wanted for a good long time. I wouldn’t let that loose for free. “Hang out with Marlowe,” I finished. “We’ve been planning this for a while.”
Well, that slipped out.
Shawn and Marlowe turned to me, both wide-eyed. Shawn looked at Marlowe. “You and Sawyer have been keeping in touch?”
“I, we—” she stammered.
My mouth—why?
“Wait, I get it. Mar-Mar, you were acting all shy and tongue-tied when you saw Sawyer at the bar. You two ran off for a while. Is he why you came home? You and him? He and you?” He pointed between us, grinning. “Yeah, I get it. Don’t worry.” He made a zipping motion across his mouth. “I won’t saynothing.”
Marlowe pressed her lips together in thought. She shot me a helpless look. “Yeah, you caught us,” she told Shawn. “We were hoping to keep it, you know, low profile for now. Not make it a big deal to the family.”
Shawn’s eyes lit with understanding. “Long distance is tough. Remember I tried long distance with Jenna? She lived in Fort Myers and I’m up in the Florida panhandle. Too far. In the panhandle, we take care of ourselves.”
I had no idea what he meant, but he’d moved off the topic of me and Marlowe, so that was a plus.
Moments later, the room filled with more Hollys, picking at the appetizers and obsessing over when the big meal would be ready.
Marlowe slid next to me, and it was as if everyone else disappeared. “Don’t sweat this. We’ll talk more later. I have an idea.”
Chapter 5
Marlowe
The rest of Thanksgiving Day passed relatively painlessly. Usually, my relatives were a total pain. Ethan chatted with the Hollys as if only weeks had passed since we’d last been all together. As a result, I found myself relaxing. Even having fun.
The herculean post-Thanksgiving task of cleaning up became a game with Ethan. Like we’d done as kids, we instituted timed “dish sprints” to see how fast we could wash and dry a stack of plates (Grans’ good holiday dishes required handwashing). Then the silverware. The oldest nieces and nephews tackled the dishwasher items while the adults bickered over how to best sort the leftovers.
It struck me how I’d never graduated from dish duty. Dish duty was solidly a Holly kid task. With Ethan around, I felt less annoyed by the reminder.
After all, another idea brewed to distract me.
Dark settled in by the time Ethan headed out. I walked him to his truck. “I can’t believe you baked a pumpkin pie yourself. From a real pumpkin.”
“Pumpkin is just another type of squash.”
As if that fact made pie creation from vegetables any more tangible. “I buy my squash frozen and already cubed. Or plastic. For decoration.”
“You buy decorations?”
Dang, he was sharp. “No.”
Reality check: with the Tasty Bake competition coming up, I would need Ethan more than ever.
He rubbed a hand across his chin. “So about what I told Shawn, about us planning this time together. I—”
“It’s perfect.”
He blinked. “It is?”
