Page 53 of The Hanukkah Hoax
“And you two do? You both are happy to just fall in line with whatever this game is that you’re playing?” She punctuated the point by waving her shit-stained hand in their general direction.
“Yes.”
The force of the word was like an insistent finger beneath Marisa’s chin, pulling her attention toward him. As he stood there in just a Henley shirt and jeans, otherwise bare to the cold except for whatever insulation his anger provided, he didn’t look like a fake boyfriend. Or fake anything, for that matter.
He looked real, like someone Marisa wanted in her corner for everything life decided to throw at her, who actually wanted to be there, had been the first to sign up, even.
He looked resplendent and powerful, with his tense muscles firing in defense of her and championing every ridiculous dream she’d ever shared with him.
Then, as Phoebe stormed off and Hugh began licking his paws, Marisa’s breath caught and her throat tightened as the final truth of what she saw turned her eyes liquid.
He looked like hers.
Chapter 21
Alec waited, but by the time Marisa came out of the coffee shop with her hands freshly washed, his mood hadn’t improved much, nor had his relationship with Hugh. He’d just finished texting Cal this very thing when the damn dog started whining again at her approach.
“The closer I get to this stupid Ball, the more I think I’m not cut out for any of this,” Marisa said, twiddling with her hat’s tassels and looking anywhere in the fucking universe except at him.
“Any of this?” he said slowly, not liking the way his heart clenched with the same vigor as his fist holding Hugh’s lead.
Marisa’s hand flew out in exasperation toward the direction Phoebe had fled. “She seems like she’s ten steps ahead of me, when I was foolish enough not to keep tabs on her. That was my fault. And now she’s got this volunteer payment scheme that’s a complete blow out of left field. I feel like I’m back at zero again, especially when I can’t even deliver the cookie I promised to everyone.”
“You were too busy with your own life to worry about hers, as you should be. The woman meddles far too much in other people’s affairs.”
“But it’s working for her. This whole competition just to win Monica’s favor? This isn’t business. It’s blood sport. I never intended to go along with all that. All I wanted to do was to craft candy and make people smile.”
“Do you regret it, what we agreed to do?” Beneath the words he said were the ones he couldn’t bring himself to truly ask. Do you regret me?
Marisa twisted her lips and sighed, then looked at him, her expression softening. “No. Not in the least. Let’s face it. If I weren’t begging Monica, I would have been trying some other scheme to make Sweetest Heart’s Desire work. It would have been a cruelly unfair pill to swallow, not being able to quit my catering job after I worked so hard to do so, but I would have kept going and found a way. Resilience is in my DNA, after all. Well, that and high cholesterol.”
Alec chuckled, relief sitting high on his heart at her ability to still crack a joke after what he’d witnessed. “So, what you’re saying is that Hugh was actually doing a good thing by trying to save you from coming into close proximity with the cinnamon bun. Fending off all those triglycerides in the icing and whatnot.”
Her spirited smile returned, warming him against the chilly air. “A true mitzvah.”
“It was a sacrifice of mastiff proportions, you might even say.”
“Oh my God, stop.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t take the groaners.”
“I’ll stop when you realize that Phoebe’s got nothing on you. She may be the Plant Nanny and can diaper a fern while her customers are down the shore or whatever the fuck it is that people with more money than sense pay her to do, but she doesn’t know what makes people happy this time of year.”
“How can you be sure?”
Then he pulled out his phone. “Because she doesn’t sell Christmas. She sells anxiety. Look.”
Marisa came near him, and he had to resist leaning into her subtle scent as she read the screen. On the Plant Nanny’s home page were scores of services ranging from the Weekender’s Weeping Willow package to the Vacationer’s Violet Indulgence à la carte offerings, all words he’d never thought a grown man like himself would ever read in that order.
He was already itching to clear his browser history, but he held his phone steady so Marisa could see more of the ridiculousness Phoebe was offering.
The one common facet pasted all over the Plant Nanny’s website was her abundant use of scarcity marketing tactics. There wasn’t a single product image or graphic that didn’t have the words Time is running out! or Limited quantities available! plastered across it. Phoebe even had an auto-play video banner at the top panning through calendar pages, each one filled with angry red Xs, presumably crossing out another open service slot a customer narrowly missed out on.
And the same thing went for her Christmas confections, which she’d yet to fully show off in detail, choosing to create an air of mystery around what she’d be revealing at the Ball. That didn’t stop her from blanketing Preorder now, because when they’re gone, they’re gone! all over the fucking order buttons.
“She’s afraid,” Alec said, hoping his words could soothe some of the tension that had tightened Marisa’s jaw. “Just plain running scared. That’s all any of this is. As long as I’ve known her, she’s always been a driven woman, not always in a healthy way.”
Marisa drew closer, bumping her shoulder against his, as if trying to keep him warm, when her touch alone turned his body into a fucking furnace. “I see what you mean. The color scheme by itself tells the story pretty succinctly.”
Again, she wasn’t wrong. Everywhere over the screen, he was assaulted with shades of fluorescent orange, fire-engine red, and lime green—that last one not even fitting the usual calming verdant hues he associated with most flora. Odd choice for a supposed plant enthusiast.
