Page 108 of Host for the Holidays
“Mom.”
Her shoulders drop, and she relaxes. “Okay. I didn’t like him. At least not for you. But I tried, Madi.”
I laugh softly. “I know you did.”
“Tried what?” Jack’s face pops up on the screen as he joins the call. He’s in a living room I’ve never seen before. Behind him is a fireplace with a pine garland draped artistically across the top, two red bows, and a half dozen stockings.
“There you are!” Mom says. “I sent Jack a text invitation since he never answers FaceTime calls right away,” she explains to me.
“Never answers them at all, more like,” I say.
“Hey, I’m here, aren’t I?”
I pull my clasped hands to my chest and bat my eyes. “Our very own Christmas miracle.”
Jack shoots me a look—at least I assume it’s for me. “Not all of us want to be at the beck and call of our phones twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
“No,” I say, “but five minutes a day, one day a week wouldn’t kill you.”
“What did Mom try?” Jack asks, ignoring my dig at his lack of connectedness.
“Liking Josh,” Mom says.
“Hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Jack says without missing a beat.
I tip my head to the side and plaster a fake smile on my face. “Aw. Poor Jack. And here I thought being a terrible brother came naturally to you.” I don’t really have a spicy side, but Jack sure brings it out of me.
He smiles widely, scrunching up his nose in the most annoying older brother expression I can think of. “I’m sorry you haven’t had as much success in romance as I’ve had, Mads. But hey, I can’t take all the credit for my success. You’ve gotgreatfriends.”
There is so much history implicit in those stupid words that I want to use the garland behind Jack to strangle him.
“Enough of that,” Mom breaks in. “Madi already has someone new, and she was going to tell me about him before you joined us.”
I blink. I kept my references to Rémy as bland and relevant as possible, only mentioning him when it was pertinent to the story of Josh and me. I certainly didn’t tell her Ihave someone.
Mom smiles at my reaction. “Motherly intuition—isn’t it a glorious thing? Now, was it Rémy? Did I catch his name right? It’s a great name.”
“Wait, you’re serious?” Jack asks, looking back and forth between us. “Didn’t you break up with Josh like a week ago?”
It’s not meant to be judgmental, but given that I’m already worried about how this whole situation sounds, it hits that way. So I snap back, “Oh, becauseyou’rethe model of careful deliberation when it comes to relationships?”
He puts up his hands defensively. “Hey! You won’t ever hear me complaining that you gave the boot to Josh. I just don’t wanna be on this same phone call in two more years because you’ve jumped headfirst into something with an equally dumb dude.”
“Jack,” Mom says in a warning tone.
“Don’t worry,” I say sweetly. “I didn’t call you today, Jack, and you wouldn’t be the one I’d call in two years.”
He laughs. “Fair enough.”
That’s one good thing about Jack. He can take what he dishes out. That’s the only reason I get snippy with him—I know it won’t hurt his feelings.
“If this is about to become girl talk,” he says, “I’ll leave the two of you to it. I just wanted to jump on to say Merry Christmas.”
“Thank you, Jack,” Mom says, looking at him like he’s the sweetest thing in the world for spending two minutes on a video call with his family on Christmas. “I love you, sweetie.”
“I love you, too, Mom. And you, Mads.”
“Love you, Jack,” I say with a hint of annoyance. “Merry Christmas.”
