Page 107 of Host for the Holidays
I take my hand from hers and wrap my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into me and kissing her hair.
“She leaves in a week?” she asks.
“Eight days.” I’m like a kid who insists on correcting people who say it’s 2:30 when it’s really 2:29. But that one extra day is important.
“Then what are you doing here, Rémy?”
I pause, trying to make sure I heard her right, then I pull away enough that I can look at her.
“Go,” she says with a teasing glint in her eye. “I’ve seen enough of you today.”
FORTY-FOUR
MADI
I’m not usuallyone to go for long periods of time without looking at my phone, but since coming to Paris, I’ve become that kind of person. And I don’t think Paris has much to do with it. It’s Rémy. I couldn’t care less about scrolling through social media apps when I could be talking with him. It’s not even that I’m resisting; I just forget social media exists when we’re together.
But now that he’s gone to mass, instinct is back in full force, so I navigate to social media like the tech zombie I am.
Whoa.
This tech zombie has a ridiculous number of notifications. I tap on them—an endless line of likes and comments from usernames I don’t recognize, and atonof new followers. Some are liking the picture Linnae tagged me in, while others are apparently going back through my entire feed and liking my old posts. I scroll and scroll and scroll, stopping when I notice a tag.
It’s a repost of the same picture Linnae posted, and the account tagged both of us in it. I tap on the account, and my eyes bug out of my head. One million followers. It’s a massive photography account with a feed featuring shots from destinations around the world. And the photo I took is right there at the top of them all.
Heart racing, I tap on my own profile and stare at the number of followers. Between the post from Linnae and the one from the massive photography account, I have four thousand new followers. Four thousand. That’s four times more than I had to begin with. Not to mention my inbox has a bunch of unread messages.
I start reading. Every single one is a request for a session, most of them in Paris. One asks if I would be interested in coming to Bruges and another to Barcelona. There’s a request for a date next week, one for a Valentine’s couple’s session, and one all the way out in summer. And that’s just three of the ten.
My phone buzzes in my hands, startling me out of my dazed state. It’s my mom video calling.
I hurry to accept it; I didn’t think I’d hear from her at all today. It’s her last cruise day, and I figured she’d have no service.
“Mom!”
“Hi, honey! Merry Christmas.” She’s got sunkissed skin and messy, beach hair. It’s very unChristmassy of her. I haven’t seen her glow like this in years, though, and it warms my heart like the end of a cheesy Hallmark movie. So cheesy that my eyes are actually prickling. She deserves this break more than anyone.
“So?” she says with a huge smile and an enigmatic look. “Do you have some news for me?”
Oh dear. How many times will this happen? A lot has gone on since I last talked to her.
“Um . . . yes? But maybe not the news you’re expecting.”
I regale my mom with a Reader’s Digest version of what’s happened over the past couple of weeks—the rough arrival, the unmet expectations once I was here, the lead-up to the breakup between Josh and me, and finally, the actual breakup. Even after that, she’s stillwaybehind.
I don’t know exactly how to catch her up on the rest. Things have happened at warp speed, and telling it all in this way only highlights that. How exactly do I explain that, since we last saw each other, I’ve ended the relationship I staunchly defended for two yearsandstarted falling for someone new? It makes me sound like a complete loon—more unstable than a French elevator.
So I hold off on all the Rémy stuff. A few minutes can go a long way to space out all the action.
“Wow, Madi,” she says softly. “I feel awful.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t been there for any of it! All these huge things happening in your life . . .”
“Mom,” I say, “first of all, it’s expressly forbidden for you to feel awful on a cruise—unless it’s the result of overeating. Secondly, you have been here for the entirety of my relationship with Josh. Despite the fact that you never really liked him, you’ve been patient with me as I figured things out for myself.”
She straightens, looking mildly offended. “Ididlike Josh, I just—”
