Page 14 of Santa Baby Maybe
“Are you okay, Joy?”
She turned to me, her eyes fierce. “No, I’m not okay. You made me drop my hot dog! It had fried onions and everything.”
I winced, then remembered. “Hey, I thought you were vegan.”
She pouted. “It was plant based. I know, I know. Technically, I shouldn’t be supporting any ‘meat substitute’ food items, because it could be seen as actually supporting hot dogs in general. But it’s hot dogs. I can’t live life without hot dogs.”
I laughed. She sounded so forlorn, I couldn’t help myself. “Where did you get it?” I asked her. “I’ll run back and get you another one.”
She blinked. “You would do that for me?”
“I bumped into you, which caused you to drop it. It’s my fault.”
She winced. “I did stop to take a bite. I was going to wait until I got back to my desk, but then suddenly I couldn’t wait, so I stopped. Which means technically it was my fault.”
I shrugged. “I’ll still get you another one. I can’t stand to see you so sad.”
It was strange but it was the truth. I was the severe one of the two of us. Joy was mostly always happy unless I was pissing her off.
She blinked again. “Why are you being nice to me?” Clearly, she was suspicious of my motives.
“When am I not nice to you?” I asked.
“Uh, like, always. Need I remind you just this morning you wanted to take away one of my rings?”
I frowned. “That’s business.”
“Then you called meyour sort.”
I winced. “Yes, I remember this morning.”
“Then you went to lunch with a woman,” she said casually. “I didn’t recognize her. Was it business or…”
“Jacklyn.” I sighed and shook my head. “Technically it was our second date, but I’m afraid it was also our last one.”
“Oh,” Joy said quietly. “She looked very lovely.”
“She was. She is. She’s just not…”
“The one,” Joy finished.
“I don’t believe in any of thatone personcrap. I’m simply looking for a compatible partner.”
Joy made a face.
“What? I shouldn’t want to get married and have a family of my own? I’m going to be thirty in a few months.” Not that I was certain it made sense to have children since I’d had no role model for parenting. Still, there were books on the topic. I could study.
“No,” she said quickly. “Who doesn’t want to fall in love with someone and start a family? It’s just the way you saidcompatible partner. It didn’t sound very, very…”
“What?”
“Sexy?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re…you. So maybe that’s what you want. I just reacted because it’s the exact opposite of what I want. Anyway, thanks for the offer of the replacement dog. But I think I’ll just grab a bag of pretzels from the vending machine.”
I walked alongside her as we were both headed back to the same building.
“So what’s the exact opposite?” I asked, because that sounded ridiculous. “You want someone you have nothing in common with, no similar thoughts or ideas or mutual interests? How can a marriage like that work?”
“I’m not saying I want my opposite in personality. I just want something that’s real. That’s based on love and affection. A truly deep connection with another person who will become my person in life. Not acompatible partner.”
