Page 17 of Nutcracker with Benefits
“Wait—“ I say, and Clara freezes, her fork hovering, posed to make a second cut. “Aren’t you going to take pictures?”
“Pictures?”
“Yeah. For your blog or Instagram.”
“Oh.” She pulls back her fork. “I was planning on taking today off. You know, be present with you.”
I deflate a little bit. “Oh, yeah. I mean, that makes sense.” Never mind that I had pictured her capturing everything I’d planned for today and sharing it over the next few weeks. I would look at her profile every day—which, let’s be honest, I do already—and I would see photos from our adventures together. I’ll get these little reminders of the day spaced out like a morphine drip.
Clara must see something in my face because she laughs and reaches into her purse. “No, you’re right. I can never have too much content.”
She whips out her camera and snaps some pictures, moving both our plates around and then doing close-ups of the condiments.
If life continues on as is, Clara will disappear to some new corner of the world, and I’ll be stuck looking at her life through a lens. Maybe it’ll just be a few photos, or maybe she’ll write a blog post about today.
Five Unique Foods You Must Try in New York.
Skip the Flight: Five Places to Eat in New York to Save Your Vacation Days.
Five Foods I’d Never Tried Before.
But maybe, this time, something will change.
After thirty, forty, maybe even fifty photos, Clara puts her phone away.
“Permission to eat now?” she asks with a grin.
“Permission granted.”
We both dig in.
“So,” Clara begins with a glance up at me from under her eyelashes. She fiddles with her fork, pushing some dal around the plate. “Did you break up with someone recently?”
My brows draw together. “No?”
Clara uses the side of her fork to cut into the egg yolk. “In the article, you said there was someone special.”
“You think I was dating someone? Come on, you’d definitely know about it.” It surprises me that Clara thinks I wouldn’t tell her. We message frequently, no matter where she is in the world, and besides, if I was publicly dating someone, I feel pretty confident that she would tease me about the media circus that would follow.
That’s followed by a pang of guilt. I had been too busy leading up to the holidays, and I guess it had slipped my mind to assure her that I was still single, just like I wasn’t going to stay with Craig and Rolf. I should have told her that I was excited to see her like I always am.
Like the rest of Clara’s family, she’s always been down-to-earth and definitely not interested in what the gossip columns have to say. They have mostly kept out of the news—Clara’s never here, and Fritz leads his unassuming life with his family. The media didn’t even get to splash Uncle D’s sexuality in people’s faces—he was publicly gay long before the company grew into the juggernaut that it is today.
But I can’t keep out of the media. Our PR firm says it’s a good thing, but I find it exhausting and detracting from my real work.
Clara shrugs. “I just can’t understand how you’re still single, sometimes.”
I open my mouth to answer but my phone pings. It’s set on do not disturb for the day, so the only reason it’s pinging is that there’s a message from one of the select few people that I want to hear from on this day off—Kara, Craig, Uncle D, or my assistant, Bea.
The message is from Kara, in the group text between me, her, and Bea. Just left Rolf’s. How’s the first stop?
Immediately a message comes in from Bea. Squeee! I want updates!
I type out a quick tasty so far, thanks for all the help. Bea and Kara have both been helping me plan—Bea as my assistant, and Kara because she’s been rooting for me and Clara since the day she found out about us. It only took her picking up my tuxes and Clara’s dresses twice the morning after galas before she put two and two together.
Clara diverts our conversation back to the food, and we finish off our plates. I pay, and we walk out of the café, feeling satisfied but not full.
“You know I could pay for these things and expense them, right?” Clara remarks.
