Page 43 of Holiday Romance
“You’re a cold, sad woman.”
“Give me my present.”
Andrew smirks, reaching into the front pocket of his bag. He’s the one who insisted on doing this, and I only agreed because I thought we would swap on the plane and open them in our respective houses. Alone. I didn’t think he’d want to do the whole thingnow. In front of everyone. We’re due to board in a few minutes and the rows of seats by the gate are filling up, with a few people already waiting in line, their passports at the ready.
“Here you go.”
He grabs my hand, pressing a small, tissue-wrapped rectangle into my palm that I quickly open.
Huh.
I truly didn’t know what to expect. But I think if you’d given me a hundred guesses of what Andrew might get me as a Christmas gift, I would have needed a couple more attempts.
“It’s a… fridge magnet?” I ask, and he nods.
“But it’s also a fun one,” he says. “It has a pun.”
“I can see that.”
“It says, ‘Pasta la vista, baby,’” he continues, straight-faced as he points to the Comic Sans print. “And there’s a picture of—”
“—some pasta, yes.”
“I got it on eBay.”
“Andrew.”
“It cost me three dollars in postage.”
A noise comes out of me before I can stop it, somewhere between a snort and a laugh, and I slap my hand over my mouth. “This is what you got me? I spent the last two weeks anxious out of my mind over this, and this is what you got me?”
“It’s the thought that counts.”
“Youthoughtabout this?” I narrow my eyes, not buying it for an instant. “Give me my real present.”
“That is—”
“Andrew.”
He grins, reaching back into his bag. “You’re the spoiled child on Christmas morning, you know that? This was a supposed to be a lesson in gracious disappointment.”
“I’m returning your sweater.”
“Again, not how this works, but here.”
I drop the magnet onto my lap as he passes me a slim, red leather book.
The spine is cracked and the cover well-worn from being carried around. It has to be several years old at least. If not decades.A Diner’s Guide to Chicagowritten in slanting letters on the front.
“It might not be the most up to date,” he says, leaning into me as I open it. “But look.” He flips forward a few pages, pointing to the margins.
“The owner wrote notes?”
“Owners,” he says. “The handwriting changes. Looks like a few people got their hands on it.”
He’s right. There’s some marked in pencil, some in red pen, and the writing switches from neat square letters to a tiny calligraphy I can barely read. “Where did you even get this?”
“I found it at a flea market months ago. Thought you might like it.”
