Page 109 of My Merry Mistake
I roll my eyes. “Don’t come in here and start talking trash about him. You don’t even know him.”
“Actually, I do.”
I frown. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s the guy from the café,” he says. “IknewI recognized him. You said you were interviewing him, remember?”
My stomach drops. I’m a notoriously bad liar, and I’d forgotten he was there that day. Another thing I didn’t plan for.
“You said you were looking for someone to help out with a few tasks,” he says. “And now he’s here? At your family’s Thanksgiving dinner?”
“That’s how we met,” I say, and it’s true, to an extent. “I didn’t want to tell you it turned into a date.”
“Wait. Your interview turned into a date? That’s . . . isn’t that totally against the rules?”
Notoriously. Bad. Liar.
“No, the interview didn’t turn into a date, the interview”—it’s out before I can stop it—“wasthe date.”
Wait. That’s not how I meant to say it. Because that’s not exactly true, either.
Finn stops. He has three distinct faces in a row—confusion, realization, then suspicion.
“You had back-to-back dates?” he asks. “Because the other guy was there first.”
I frantically look down the hallway, knowing we’re not exactly being quiet. “Can you keep your voice down?” I whisper at him. “And no, I didn’t have?—”
“The resume on your tablet,” he says, piecing things together. “Don’t tell me he brought a resume to a date.”
“No, I mean—” I sigh. “Just stop.”
He inhales a sharp breath, then stands, listening. But I am not telling Finn the truth about this. It’s personal. And it makes me sound pathetic.
“Look. It doesn’t matter how we met, we just did. We’ve been out a few times, and he’s nice. I invited him to Thanksgiving, end of story.”
His eyes narrow. “What tasks did you hire him to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what was the job you were hiring for?”
My mind goes blank. I don’t have an answer that sounds plausible other than the truth.
And I can’t tell him the truth—because now, thinking about it in this panicked moment, it feels utterly ridiculous.
I let out a groan of frustration. “Will you just get out of my business?” I push past him into the hallway and rush back to the front door, but Justin’s not there. I walk into the kitchen and look around, but he’s not there either.
Poppy is at the stove and Eloise is arranging pickles on a platter.
“Did you guys see Justin?”
“Justin’s here?” Eloise stands. “Where?”
I walk back toward the front door, look outside, and there he is, on the porch, on his phone. “Never mind. I found him.”
I open the door and he turns to look at me, holding up a finger to signalone second. “Yes, you’re right about that,” he says into the phone. “No problem. Yep. Yep. We’ll talk soon.” He hangs up. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Work doesn’t respect holidays.”
