Page 140 of Holidating
You don’t belong at this party.
An elegant woman swans into view in the open doorway. She’swearing a floor-length cranberry-colored dress. She gestures wildly at Nicolette’s bags, as if urging her to clear them away.
Nicolette turns around, though, and manages a smile and a wave at him before someone else closes the heavy wooden door.
Tightly.
CHAPTER 5
ON THE SOUND SYSTEM: “APOLOGIZE” BY TIMBALAND, FEATURING ONEREPUBLIC
Nicolette is holding a glass of pink champagne at an impossibly chic New York City Christmas party. She’s seated on a banquette, smushed together with her best friend, Cici. They were boarding school roommates for six years.
Cici’s parents have rented out this edgy room at the top of a hotel called The Standard, filling it with investment bankers, socialites, and friends of their two grown children. The food is smashing—little bites of roast beef en croute with horseradish. Smoked salmon with creme fraiche. Tiny meatballs served on toothpicks. Cheeses. Strawberries dipped in dark chocolate.
The only thing Nicolette doesn’t like is the mulled wine, but possibly that’s not the venue’s fault. Maybe putting spices into wine is just a bad idea on principle. At the first opportunity, she abandoned her glass on a grand piano and took a glass of bubbly off a passing tray.
Now she’s trying to follow the deeply involved conversation two prep-school friends are having about the plot ofLost. She loves these friends but can’t follow the conversation. She’s just come off another grueling exam season and hasn’t watched TV in months.
She’s just tired, period. When Cici asked her to come to New York right before Christmas, she said yes as a means of getting out of her stepmother’s stupid caroling party. She didn’t realize she wassaying yes to three days of shopping and dining out and partying like aMean Girlscharacter.
Tomorrow, at least, she can fly home and spend the rest of Christmas break reading and skiing. Her stepmother Veronica is sending the twins off on a New Year’s cruise with their father, which will get them out of Nicolette’s hair.
It’s pretty much perfect, except for one problem. She texted Damientwicetoday, hoping to set up a ride home from the Burlington airport. But the texts won’t go through.
At first, she’d chalked it up to bad connectivity in Vermont. Cell phones just don’t work there as well as they do in the rest of the world. It’s one of the things she loves about the place.
But her third attempt didn’t work, either. She’s running out of time, and she really wants to see his face. She looks forward to it every time she goes home. That rugged smile. Those flannel shirts rolled up onto forearms that flex when he lifts her bags.
And those soft brown eyes. That’s what she misses most of all. And the way he listens with his whole body when she speaks.
He’s the best thing about Christmas. So where is he?
Nicolette slides off the banquette and heads for a quieter corner in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The room has sweeping views of lower Manhattan and New Jersey. Since it’s nighttime, there are glittering city lights in every direction, split by the dark slash of the river.
It’s intensely beautiful, and she wishes Damien could see it. She wonders if he’s ever been to New York.
After pulling her phone out of her clutch bag, she texts him again.Message not deliveredis the response a few seconds later.
It’s so confusing. Every time Damien drops her off, he says, “Call me anytime.” He wouldn’t have changed his number, right? What taxi service does that?
Unless he lost his phone recently, and is in the process of getting a new one…
“You’re looking smashing this evening, Nicolette. Want a brownie?”
She looks up to find Cam, Cici’s older brother, standing before her, and it’s startling. Cam has always startled her. He’s blond andbeautiful, just like his sister, with Hollywood features and carefully tousled hair.
Tonight, he’s wearing a deep-blue shirt that makes him look a little dangerous. “Are they ordinary brownies?” she asks. “Or are you up to your old tricks?”
He laughs. “They’re honestly just brownies. Although I might have snuck the platter out of the kitchen uninvited.” He extends a tray which contains a couple dozen bite-sized brownies. “Help me hide the evidence?”
Her smile is automatic, because it’s Cam. “Thank you.” She takes one and pops it into her mouth, causing Cam to grin, displaying perfect teeth to go with his perfect face.
Nicolette spent all of middle and high school praying that Cam would notice her. If he’d ever crossed the dining hall at Andover to offer her a brownie, she would have died of happiness.
Now she’s just a little weary. And also distracted by the Damien issue.
“Listen, a few of us are going out to 1 Oak after this,” Cam says. “Want to come?”
