Page 42 of Hacking the Holidays
“I know, I know …”
Chloe studied my face. “Try to remember who you used to be. The Zara from before. Strong. Confident. The woman who didn’t second-guess every word that came out of her mouth.”
The Zara from before.
The words hung between us, heavy with everything we weren’t saying. Five years might as well have been a lifetime ago. That version of me—the one who walked into rooms like she owned them, who trusted her instincts, who let people close enough to matter—she’d died the same night everything else had.
“What happened back then doesn’t have to define?—”
“Please don’t.” I pulled away from her grip. “We’re not doing this now.”
Chloe simply nodded, always knowing when to stop pushing the subject. “Fine. Tonight’s goal is simple: get through dinner without falling apart. Keep your story consistent. Don’t offer information he hasn’t asked for. Just be the person he’s been getting to know when you are not up in your head—someone smart, funny, someone who gets the way his mind works.”
She was right. I knew she was right. I’d been trained for exactly this kind of situation—maintaining cover, managing suspicion, keeping fear locked away where no one could see it. I’d done it a hundred times before, with people far more dangerous than Sam.
So why did every instinct I had scream that this time was different? That Sam, with his relentless curiosity and that brain that never stopped piecing things together, was already ten steps ahead of me? That he was about to figure out exactly who—and what—I really was.
I waited for her to touch up her makeup in the mirror, then we emerged from the bathroom. Eleanor immediately waved us over to a table she’d claimed near one of the larger space heaters. Sam was already there, juggling three plates of bratwurst with potato salad.
He had clearly taken “surprise me” as a personal challenge, because my plate held two huge bratwursts topped with caramelized onions, dill relish, sauerkraut, and six different mustards on the side.
“Hope you enjoy it,” Sam said, watching my reaction carefully.
“I thought you were a minimalist when it came to bratwurst,” I said, accepting the plate.
“I am,” he said. “But yours deserved to be spectacular.”
“Why exactly?” I asked, genuinely curious despite my anxiety.
“Why not?” he replied with a grin.
Eleanor reached for her beer mug and raised it. “To the holiday season, and to friends!”
“Cheers,” we said in unison, clinking our steins.
I took a long drink of the cold beer. It was exactly what I needed after the stress of the past few hours. I genuinely laughed at Eleanor’s story about a patron who’d tried to return a cookbook because it didn’t help him “feel better.” The normalcy of it—friends gathered around food, sharing stories—was wonderful.
For a moment, I let myself relax into the warmth of the space heaters, the clink of glasses, and the hum of conversation around us as we ate.
Until Sam’s knee bumped mine under the table …
My heart rate sped up.
But I didn’t move away.
His knee stayed there as well.
We weren’t looking at each other—both of us engaged in the larger conversation—but I was very aware of that single point of contact. The warmth of it. The fact that neither of us was acknowledging it, but neither of us was ending it either.
Before I could obsess about it, someone called out from behind me.
“Zara! Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe it’s you!”
My entire body went rigid.
No, no, no, no.
I turned slowly and faced a woman in her fifties with bright eyes and a wide smile.
