Page 6 of Unwrapping His Gift

I step out into the cold night and head for the door leading into my apartment, knowing Marissa will follow. She’s right behind me by the time I’ve got my key in the lock and am stepping inside.

“Aren’t guys just the worst?” she asks as we make our way down the hall toward my unit. “You just can’t trust them.”

Easy for her to say. Marissa’s had nothing but great luck with guys. They all seem to love her, and she’s been with her current long-term boyfriend, Jason, for three years now. But I appreciate her doing her best to commiserate with me. It’s sweet.

“I guess not.” I shrug, stepping up to my apartment door. I am sliding my key into the door when I hear another door at the end of the hall open up, and my whole chest goes tight. I try to hurry, but it’s no use. I’m too late.

“Well, well, well, look who it is.” I turn and see Dana, my landlord, stepping out of her room with a very displeased look on her face like she just caught someone in the act. She crosses her arms over her chest and scowls. I don’t know why, but Dana has always given me the impression of a boot camp instructor.

“Hi, Dana,” I say, trying to sound as harmless as possible. “Happy holidays?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’ll be a happy holiday when I get all that back rent you owe me!”

I cringe inside.

Did you have to say all that in front of Marissa?

“I know, Dana. I know I owe you, and I’m sorry. I’m working on it–”

“Well, don’t work on it,” she snaps. “Get it to me, or you’ll be finding a new place to live.”

Thankfully, with that last remark, she turns and heads back into her apartment, but not without slamming her door behind her. I feel like I have spiders crawling all over my body from embarrassment as I unlock my door and step inside. I can just feel Marissa’s eyes on my back as she follows me.

Please don’t say anything. Please.

“Charming lady,” she scoffs.

“Oh, you have no idea,” I reply.

I kick off my shoes and go slump down on the couch, feeling defeated and deflated at the same time. Marissa comes over and takes a seat beside me. I can’t even anticipate what she’s going to say next, but I know she’s got something in mind.

“You know, I’d avoid this guy if I were you. What’s his name again?”

“Craig,” I reply.

“Craig.” She nods. “I had something similar happen to me in the past, and he came crawling back to me looking to apologize, and like an idiot, I took him back. You wanna bet on whether or not it worked out?”

One look at her face is all it takes for me to get my answer.

“So what happened?” I ask.

“I was dating this guy – great guy – and then out of the blue he just vanished on me. He was gone for like three months. Then he comes back and tells me his dad was like part of some military special ops program and they’d been overseas on a secret mission and hadn’t been allowed to speak to anybody. And you know what? I actually bought it.”

“Aw, Rissa.” I smile.

“Right?” She laughs at herself. “It turns out he’d been cheating on me with some chick up in New Hampshire, which I found out later. But I took him back, and he just ended up cheating on me, and we broke up four months later.”

“Gosh, I am so sorry, Rissa.”

“My point is, Daisy, sometimes it’s best to just let these things go.”

It’schilly when I wake up the next morning, and I have to really fight to swing my feet out of bed. I race to the bathroom and crank the shower on as hot as it will go. Then it’s another battle to get out from under the nice warm water and go get dressed for work.

I run into Dana in the hallway when I’m coming out of my apartment and quickly turn my back on her, hoping to escape another repeat of our conversation last night, but to my surprise, she sees me and smiles, which throws me completely off guard.

“Hey, thanks for catching up on your rent this morning!” she says happily. “I guess our little talk last night really drove the point home, huh?”

My head instantly starts spinning.What the hell is she talking about?

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