“To the Christmas Eve party. At our house. Rodriguez, Barrett, and whoever else doesn’t have family in town.”
“And I’m going to be sitting at a table with your father.”
“Eating whatever my mom cooks. Last year it was prime rib, and it was amazing. But my dad also made super dry turkey because he can’t not make a turkey. He brines it for twenty-four hours and talks about the brine like he invented it. You have to tell him it’s incredible.”
“Right. So I eat the dry turkey and compliment the brine while sitting across from the man whose daughter I was just—” He gestures vaguely at me, at my current state of undress, at the couch, at the general situation.
“Well obviously we don’t say that part out loud. That’s rule one.”
“There are rules?”
“There are going to be rules. And the main one is: when he invites you, say yes. If you say no he’ll wonder why. Also, Rodriguez will absolutely bring up the Vancouver family thing and you can’t not be there to defend yourself.”
“What if I’m busy?”
I scoff. “Are you busy on Christmas Eve? No, you were going to spend Christmas Eve with the fish.”
“At least he doesn’t bring up my girlfriend’s dad while I’m trying to take her pants off.” He grumbles.
“Okay first of all, put a pin in girlfriend because we are coming back to that. Second of all, we need ground rules. You are currently a man who the entire team believes has a secret wifeand three children in Vancouver. You need to walk into my parents’ house and act like you also don’t have a real secret involving me.” I sit up and cross my legs on the couch, shifting fully into strategy mode despite being half-dressed. “Do you own a blindfold?”
He blinks. “…No?”
“You might need one. Because I’m going to be wearing a dress, and I don’t want anyone to see the way you look at me when I’m wearing the dress.”
“What way do I look at you?”
“Like I’m the last slice of pizza and you haven’t eaten in three days. It’s very obvious. Rodriguez is going to be there. He already knows you’re hiding something. If you look at me like that, he’s going to upgrade the Vancouver wife theory to something way worse.” I wave my hand dismissively. “The blindfold would solve that, but it would also raise questions, so we scrap the blindfold. Plan B: I could just not dress up.”
“Okay—”
“Except no, because me not dressing up would be weirder than you staring at me. My mom would think I’m sick. She’d take my temperature. There’d be a huge conversation.” I tap my chin, mentally running through the options. “Okay, so I’ll wear the dress. And you can look at me a little bit.”
“How much is a little bit?”
“Like you can look, but briefly, because I’m hot. Then if I tug on my ear—” I demonstrate. “That means you’ve been staring too long and you need to look somewhere else. Look at the turkey. Compliment the cat. Whatever.”
“And if you don’t tug your ear? Can I look at you then?”
“Then you’re fine. Keep looking. A little bit of looking is normal. If you didn’t look at me at all, that would be more suspicious than the three kids thing.” I point at him. “You just can’t look at me like you’ve seen me topless.”
“I have seen you topless. I’ve also had my hand in your pants. I was about to get somewhere else too,” he trails off.
“Which is why we need the system, Zach! Keep up!”
He stares at me with his mouth slightly open. I can tell his brain is trying to follow a play that keeps changing.
“So... can I look at you or not?”
“Yes. But carefully. Let’s practice.”
“When?”
“Now. Look at me right now the way you’d look at me at the Christmas party.”
He looks at me perfectly normally for a microsecond. Then his eyes drop to my neck, down to my chest, and stay there.
“Zach! That’s your casual face? You look like you’re about to unhinge your jaw and swallow me whole.”
