Page 6 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

I laugh. I can’t help it.

“Stop that.” He has a stern little furrow between his brows. “You’re ruining it, love.”

He has to be mocking me right now. My eyes are still puffy from sleep, I didn’t bother with makeup, and my hair hangs around my shoulders like an old fishing net. “Don’t call me love.”

“What shall I call you, then?” The sun through the window makes his hazel eyes seem like they’re lit from within. Desert eyes. Warm and mysterious. Easy to get lost there.

I laugh again. Loudly enough to catch a skeptical glance from the young couple sitting at the far end of the shop. “I’m not telling you my name.”

“I’m Jake.” He extends his hand towards me in greeting. “Jake Frost.”

“OK, sure.” I shake his hand. His wide palm is warm against mine. His grip is strong in a comforting way, not a power-move way. “I’m Lois. Lois Lane.”

He nods slowly. “You think I’m pulling your leg.”

“Oh, of course not. Is your brother Jack busy this time of year?”

“Ah. That’s very clever. First time I’ve heard that one.”

“Really?”

Dryly, he says, “No.”

“I’m walking away now.” I can’t help smiling as I turn away. I feel his attention on my back as I walk to the barista to order a coffee.

The wall behind the counter is covered in a mosaic of Polaroid photos. Hundreds of smiling faces. At the far end of the bar, a chessboard lies mid-game with pieces shaped like cats, but nobody’s there. Beside the cash register, there’s an old photo of a grey cat with a dangly collar tag that reads “EARL.” It sits next to a ceramic cat figurine that dispenses tiny round mints from its open mouth, like hairballs. Maddie would love it.

A tall barista with a sleeve tattoo of fern fronds and fiddleheads on fair, freckled skin approaches me. She looks like she’s about my age. Her red hair is in a tidy pixie cut, and her name tag says “QUINN.”

“You all right?” she says.

“Do you know that man over there?” I quietly ask.

She looks at me like I’ve just asked her to serve me a cup of steaming window cleaner instead of a coffee.

“Why are you chatting if you don’t know who he is?” says the other barista. Her smile pinches deep dimples into both of her amber-brown cheeks, and she has a wide diastema between her two front teeth. A floral bandana holds back a voluminous crown of black ringlets. She’s younger, maybe early twenties. Her name tag reads “CHERRY” with a little hand-drawn pair of cherries next to it, both shaped like hearts.

Fair question. “It’s just … I’ve seen him several times since I arrived. I’m here on vacation. Er, holiday.”

Quinn and Cherry glance at each other.

I clear my throat. “And I thought it was kind of a strange coincidence, that’s all.”

The baristas exchange a look that says oh dear, or she can’t be serious, or poor thing—I can’t tell which. I manage to swallow my automatic defensive response and decide to go with plain candor instead. I lean over the counter and drop my voice low.

“Look. I’m meant to be here with my best friend, but she abandoned me in favor of a geriatric cat with the personality of a box of knives. The apartment she booked is non-refundable, and I’m stuck here for the rest of the month. I’m a broke journalist, so I can’t just haul off to somewhere else if I am, in fact, being stalked by that man. I’ve been in London for less than twenty-four hours and I’ve already run into him multiple times, so I was really just hoping for some goddamned feminine solidarity. If you could please tell me if you know anything about him, I’d be—” I’m out of breath. It turns out, it’s really hard to whisper a tirade. “Fucking chuffed.”

For a few awkward beats, the baristas are silent. They blink back at me like two life-sized versions of those dolls with the winky eyelids.

Eventually, Quinn says, “I’m nonbinary.”

“Huh?”

“You said feminine solidarity.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

The baristas glance at each other again.