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Me: And if you think of another plan for winning him over about The Market, feel free to go rogue!
James:
I tossed my phone onto my bed and propped my feet up on the Christmas quilt. “Before we go anywhere, I need a shower and coffee.”
“Yeah, you do.” Jo leaned forward and sniffed the air, laughing as I grabbed a pillow on the floor and chucked it at her.
Northern Virginia may have had some great shopping, but it was the people-watching I loved about it the most. The sounds and stories they all carried on their faces and even in the bags they held as they moved from store to store made me wish I had brought my notepad.
Moving through all of them, though? Not as enjoyable.
I clutched my bags against my chest as we shuffled through the mall for the exit, both of us gulping air when we finally made it to the parking lot.
“It’s always worse during the holidays,” Jo said, straightening her sweater that got rumpled from brushing by the hordes of shoppers. “There’s a reason why so many people prefer online shopping.”
“True.” I rolled my tight shoulders.
We waited for the line of slow-moving cars to stop before speed-walking through the parking lot toward her car.
Jo tossed our bags into the back seat and then clicked the lock just as my hands moved to open the passenger-side door. “We’ve got one more stop,” she said, twirling her keys in her hand.
“But we literally checked off everything on my Italy lists.” I held up the paper with the scratch marks in every column.
“This isn’t for Italy.” She pointed behind me.
I rubbed the back of my neck as I looked at the boutique store’s entrance and someone walking out with a large garment bag. “Jo—”
“Look, whether or not you go with James or Sam or alone, who knows where we’ll be next year.” She walked around the trunk of her car and faced me. “I’d like to think we’ll always come home for Christmas, but if, and I do mean if, The Market is gone by then, the Mistletoe Masquerade will be…different.”
I sighed.
She was right.
Mullings Creek would always have some form of a dance on Christmas Eve, but I’d be a fool to think it would never change in the years to come—Market or no Market.
She put her arms on my shoulders. “I know we normally blow the dance off for movies and some quiet before the chaos of Christmas, but I’m with Sam. I think this should be the year we finally go.”
Screw it. “I’m in.”
“Really?” Her eyes widened.
“It’s like you said: We don’t know what next year will look like.” I took a deep breath and then looped my arm through hers as we walked toward the fancy boutique. “If The Market is going away—God, I hate saying that out loud—then this may be the most important Mistletoe Masquerade that Mullings Creek has ever had. How can we miss it?”
She pulled me into a sideways hug before opening the door to the shop, bringing out deep woodsy and fresh floral scents. After nodding to a salesclerk, Jo and I began meandering through rows upon rows of dresses.
“So, have you thought about which color you’re going for?” she asked as she looked back and forth between two long, midnight-blue gowns on the rack behind me.
I held up a stunning emerald-green one that was off-the-shoulder and had a long slit up the side. “Well, I know James loves green.”
“True, but when you think about what you want that night to be like on Christmas Eve, what do you picture?”
I put the emerald-green dress back on the rack and turned around. “I don’t know, Jo—”
“Yes, you do. But you’re still too scared to let yourself think it.” She briefly touched my shoulder and then went back to browsing through the blues.
Too scared?
Of what?
