Page 30 of The Christmas Yes List

“I don’t.”

“And you like your family.”

“I do.”

“And you said just a moment ago that you’re trying to be intentional about separating work from the rest of your life.”

“That’s true. I did say that. Just a moment ago.”

“Well, then,” I say, putting out my hands, “I think you already know what you should do. It’s very Grinch-like to travel on Christmas Day. Whether or not it’s after five o’clock.”

I recross my legs. Feel heat creep up my cheeks.

What is it about this man that makes me feel, oh, I don’t know, like it’s easier to speak my true mind? With every other person on the planet, pardoning family—and Genie—I keep my thoughts to myself. I bend my opinion to match what I think they want to hear. I make myself as amenable, and thereby as inoffensive, as possible.

But with him . . . I guess things are somehow different.

“I mean, don’t take my word for it,” I continue. “You clearly have a bank account and retirement plan and most likely all kinds of clever stocks hidden all over the market”—the light smile playing on his lips tells me that’s exactly what he has—“and I’m over here with my back-pocket plan being my mom. So yeah, take my words with a grain of salt. But if it were up to me, I’d stretch out the holiday a day, shoot, a week longer if I could. You can always work, and you can make financially astute decisions the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, but your nieces will only be tiny and adorable once. These are the Cindy-Lou Who years. The years where everything is magical to them. You don’t want to miss that because you could’ve saved two hundred bucks.”

There he goes again. Looking at me in a way that isn’t quite so disinterested. No. Rather the opposite. Like . . . well, if I didn’t know any better . . . like he’s charmed.

James’s lips purse as he considers my words. “A week,” he murmurs to himself, as though mentally recalculating the domino effect of taking my opinion (again, who am I?) into account.

There’s a long moment of silence between us. He’s thinking. I’m watching him, quietly captivated.

And just when I think I’m going to have to jump in with something else to say, he nods, affirming that a decision has been made. “All right,” he says, and slaps the tabletop like a judge hitting a gavel during a pronouncement. “Yes. A week it is.”

“Are you serious?” I sputter.

Nobody, in all my life, has ever taken an idea of mine just like that. I mean, little ideas, sure. What movie to watch, that kind of thing. But this? Changing a flight? Staying an extra week to visit his sister? Skipping work another week because some stranger/acquaintance told him it was a good idea and threw out a platitude? “It was just an idea—”

He shakes his head. “It was a question packed in a good argument, and I thought it over and decided you have a point. It’s true. Work is insignificant compared to family, and my nieces, as you so aptly said, will be over this ‘Cindy-Lou Who stage’ before I know it. I don’t want to miss that.” He takes a breath, and when he speaks again, I’m convinced he has told himself this before. “I don’t want to miss out on any more living for the sake of my career. So. Yes. To answer you, that’s what I’ll do.”

I am flabbergasted. So flabbergasted, I’m still working to shut my codfish mouth as Peter comes up to the table. He sets down two more cups of coffee. His smile is bright.

A little too bright if you ask me.

Oh great. I can only imagine the number of texts I’ll be getting from Genie if I haven’t already.

“More drinks,” he says cheerily, setting them before us.

“I think those must be for another . . .” I will not say couple. I will find another word for couple. Pair of two? Tête-à-tête duo? Trio minus one? Male and female smiling at each other over forgotten hot beverages? “. . . table,” I finish. “We didn’t order them.”

Peter flashes an impish grin and I halfway expect him to say Compliments of the house, but no. Turns out it’s much, much worse.

“You’re halfway right,” he says. “You didn’t. Gift from your old friends.” His gaze flickers momentarily to Dom’s table, and while it’s true that all the people sitting there create tiny, distant sparks of faint memories from my school days, they can’t be counted as “friends” by a long shot. Actually, that girl beside Dom was quite mean to me during the middle school years.

“You’ve been missed,” Peter says with a hearty and completely oblivious pat on the shoulder after he sets down the cups. He says it as though this is supposed to make me feel warm and fuzzy. Because that is the sane reaction when someone goes out of their way to buy you drinks. You are supposed to be grateful. You are supposed to be touched.

I feel shackles slipped around my neck. Expectations.

Time to deliver.

I pull up a polite smile. “Oh, wow,” I say. “How thoughtful.”

James, however, is doing that thing he does, I’m learning, quite a bit.

Analyzing me.