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“It’s way bigger than last year,” Luke said. “And I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Hmm…” When Jude looked up at the tree, his gaze connected with mine. “There you are. I thought you might be hiding.” He motioned for me to come into the room. “What do you think?”
“It’s big.”
He took my hand when I stood next to him.
“Jude does everything big if you haven’t noticed.” Luke poured himself a drink from the bar he set up last night. “I’m going to see if Grace needs help with anything.”
“You know she doesn’t,” Jude said.
“She’ll get mad if I don’t at least offer to help.” Luke smiled at me. “You look very pretty, Emmie. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Thank you.” I glanced down at my feet. “Happy Thanksgiving to you too.”
Once Luke was out of the room, Jude led me over to the bar. “Prosecco?”
I nodded.
“You seem to have caught the attention of all the men around here.” He poured me a glass from the bottle chilling in a shiny silver bucket. “Luke, Anthony, Josh.” His jaw tightened when he mentioned that last name. “Johnny, and a few of the other guys.”
“I didn’t mean to.” I took the delicate flute from him.
“That’s your superpower, pretty girl. You have no idea what you do to a man, and neither does he until it’s too late.”
“There’s only one man I want.”
He smiled before taking a sip of his vodka.
“Do you always get the tree on Thanksgiving?” I asked.
“I have it delivered today, but we don’t decorate it until December.”
“It’s perfect.” I gazed up at it. “We never had a tree when I was a kid.”
“Never?”
“I think when I lived with my grandmother I did, but when I moved with my dad we didn’t.” I inhaled the scent of the pine needles. “When I was sixteen, I saved a little money from my first job at a local pizza shop. On my way home one night, there was this guy selling trees on the street.” I remembered he had a fire burning in a trashcan to keep warm while he sold the trees. “He had this one tree that was scrawny and small, but I thought it would be perfect in our apartment. I couldn’t afford any lights or ornaments, but I still wanted the tree.”
“Did you get it?”
“He wanted twenty-five dollars for it, but I only had fifteen. I thanked him and started to walk away, but he called after me and told me he would sell it to me for fifteen, because it was a few days before Christmas, and he probably wouldn’t sell it otherwise.”
“He should have given it to you at no charge.”
“He had to feed his family.” The fifteen dollars I paid for the tree was supposed to buy milk and bread, but I was so excited about getting the tree, I had forgotten my responsibilities. “Anyway, I bought the tree.”
I didn’t want to finish telling him the story, because it didn’t have a happy ending once the deadbeat saw what I had spent the money on.
“Well, this Christmas you’ll have lights and ornaments.”
“It will be beautiful.” I stared at the tree, imagining the twirling lights and shimmery red balls.“I started reading the book Grace gave me.” It had been on the nightstand for over a week, but I was too afraid to open it. “That’s what I was doing upstairs.”
“Do you like it?”
“I don’t know.” I sipped my drink. “I’m not much of a reader.”
“I could take you to the bookstore and you could pick out some things that might interest you.”
