Page 1 of A Not So Casual Christmas

Chapter One

Tessa Kennedy didn’t want to go to Wilson’s Christmas party, but she couldn’t come up with a decent excuse. He was throwing it, not because he wanted to have a fun get together, but because their boss, aka Scrooge McShitheel, conned him into it. By having Wilson invite everyone, McShitheel didn’t have to pay a caterer for a work holiday party.

The whole office was going to be there and if she didn’t show up, it could be bad for her career. At the very least, she’d be fair game for gossip. It was self-defense to be a devoted team player.

Bah humbug.

She made a face as put on the ugly sweater with the Christmas balls dangling suggestively in front and a riotous pair of holiday leggings that McShitheel had given to all “the girls” in the office. The men got light up ties and a ten-dollar gift card to Starbucks.

Maybe on the way to Wilson’s condo, she’d slip and bang her head and get amnesia. Tessa considered using that as an excuse, but then rejected it. McShitheel would probably take the opportunity of her not remembering things to cut her salary.

Two hours tops, she promised herself. Hopefully, she could stay in a group and Wilson wouldn’t be able to catch her alone.

He had asked her out for dinner on multiple occasions and she always turned him down unless the group of them were going. She knew he was interested in her, but she didn’t want a romantic relationship right now. It was too complicated and with her work schedule being so erratic, she couldn’t even have a pet right now.

What Tessa really wanted to do was go home to New Hampshire and be with her family. But that wasn’t in the cards. McShitheel was making them work on Christmas because some asshole client in the Philippines wanted to do a system implementation by the new year. And since the overseas office would be closed for the holiday, McShitheel decided that would be the perfect time to do a stress test and final quality analysis. Tessa wondered if it had even occurred to him that some of his employees might have had other plans. Still the overtime would come in handy, even if it didn’t make up for the shitty Christmas she was going to have. The least he could have done was fly her out first class to the Philippines so she could do it live. But no, Tessa didn’t even have the comfort of room service on his dime. She would have to brown bag it in the office all weekend long. And still be expected in at work at nine a.m. on Monday.

Her parents were taking it better than she thought they would. Tessa had thought they would give her a hard time about it, but they just expressed sympathy and said they would miss her. She guessed they were preoccupied with her sister Mari’s upcoming wedding. Although that wasn’t until spring. Tessa hoped see would see them all before May, but it wasn’t looking good.

And Ben would be at the wedding too.

The thought of her old boyfriend brought a smile to her face. She couldn’t wait to see him. They were still friends and sent emails and texts when they could to each other. Tessa hadn’t seen him in almost five years, but they kept a friends with extremely hot benefits relationship and banged each other silly every time they saw each other. Mari saw talked with him briefly last Christmas. Ben had been on leave, but Tessa had just missed him when he stopped to visit his parents before he had been recalled. They wound up having phone sex that was better than some real sex she had.

Ben was the standard Tessa compared all other men to, which was probably why she was still single. They had been inseparable all through high school and college. At one point, Tessa was sure they were going to get married, have the white picket fence and all the trappings. He had broken her heart, though, when he didn’t want to get married before he deployed to Afghanistan. He hadn’t wanted to take her away from her family and leave her all alone while he was gone.

Tessa gave a half laugh. So, what did she do out of spite? Moved to Brooklyn the week after he left. She couldn’t stay home. Not when the sheets still smelled like him and when every place reminded her of Ben. After that, they had just grown apart. She was pretty sure he was stationed stateside now, but whenever she asked him for any details he was vague and made excuses about national security that she wasn’t sure was bullshit or not. He had the ethics of an Eagle Scout, though, so it was possible he was out there saving the world and refusing to take credit for it.

She tried not to worry. It was hard not knowing where he was or what he was doing. Or who he was with. They never talked about the people they were dating. Tessa had gone out a few times with a few men over the years. She had a good time, but it never went anywhere. She assumed it was the same with Ben. She hoped it was anyway. The thought of him with anyone else made her want to throw things. He usually wasn’t in her thoughts this much, but this time of year she couldn’t help but play the “what if” game.

What if instead of being a soldier, Ben had never enlisted in ROTC and decided to continue playing football after college. He had some interest from the arena and Canadian leagues, but his post graduate plans had been determined by his ROTC obligations. If he had been drafted into the professional or semiprofessional leagues, maybe they would have gotten married. And instead of trudging out in the bitter cold tonight, she’d be decorating her house for Christmas and making cookies with her kids.

Shaking herself out of that wistful thinking, she ordered an Uber and went down to the sidewalk to wait for it. Her life was what it was and for the most part, she was happy. There was something about this time of the year that made her long for things she gave up on when she moved to New York. Ben and she always had an unspoken assumption that someday, they’d be together, when the stars align. But he had signed up for another tour and liked working with the army and the time was never right.

Getting into the Uber, she enjoyed the sight of the city at night. When it was decorated for the holidays, it became magical. She cracked the window and over the sound of traffic, she could hear the strains of a saxophone playing several streets over.

It was only a ten minute drive from her one room apartment in Williamsburg to Wilson’s condo in Dumbo, but it was a world away in wealth and space. When she first came to Brooklyn, she had thought they named a district after a cartoon elephant. Luckily, she found out Dumbo stood for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, before she embarrassed herself. She’d never pass for a native New Yorker, but at least she stopped shying away from taxi cabs and gawking at the architecture on the old buildings.

The one good thing about tonight, aside from the free food and booze, was that she could walk around from room to room instead of being stuck in her studio apartment. It was the closest thing she was going to get to a home this season. Wilson was the company’s top salesmen, while she was just an IT drone, but even still the neighborhood screamed money.

Tugging her coat around herself self-consciously, Tessa handed her party invitation to the doorman. She waited while he checked her identification to make sure she was on the guest list. He directed her to the elevator, and she sighed at the opulent foyer. As the elevator took her up to the penthouse, Tessa wondered how many other people lived in the building and how much they paid in rent. When the doors opened into an expansive space with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city, she realized she didn’t want to know.

“Tessa!” Wilson’s voice boomed out and everyone turned to look at her.

They were all cocktail dresses and suits.

Fuck my life.

“Did I miss a memo?” Tessa asked, dodging Wilson’s air kisses and struggling to keep her coat.

“What are you talking about?” He held out his hand for her jacket.

She didn’t want to give up her coat, but the heat was jacked up and she was beginning to sweat. Oh, what the hell? Shrugging out of it, she thrust it at him defiantly.

“Huh,” he said, taking in her outfit. He handed her coat off to a waiting maid.

“You’re not even wearing the tie,” Tessa lamented.

Wilson shook himself out of it. “You look … festive?” he settled on, and gave her a smile.

---