Page 12 of Holly, Jolly, and Oh So Naughty

“One in a trillion.” She laughs, stirring. “I’m sorry about your dad. But, coming here… has it helped? Have you found what you’re looking for?”

She lifts her head and we lock eyes as I nod slowly. “I think so, yes.”

“That’s good!” Her smile widens. “It’s the little things that help us, isn’t it?”

“You could say that. Although I have run into a slight hiccup in terms of surviving here.”

“Oh?” Lily sweeps her hair over one shoulder as she collects bowls from a cupboard. “Anything I can help with? Trust me, I know everyone in this place so if someone is giving you trouble, I definitely have some tips.”

“It’s less the town and more… my family. See, my mother isn’t too happy about my ditching my life there and creating one here, so she’s blowing up my phone and every phone within my vicinity.”

Lily stiffens slightly as she spoons the pasta into four bowls.

“And Margret, my boss, made it clear that she was tired of it and it was beginning to override the work I was doing there, and if I’m not careful, I’ll be out on my ear.”

As I talk, a spur-of-the-moment idea springs into mind.

“And so I told her the reason my mom has been so stalkerish is because I’m dating someone and she wants to be introduced and I’m not ready for that, so I’m fielding her calls. And then Margret demanded I bring my date to the medical charity party because she feels like she’s owed it.”

“Makes sense.” Lily chuckles and licks her spoon. “So, what’s the issue? Your date doesn’t want to go?”

“No…” Straightening up, I clasp my hands together. “I don’t have a date.”

Lily pauses her movements and watches me. “So you lied.”

“I lied.” I nod. “But I mean, maybe you could help me with that? I know it’s kind of crazy, but you’re the only person around here that I know, so maybe that’s just fate trying to give me a hand, y’know? I don’t want to lose this job, so I need Margret on my side and able to dodge the stalker behavior from my mother, and I know she would just love to feel like she’s holding onto a juicy secret.” It floods out of me in a rush, like I’m sixteen again asking a girl to prom.

“So, would you be interested?”

“Interested?” Lily’s cheeks flush once more.

“In being my date? For a night? I mean, being a fake girlfriend doesn’t come with that much glamor, and we haven’t seen each other in years, but could you take pity on me?”

Lily’s gaze is unwavering, and my heart starts to pound like the rapid thump of a drum.

“Please?”

Lily tilts her head as she thinks and then, to my surprise, she nods. “Okay.”

5

LILY

“You saidyes?” Amelia’s screech draws the attention of at least six other shoppers. I grab her by the wrist and drag her down the next empty aisle.

“Shush!” I hiss, barely holding back a laugh at Amelia’s comically surprised face. “But yeah, I did.”

“Why? What were you thinking? Why would you say yes? What will you—Lily, why?”

“I don’t know, okay?” Releasing Amelia, my hand returns to the shopping cart and I try to distract myself by scanning the shelves for what’s left on my list. Emma’s currently with my parents, which gives me a few hours to grab necessities that were missing from my weekly delivery.

“Are you sure?” Amelia falls into step beside me, popping a few grapes into her mouth that she snagged from the pack in my cart. “I mean, the man broke your heart, Lily. He abandoned you and Emma, and then the first time you see him, you agree to be his girlfriend?”

“Fake girlfriend,” I correct quickly. “And I don’t know. Seeing him again was like…” Sighing, I shrug my shoulders. Butterflies entered my stomach the moment I bumped into him yesterday, and that feeling has not gone away. “It was like I was twenty-one again. He looks exactly the same, and I mean likeexactlythe same. He’s still so hot, and then he was sad, okay? He was standing there talking about his dad dying and not knowing anyone in town, and maybe losing his job because of his mother, and I just… I felt really, really bad for him.”

“The same mother he used to dump you?” Amelia snorts. “Maybe he should lose his job. That would be some good Karma.”

“I don’t know. He just looked so sad. It was like I could suddenly see how he was holding himself together with tape and the seams were cracking, and I just saw a way I could help him, y’know?”

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