Page 2 of Icing on Top
As I was locking the door, Bree appeared beside me. “So, maybe you aren’t ready yet, but I thought I would give this to you.” I took the business card she held out and looked at it.
“Tempted Hearts?”
“It’s a dating app that the coffee shop is promoting. You should think about creating a profile. Find someone who deserves you and will make you happy.”
“Umm, thanks, Bree, but I don’t think I want to date right now,” I said as I tried to return the card to her.
She held her hands up and backed away from me toward her car. “No take backs,” she laughed. “If you don’t want anything serious, say that on your profile, but you should try to find someone to keep you company for the holidays, especially this year.”
I shook my head at the girl as she retreated to her car and drove away before I could respond. I slipped the card into my back pocket and went home. I let myself into the silent house, immediately turning on the lights and pulling up a Spotify playlist to drown out the quiet. This had been my childhood home. My mom had died when I was younger, so for most of my life, it was just me and my dad. Much to my dad’s concealed annoyance, Paul moved in with us a couple of years ago. Hetried, but he never really liked Paul. He might have been on to something.
Now, it was just me. Dad died eight months ago in a car accident. I’ll never forget the day the police came into the shop to tell me the news. Paul had been away on a business trip then, so I had to face the initial pain alone. For months, I had a tough time coping with the loss. And Paul had a hard time dealing with me. He started going on more and more business trips until it felt like he was gone more than he was home.
In the last month, I had just started to come out of the fog. I still felt like screaming over the loss, but I was trying to pull myself together and function better. I knew that’s what my dad would have wanted. I tried to reconnect with Paul when he was home. He had pushed me away with disgust or laughter on more than one occasion. Then he would ask me why I thought he would want to touch me after turning into a blimp. I knew I had gained some weight, but I hadn’t thought I had gained so much to make me repulsive. Apparently, in his eyes, I was. Finally, he came home a couple of days ago and packed his belongings.
He had tried to do it while I was at work, but knowing he had come home, I left early to surprise him. I had intended to seduce him. Imagine my shock when he was placing the last box into his car. He had the good sense to look slightly ashamed at being caught trying to sneak off. When asked if he planned to tell me, he responded, “I figured you’re a smart girl and would have figured it out. You had to know that this was coming. I haven’t touched you in months. This relationship isn’t working. I need someone by my side that I can be proud to look at, that is desirable, and unfortunately, with your dad dying, you’ve just let yourself go.” He left after that. Leaving me standing in my driveway with my mouth open, dumbfounded.
I broke myself out of my reverie and looked at my plate of half-eaten chicken. I shoved the plate away in disgust and reached formy wine glass instead, gulping down its contents and pouring myself another glass. Guess I’ll be drinking my dinner tonight. Objectively, the break-up was probably for the best. If Dad were here, he would be thrilled to see Paul walking out of our lives. But it was difficult to think objectively. Paul was safe, and his presence kept me from feeling like I was all alone in the world. Even if his presence was more in spirit than physical. The only silver lining was that I learned in the last two days that I didn’t love Paul as much as I thought.
I met Paul shortly after he moved to town to work at Triple Tech, the largest company in Sunflower Falls. He had come into the shop to order cupcakes to bring to work to impress his coworkers. I hooked him up, and he asked me out on a date. Living in a small town like Sunflower Falls, strangers didn’t tend to stick around. Most were tourists here to ski and visit our picturesque little town. So I felt lucky that the new guy in town was interested in me. A year later, he was moving in with us, and I thought my life was perfect and my future was set. And now, I’m all alone, and it will be the first Christmas without my dad.
I stood to bring my plate to the sink and had to grab the island to steady myself as the effects of the wine made themselves known. Deciding to leave my plate, I emptied the rest of the wine into my glass, grabbed it and my phone, and went to the couch. Sipping my wine, I looked around my living room. If Dad were here, he would already be decorating. We would drink eggnog every Thanksgiving night, put on A Christmas Carol, and decorate the Christmas tree. I had always longed for a real tree, but Dad preferred the artificial trees because they didn’t make the mess a real tree did.
Spending Christmas alone sounded dreadful, but I knew I couldn’t ignore the season. I loved Christmas, and so did my Dad. It was his favorite holiday, and to turn my back on it felt like I was turning my back on him, too. An idea came to me, andI reached into my back pocket and fished out the business card that Bree had given me earlier. I studied the card thoughtfully as I tapped my finger against the edge. The card read, ‘Let fate find your match!’ What could it hurt? Maybe fate could find me someone to do all the Christmas traditions with.
I sat up, opened the laptop on the coffee table, and pulled up the website. I entered my email, and a questionnaire filled the screen. I filled out the essential information and paused at the question to describe myself in ten words. I hated this kind of thing and almost shut the laptop. Instead, I took another fortifying gulp of my wine and powered through.
Hard Working, Loyal, Creative, Grieving, Alone, Drunk.
I didn’t come up with ten words, but I did my best. The next question that made me pause was the monogamous, swinger, or polyamorous one. Polyamory was becoming mainstream, though I knew some people still didn’t approve of it. In my own opinion, love was love, and someone else’s love life wasn’t any of my damn business. As for myself, I didn’t have an answer to that, and it didn’t matter because I wasn’t looking for love, just company. I snickered as I answered the question.
Single AF.
The rest of the questions were rather mundane. In the additional comments section, I stated that I wasn’t looking for anything romantic. I just wanted someone to spend the holiday season with. I finished my wine as I hovered over the submit button. Using my liquid courage, I clicked the button and quickly closed my laptop. Well, now that I had put my future in the hands of fate, it was time to go to bed. I grabbed a glass of water to take to bed with me as I turned off all the lights. I had a feeling that tomorrow was not going to be pretty.
A Terrible Mistake
Grant
Iwrinkled my nose at my cafeteria sandwich on the paper plate in front of me. We needed to start planning dinner, so we didn’t have to be subjected to the unique cuisine prepared downstairs. Or we could consider hiring better chefs. I took a bite and then pushed the sandwich away in disgust. Nope. I’d eat when we went home, whenever that would be. We were in the final preparations for releasing our latest fitness tracker in January, just in time for all the New Year’s resolutions to exercise more. Though, to be fair, even if we weren’t preparing for a product launch, we usually pulled long hours at the office. I built Triple Tech from the ground up with my foster brothers, best friends, and roommates. Admittedly, we had difficulty leaving work at the office, if we left at all.
“How can you eat that?” I asked Lincoln as he took another large bite of his sandwich.
He shrugged. “Food is food, and this is all that is available.” He continued to munch on the sandwich-shaped mush.
“Food is fuel,” Benjamin corrected, “you both should have gotten a salad like I did.”
I rolled my eyes at him. He never missed an opportunity to lecture us on our eating habits. As Triple Tech’s Chief Operations Officer and creator of our fitness tracker and app, he felt it was essential to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Lincoln, Triple Tech’s Chief Executive Officer and face of the company stuck his tongue out at Ben. If I didn’t step in soon, things would decline quickly. Before I could change the subject, our assistant entered the board room.
“I just wanted to let you know I’m taking off,” Joel announced. I was surprised that he had stayed this long since it was Thanksgiving. Then again, we paid him handsomely to keep him at our beck and call.
“Thank you, Joel. I hope we didn’t completely ruin your holiday plans,” I told him.
“Nothing that Christmas bonus won’t fix,” he winked. “I didn’t have anything major going on this year. My parents flew to Seattle to spend Thanksgiving with my sister and her family. My only plans today were to go to the club tonight.”
“A club on Thanksgiving?” Ben asked.
