Page 127 of The Holiday Hate-Off
I should open it.
Even if I’m not interested in Lobster Stalker, he’s become a friend. It would be cruel and shitty to not even read his letter,especiallyif he’s a sweet, lonely old man living down the hall. There’s also a possibility that I’ve barely allowed myself to consider…
Enzo mentioned the Lobster Scouts and went to the lobster trap tree lighting. It’s possible it was his silhouette I saw on the street outside the building, his letters I’ve been reading…
So I have to open it for many reasons.
I’m definitely going to.
Just after I tweak my image carousels for each of the shops in my app.
There’s a knock on my door, and I startle before getting to my feet. It must be Charlie. Eileen’s at the Sip, but Charlie was commissioned to do an oil painting of a German shepherd chasing a running gingerbread cookie, and she has to finishbefore Christmas. Charlie has always procrastinated on deadlines, ever since we were teenagers, and I can easily imagine her visiting me as an excuse to avoid working.
But when I look through the peephole I gasp.
“Uh, just a second,” I say, because it’s Enzo, and I’m wearing a huge billowy T-shirt and exercise shorts. Worse, I have coffee breath.
Then I shake my head at my own nonsense and open the door. Because I won’t change myself to try to impress him. If he genuinely wants to date me, he’s going to realize sooner or later that when I get lost in my computer in the mornings, I look like this.
“Bellissima,” he says.
“Please.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m perfectly aware of what I look like right now.”
“Obviously not,” he replies with a shrug.
Then I catch sight of the to-go cups and bakery box. “You brought breakfast?”
“I had to convince you to let me in somehow,” he says, a twinkle in his eyes.
I step aside and allow him entry, marveling at having him here in my space. He left me at my door last night, but I didn’t invite him in. I’d felt too raw at the idea of it.
He walks in, looking around curiously, and then sets the box and cups on the small table in the combined dining and living room.
“So this is where Lucia lives,” he says as I close the door behind him.
I grin at him. “And now you’re trapped inside. You may never be allowed to leave.”
“Is that meant to scare me?”
“You should be scared. For all you know, I was lying, and I have a bathroom stuffed with taxidermied animals.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he says, taking a steptoward me. I take a step toward him too, pulled by a force I can’t see and can only feel.
We stop inches from each other, close enough that I can feel the cold he brought in from outside.
“Are you going to take your coat off?”
“Are you going to take your shirt off?” he asks with a curl of his lips.
“For all you know, I’m very busy.”
He watches me for another loaded second and then takes off his coat and hangs it on the back of one of the chairs at the table. “I know you’re very busy. Eileen told me.”
“Which explains the coffee cups, not your presence.”
“So I thought I’d bring you some coffee and breakfast. It seemed only right for us to drink our Frenemies together.”
My heart quakes at this bit of sweetness—and at the thought of him talking with Eileen. I don’t mean to, but I reach up and trace the collar of his sweater. “Thank you for coming. I wanted to try one of them.”
