You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology

by Karina Bliss

  God, her eyes hurt. The rims, her eyelids, and the skin under her eyes all ached. She hadn’t known it was possible to be this exhausted. But even if Gary stopped twisting the handle of her bedroom door right now, she wouldn’t sleep again tonight.

  The door rattled as he banged on it, the fading bruises on her back still tender from the last time he’d gotten this drunk and she’d been home. The tiny door lock wouldn’t hold him for long. Sometime in the future, he’d be in the perfect spot between drunk enough to try something and sober enough to be able to kick the door down.

  She glanced across the room, in case tonight was the night. There, sitting under the window, was her backpack with a spare toothbrush, pajamas, jeans, her favorite sweatshirt, and twenty dollars. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough to hold her over until she could get back home and pack up the rest of her stuff.

  Gary’s footsteps retreated down the hall, and she eased her way back to a stand. She’d fallen for the retreating-footsteps trick once. This time, she picked up her nightstand and moved it in front of her door.

  The backpack and escape was a nice idea, but the truth was that she had nowhere to go, making fortification more realistic than retreat.

  After she pushed everything she could think of in front of her door, she lifted her heavy limbs into bed and curled up in a tight ball, her eyes zeroed in on the door while she waited for her stepfather to pass out.

  Like she did every other night she’d been trapped in her room, trapped in her house, and trapped in her life, she imagined the moment when all her hard work paid off and she was handed her diploma. That diploma, and the nursing job that would come with it, was her out.

  Out of this house. Out of this town. Out of this life.

  Whatever banged on the door next couldn’t have been Gary’s hand. Or his foot. The bang, and the accompanying crack in the wood, indicated something much bigger. Panic coursed through her, and very real and very scary possibilities drove her out of her bed. As the doorframe cracked behind her, Selina grabbed her coat and her backpack. She didn’t bother to hide her groans as she shoved at the window. She welcomed the cold air that blasted her face.

  Her bedroom door broke open and crashed to the ground just as Selina was slipping through the open window and out into the night. The freezing early-December air made goose pimples rise on her bare arms, her breath visible. She raced around the side of the house to her car and climbed in. Besides the clothes in her backpack, she had a blanket in the car. She could sleep in the diner’s parking lot if she had to, but she was never going back to that house.

  Chapter Two

  “Curtis, you’re not listening to me,” Marc Murcowski said into the overly warm air of the car as he navigated the twisting road up and around the mountain.

  “What’s the big problem with Terry?” Curtis asked.

  Terry had been their pet name for the encrypted text message app they’d sold for millions of dollars. Who knows what it was called now? Something that sounded more secretive, no doubt, and probably boring, too.

  “Right now, Terry needs mutual contact-list entries to generate a key. But I’ve figured out a way around our problem.” He tapped his steering wheel excitedly. The solution was so simple, so elegant; they should have seen it months ago. Maybe they could have sold the company for more if they had.

  The silence on the other end of the line lasted long enough that Marc glanced at the screen on his dash to make sure he still had service. Just as he was about to reach over and shake his phone—not that it would have any effect, but doing something would make him feel better and he couldn’t shake his best friend and former business partner into listening to him—Curtis cleared his throat.

  “It’s not our problem,” he said. “The contact-list entry is my problem. You. Sold. Terry.”

  The way Curtis enunciated every word made the joints of Marc’s jaw ache, but he didn’t give in to his irritation. Curtis had something Marc wanted. Namely, Curtis still had access to the app they’d developed and Marc didn’t.

  “Technically,” he said, struggling to keep his voice jolly, “we both sold the company. You simply chose to stay on after all the checks were written.”

  Marc slowed his SUV as he approached the next hairpin turn. He should be appreciating the scenery of the Idaho mountains in the early winter. After all, he had cancelled the lease on his Seattle apartment and driven off with the intent of seeing the country and skiing at all the best resorts. But pine trees and snowy mountaintops were competition for the way his mind had rolled over the contact-list problem since he’d driven out of town in search of . . .

  Maybe that was the issue. He didn’t know what he was looking for other than something else to occupy his mind. Some intricate, interesting problem to solve. Something with a minor detail out of place where the solution would hit him over the head and a small edit in the code would make an audience of investors open their checkbooks.

  A life of leisure had turned out to be really fucking boring. And it had only been a week.

  “And you were given the chance to stay on when we sold Terry, too. You refused.”

  Marc took the next turn as Curtis was silent again. They’d been friends long enough for Marc to imagine what his friend was doing. Curtis was probably sitting at his desk—before they’d sold Terry, they’d both been at their desk 95 percent of their waking hours—rolling his eyes at the wall. Curtis always rolled his eyes when he thought he was right but the other person was still arguing.

  “Satellite lost,” the GPS woman said in her tinny voice. For the past two hours, it was all she’d been able to say. Occasionally she’d say, “Satellite found,” but mostly lost.

  “Come on, Betty.” He’d started calling her that yesterday, the second time he’d made a hairpin turn in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, centermost middle of nowhere state. He and Curtis had this joke that if you named technology, it would behave better. ’Cause it felt loved, ’cause you were furthering its ability to take over the world Matrix-style, ’cause it made swearing at it more satisfying. The two of them had had different ideas about why you had to name technology.

  Marc named technology because he loved it. Curtis wanted to take over the world. They both liked swearing.

  “Look,” he said to the screen as he pulled his brand-new Land Rover over to the side of the road. “I’m sorry it took me a day to give you a name. I get it. You’re still mad. But I’ve named you. I’ve apologized. Now just tell me where the fuck I’m supposed to go.”

  That request wasn’t a complete joke. When he’d started out this morning, he hadn’t put a destination into the GPS. His grand plan for the past week had been to drive around, pull over at every overlook and random historical site, and reconcile his whirring mind to his new situation as he drove from ski resort to ski resort. So far, all he’d done was solve Terry’s biggest hitch and call Curtis.

  Once safely as far over to the side of the road as he dared, he reached for one of the phones sitting in the passenger seat. Veronica, his Verizon Samsung had no bars. He tossed it back, grabbing for Megan, his AT&T Motorola phone. He huffed. No bars. His favorite phone was failing him now, too. He set it on the seat next to the Samsung and snatched up the last phone, Holly, his Sprint HTC. She didn’t have bars, either. When he pitched Holly back to the seat, she bounced once, then slid off onto the floor.

  By now, Curtis had to have realized that the call had been dropped. Marc sighed. Well, at least his friend would have extra time to consider that Marc had a solution to their problem and would come to his senses. Because Marc needed something to do in empty hotel rooms after driving around all day.

  “I owe you another apology, Betty,” he said to the GPS. Having lost his call with Curtis, he only had the machines to talk to. “It’s not your fault we’re lost. Clearly an asteroid has hit Earth somewhere, wiping out all possible technology, leaving me to fend for myself in the wilderness.”

  An opportunity, the fucking voice in the back o
f his head said. Drive out of here, head south, and announce to Curtis and everyone on that huge company campus that you can write the code to save the planet.

  He laid his head in his hands on the steering wheel and looked to the passenger seat. His three phones represented all the communication he had with the outside world anymore, short of the brief conversations with hotel desk clerks and fast-food cashiers. Which, he reminded himself, was what he had wanted. After the tight living of writing Terry and the stress of selling her, he had needed time to himself, to figure out who he was and what he wanted to do next. Disappearing into the woods was a time-honored path to discovery. It wasn’t as though he’d be bored forever. He had ski vacations booked through the rest of the winter. The restlessness would pass.

  He shifted into reverse and turned the car around. He’d head down the mountain. There were towns at the base where he could take a break from driving. And when he landed back in civilization and checked his e-mail, he told himself, there would be something from Curtis saying he wanted Marc’s help.

  Marc drove until Betty announced the glories of satellite reception. Then, before he could lose his connection to the modern world, he asked his favorite phone to give him directions to food. As backup, he asked Betty, too.

  They directed him to the parking lot of an old-fashioned, run-down diner. His SUV crunched and bumped in the pothole-studded asphalt. The fissures in the earth must have been left over from previous winters, since it was only the beginning of December and winter hadn’t attacked northern Idaho with the full force of her power yet. His eyes skimmed the building as he made his way toward it. The E in the neon OPEN sign was out, and the N flickered. The door opened just fine, though, and it smelled like bacon and sausage inside, so he sat himself, as the sign instructed.

  A waitress in her late twenties walked up to him with a menu in one hand and a globe of coffee in the other. Her bright, yellow-blond hair was bluntly cut at her chin and swung about her face as she walked. Her red lips were turned down, and when she got closer, he realized that she was younger than he’d first thought, early twenties probably.

  She looked tired as she set the menu in front of him and reached out to turn up his coffee cup. She had dark, puffy circles under her eyes, and her face looked wan. Even her shoulders sagged. The woman seemed exhausted, the kind of tired that sank into one’s bones and made each step feel like a slog through mud.

  “Welcome to Babe’s,” she said, pouring coffee before asking if he wanted decaf, or even coffee at all. Marc was tempted to invite her to sit down—before she fell down—but wasn’t smooth enough to pull that off without sounding like a creep or making her feel uncomfortable. He decided to make an extra effort to be a good customer instead.

  And leave a good tip.

  “We’re out of the steak for steak and eggs. The orange juice is fresh squeezed.” That bit was said with an edge to her voice, as if she would be the one squeezing it and he would be the one regretting ordering it. Not only did she seem weary from lack of sleep, but she seemed weary from life, he judged from the way light seemed to try—and failed—to flicker in her eyes. “Everything else is on the menu. I’ll give you a minute to look it over. Ya want water?”

  If she was as worn-down as he was guessing, it was no wonder she sounded eager to get rid of him. Perversely, he liked the careless tone she addressed him with. Excellent customer service was nice, but the barely-on-the-edge of polite waitress with cherry-red lips was far more interesting. Especially one who was as cute as she was in her short skirt and ruffled white apron.

  “No water,” he said.

  She wobbled slightly as she turned to walk away, her skirt swinging almost as much as her hair. God, it barely covered her butt. He looked up, embarrassed to be staring at the backs of her thighs.

  “Wait,” he called to her back. “What should I get?”

  When she turned around to look at him, her face had softened and there was the hint of a smile on her lips, giving him a glimpse of the woman she might be underneath her fatigue. When he and Curtis had been spending days and nights building their app, he’d had times when no amount of coffee would help to keep his eyelids open. And here she was, even managing a smile. It was impressive. And intriguing.

  “Get the Elk Chips. Roasted potatoes, scrambled eggs, peppers, sausage, and cheese all in one big pile, topped with sour cream and salsa. It’s basically everything you could want in a breakfast.”

  “And what if I’m a sweet guy?” he asked, attempting an easy, flirtatious tone, something he’d never had much success with. However, now that he’d seen her smile, he didn’t want her to leave the table and he was going to give it everything he had.

  She mustered another small smile. “Huckleberry pancakes. Babe picks the berries herself—at patches she won’t tell anyone else about. If you’ve never had real huckleberries, you should get those. Babe makes the huckleberry syrup, too.”

  “I’ll have that, then. I want you to remember my sweetness.” God, he’d meant that sincerely, but even he could hear that he sounded like an ass covered in slime.

  Her smile disappeared, replaced by raised eyebrows and suspiciously narrowed eyes. “Was that supposed to be a pickup line?”

  He shrugged, chagrined. “I’m just trying to make your day better, not worse.”

  Her eyebrows remained up. “So pickup line or not?”

  Smooth, he wasn’t. She probably heard cracks like that all the time from random men who walked into Babe’s Diner and wanted to see a smile on her face.

  “Somewhere in between,” he offered, trying to verbally back away without fully retreating.

  She continued to look unimpressed. “You know, pickup lines are almost never successful with women, and especially not when delivered halfheartedly.”

  He laughed at the truth of the matter. The town sign had said the population was 692. On his way to the diner he’d seen a vet’s office, a bar, a hardware store, and a steakhouse, but no McDonald’s. So it wasn’t that she was sick of all the strangers coming in and hitting on her, he realized. It was that he’d tried, struck out, and then was being a coward about it.

  “You’re right,” he said, shaking his head at himself. “Well, here’s the honest truth. I suck at being smooth. If I’d wanted to impress you, I should have talked nerdy to you. I’m good at that.”

  To his surprise—and apparently to hers, too—she laughed. Her entire face brightened. For a brief moment, the dark circles were gone from under her eyes and the little Christmas bells hanging from her ears jingled. Pleasure filled his chest. He was as proud as if he’d just dragged an enormous dead animal to the cave of the woman he was trying to impress. At least he knew enough not to bang on his chest.

  “That was better,” she said with a smile and a shake of her holly-tipped pen. “Huckleberry pancakes it is. Comes with bacon or sausage.”

  “Bacon, please.”

  She nodded, a hint of a smile still present on her lips. “It’ll go with your sweetness.”

  This time, when she walked away, he didn’t feel guilty for enjoying the view before picking up his mug of coffee. He took a sip, prepared to grimace at the stale, pre-ground coffee, and was stunned by the rich, smooth liquid that jolted him awake. He pulled Megan out of his pocket and skimmed through his e-mail. A couple of messages from his dating app profile, which he deleted without looking at. Some e-mails thanking him for entering some contest—his mother’s doing. And there, buried in the midst of the junk, was the e-mail he had been expecting from Curtis.

  He sat back in his seat and read the message. Curtis thanked him for the offer of work, then told him that they would be sure to contact him if they had lingering issues with Terry that Curtis couldn’t solve. But right now, we’re good, he’d written.

  He hit the “reply” button. We’re a team, he typed, then deleted it. They had been a team. Curtis would be sure to point out again that they had both been asked to stay with Terry in her new home and Marc had turned the o
ffer down.

  Better to stay with the simple, We should talk again. Curtis had always thought they were good. Throughout the entire building process, it had been Marc who had pushed for tighter code, better security, more encryption, fewer holes. Curtis’s strength was writing code; Marc’s was fixing it.

  Good editors were never given the credit they were due. Or that had been how Marc had felt when they were in negotiations and all the attention had been given to Curtis.

  “Here ya go.”

  The waitress’s voice startled him out of the lies he was about to start telling himself. He had been offered a job, just as Curtis had, and he’d rejected it because he hadn’t felt like his ego was being stroked enough. That impulsive rejection was his fault. It’s why he was on the outside, an elegant solution running circles in his mind, and Curtis was on the inside, ignoring him.

  “Hey, this smells good.” The bacon was thick and crispy, not too much fat. The purple syrup smelled sweet and tart, like it would make him pucker and his dentist cringe in the best possible way. The pancakes themselves smelled like butter.

  “Babe knows what she’s doing,” his waitress answered as she took a step back, putting distance between them, their shared laughter nothing but a memory.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  She raised a pale eyebrow at him, and he held his hands up. “I’m not trying to hit on you, I promise.”

  Doubt shadowed her face. Maybe it was due to how tired she was, but reactions flittered across her face like a movie he would never get bored watching.

  “Okay,” he said, waving a hand. “Men who aren’t hitting on women always swear they aren’t. It’s the oldest trick in the book. But look, I’m at loose ends until Saturday and am driving around exploring stuff. Got any local recommendations?”

  “What kind of stuff?” Her face relaxed a little. Though she still looked tired, he could tell that curiosity had caught hold of her.