Enchantingly Entangled

by Flint, Ember

  I’ll better get going: there were no unplanned check-ups today, just the appointments I already knew about so I’m done for the day roughly at the expected time. Since I didn’t send him a text to delay him, Seth is definitely on his way already and probably about to arrive.

  I smile at the thought of my best friend.

  I really need to cheer him up and try to persuade him to bring a date tomorrow night.

  If there’s someone whose love life is worse than mine, that’s him.

  I take off my white coat and drape it on the back of the swiveling chair, then I pick up Sally’s latest offering —a brightly colored, crayon rendition of a pink, wobbly princess on a pink unicorn and I try to find a spot for it on the big corkboard taking up a good portion of the wall off the side of my desk, all covered in children artwork.

  I finally pin it between a green dragon spewing orange flames over goblins to save Santa under a starry night sky and a Rudolph smiling from under his red nose, sitting amongst the snow at the base of a slightly crooked Empire State Building.

  I pick up my red wool beanie —I do love the holidays and I like to cling to their festive colors to the last minute of the last hour of the last day of December, most people think it’s cheesy, but since I’m definitely not most people I don’t care about what they think— and shove it on my head, throwing my long blonde hair over one shoulder, then I put on my matching overcoat, buttoning it all the way to my throat.

  I might be only going to stand outdoor for a couple of minutes, but it’s freezing cold outside and the city has been waking up covered in a thick layer of fresh snow every day for weeks now.

  I put my oversized bag over my shoulder and slip my fuzzy mittens inside it, then I think better of it and pull them out again. Seth always teases me that my hands are a furnace no matter the weather, but they still feel cold to me and I’ll probably end up with frostbites outside even by standing in the snow for a minute, no matter how much of a thick-skinned, born and raised New Yorker I am.

  As I finish pulling the second wool red mitten with white snowflakes embroidered on it over my left hand, my cell goes off with a Christmassy tune —yes I am that annoying— and my eyes almost pop out as I read the caller ID.

  Gillian Suxon, Her Royal Bitchness.

  Why is she calling me?

  Scratch that. How does she have this number?

  Saying this is an unforeseen occurrence and an unpleasant one at that would be putting it mildly.

  Gillian is Seth’s catty, Grinch-before-his-heart-grew ex-girlfriend. She made his life miserable while they were together and let’s not forget the small detail that she hates my guts so bad she has to take Maalox just to look at me —a reciprocal feeling, by the way.

  I stare at her name a little longer —there’s no picture of her on the screen, I’m not that crazy— and then I take the call.

  “Evelyn speaking, what do you want, Gillian?”

  Okay maybe I’m being a little short or even rude, but I don’t care: I’ve had a long day and I don’t need her crap right now.

  “Evelyn, dahling, how are you?”

  I roll my eyes. I hate her stupid, fake, condescending ‘dahlings’.

  She is so phony she probably has a Mattel brand stamped on her bony ass. I mean, you hate me for fuck’s sake, can’t you at least own up to it?

  ***

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  Also by Ember Flint

  Single Titles

  Shots

  Deck me up

  Cash

  Virgin Heart

  At the Stroke of Midnight

  Standalone Series

  In Love in a New York Minute Series:

  Devastatingly Desirable

  Impetuously Irresistible

  Enchantingly Entangled