My head notches back as if he’s physically shoved me. “Are you calling me crazy?”
“You came to a dinner date dressed as a bloody elf!” The napkin drops to his lap and he leans across the table, his face growing redder. “What grown woman shows up to a date with a man she presumably wants to begin some type of relationship with dressed as a children’s Christmas character?”
My eyes burn with unshed tears because the disgust and condescension in his voice is something I’ve known all too well in my life. I stand with a flourish, the tiny bells ringing. At this point, no one else is really paying attention to the bells or that I’m dressed like an elf.
“I can see now that arriving here dressed like this”—I shake my hips for a little extra emphasis and, quite frankly, to annoy him—“was a mistake. But my intention wasn’t to embarrass you. It was so I wouldn’t leave you sitting in a restaurant, waiting for your date to show up. Making you think your blind date was a no-show felt rude and demeaning to me. So, I showed up here like this. But you had two choices. You could’ve laughed it off and appreciated that I did what I could to be on time, show it mattered that I thought of you and your feelings. Or you could make me feel like an idiot. And you chose the latter.”
He opens his mouth, but I raise my hand.
“As much fun as this evening has been, I’m leaving. And don’t worry, I’ll do you the courtesy of not telling my brother what a dick you were to his little sister.” I toss my napkin on the table and storm off in a chorus of tinkling bells.
If I ever see Andrew Wainwright again, it will be too soon.
ChapterFour
Kenzie
It’s not until I’m out in the chilly early November air that I stop and think about what I just did. My cheeks heat with embarrassment and I pull my phone from my bag and call Tessa.
“I’m really hoping you’re calling me from the bathroom to tell me you’re going home with your date and to give me all his details so I can send out a search party if you don’t surface? It’s only been forty-five minutes.”
“Most people answer the phone with hello.” Just hearing her voice pulls that security blanket feeling over me. I walk toward downtown. At some point I’ll have to hop on the subway, but I need to burn off some of my irritation before battling hundreds of people.
I hate this feeling of unworthiness. It’s both familiar and unwelcome.
“Since I hear honking taxicabs, I’m assuming it’s a SOS call?”
I stop when the light changes. “It’s an ‘I made a scene and stormed out of the restaurant and now I feel bad about it’ call.”
“What? You stormed out of the restaurant? I didn’t even know you were capable of such emotion.”
“Har.” The light changes and I walk again, dodging the gawkers.
It’s a running joke about how much I let roll off my back. I always look at the positive side of a situation and don’t focus on the negative, and my attitude has always served me well. Tessa has the temper of a city stray old dog, so she’s never been able to understand how even-keeled I can be, even when someone has upset me.
“Wait, is this a joke or something?”
“No! I’m serious.” While I walk, I fill her in on everything that went down—the costume, his apparent embarrassment, his irritation, and finally what he said about the whole disaster of a date.
“You did the right thing. He sounds like a jerk. If it were me, I probably would’ve dumped my wine over his head.”
I glance up at the street sign and realize I’ve walked ten blocks by now. I head toward the subway. “I haven’t told you the best part yet. Guesswhomy date was?”
“You know the guy? I thought the app—”
“He’s my brother’s best friend—Andrew Wainwright.”
“No way!” I pull the phone away from my ear from her screech.
“Yep. Can you believe that?” I hike my bag farther up on my shoulder and smile as I pass an older lady checking out my elf costume.
“Are you going to tell Finn?”
I shake my head even though she can’t see me. “No. What’s the point? This is the first time I’ve even met him after all these years. There’s not a big chance I’ll ever run into him again.”
Tessa clucks her tongue. “You’re a better woman than me, Kenz. I’d want to make him pay.”
I don’t tell her, but the first thing that runs through my head is that I’d like to do the opposite. As angry as I am with him, I feel bad for him. I wish I could change his mind and show him the magic of the holiday season. You’d think someone had sprinkled me with elf dust. Maybe it was the flashes of pain I saw on his face that he tried to mask. Maybe it’s because I too am familiar with pain, but Christmas and my memories of it have been a soothing balm. A part of me wishes he knew what that was like too.