Chapter 10 Holly

Chapter 10

Holly

C arrigan's Christmasland felt like taking an acid trip in an abandoned 1960s department store. Holly had expected it to be wild, because Miriam's upcycled antique art business, Blum Again Vintage & Curios, had a strong whiff of that energy, and Holly suspected Miriam had gotten it from her great-aunt Cass. Still, even after looking at the social media feeds for the farm and scrolling over photos and videos posted by guests, she wasn't prepared for the full sensory experience. She wondered how Tara was handling it—Holly had noticed that Tara dealt best in minimal sensory environments.

"So, uh… Tara really likes women with a huge amount of curly hair, huh?" Noelle asked, shoving her hands in her pockets.

She looked so uncomfortable with this situation, escorting her fiancée's ex-fiancée's new girlfriend around. Holly had felt some general indignation on Tara's behalf, about how Miriam and (perhaps unfairly) by extension Noelle had handled the whole situation last year, but watching Noelle squirm made Holly soften a little toward her. Besides, Tara hadn't brought her here to fuck with Miriam and Noelle, so Holly decided to behave herself and try to put Noelle at ease.

She smiled. "I would have said sassy power bottoms, but I'm sure the curls help."

Noelle sputtered, clearly laughing in spite of herself. There, now she wasn't overthinking anymore.

From outside the door, she heard Tara's and Cole's voices coming down the hall. "I booked you in here," Cole said, and the door opened, right into Noelle's back.

Tara walked past Cole into the room and cut a suspicious glance at him. "I see you've booked us both into this beautiful room with one bed," she said, her voice dangerously even.

"Well, it only made sense," Cole explained gleefully. "The rooms with two beds are needed for families arriving together, and you'll obviously be sharing a bed. Since you're dating."

Internally, Holly cheered.

"It's so cozy and perfect!" she exclaimed, pulling Tara to her by her dress and snaking an arm around her waist. "We've been talking about how excited we are to have a few days away together, so don't be surprised if we hole up for some quiet time. It's so hard to get quality alone time in the city."

Tara's voice dropped to its most syrupy drawl. "We can't wait. But y'all must have a million things you need to do! We won't keep you any longer."

Noelle obviously got the message, although Cole looked like he wanted to pretend he hadn't understood Tara's unspoken direction to get the hell out. Tara pinned him with a stare that made him actually shiver. He scuttled out after Noelle.

When they were gone, Holly cleared her throat. "This is a beautiful room."

It really was.

Unlike the public areas (what little she'd seen), which were full of kitschy wallpaper and tacky antiques, this room had obviously been decorated by someone with an eye toward quiet minimalism—from what Tara had told her, Holly guessed it was Hannah. She also guessed that Cole had chosen this room specifically, of all the rooms with one bed, because he knew that Tara would need somewhere with less visual stimulation to escape to. He had, after all, spent many long hours in Tara's Charleston house, including a stint crashing on her couch, so he understood her need for aesthetic quietude.

This room wasn't white, like Tara's house, but a muted, dusky rose. All the fabrics were a variation on the same shade, with greens sprinkled throughout, like leaves peeking through the petals of a rose. It should feel dated. The palette, in theory, was reminiscent of a 1980s office, but the lines and furniture choices were modern enough that it looked fresh.

Tara nodded in agreement, but she was biting her lip. "It's very small." She had kicked off her shoes at the door and set her purse down on the dresser and was now walking around the bed, which took up most of the room.

"It's a converted Victorian mansion," Holly pointed out. "Not exactly known for gigantic rooms."

"Oh, I know," Tara said, sounding distracted, "I just… don't know where we're both going to sleep."

Holly frowned at her. "In the bed?" Why was this a confusing concept?

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Tara worried, smoothing the already perfectly smooth comforter. "We're already not doing a great job of keeping our hands to ourselves."

Here it was. This was Holly's chance to convince Tara that they should have a fling.

They'd already bonded, been through hell (aka Aunt Cricket) together, told each other their darkest secrets. They had cemented the "friends" part of Friends with Benefits, so why not move on to the benefits?

"I think it's an incredible idea, actually. I personally think we should stop keeping our hands to ourselves," Holly told her, sitting down on the bed so that she could look up at Tara with big eyes, and Tara could see down her shirt. "I haven't stopped thinking about that kiss. Have you?"

Instead of answering, Tara turned partly away so Holly couldn't see her face. Holly was about to push a little, when a horrifying yowl came from outside, and something began rhythmically thumping the door. Because she was nearest, Holly went to open it, if only to stop the thumping. The most enormous tortoiseshell cat she'd ever seen sauntered in, tail twitching, and sat at Tara's feet to yell at her. It was larger than Holly's childhood family dog.

"What is that?" she asked. She'd known the farm had a cat, from her deep dive into their social media, but this was not a farm cat. This was a mutant.

"That's a Kringle," Tara said, looking down at the beast. "He's a Norwegian Forest cat. No one knows where he came from. If you ask the people who live here, they'll tell you he's magic because he's a boy tortoiseshell, but obviously there's no such thing as magic cats."

The cat in question continued screaming at her. She sighed and picked him up. He wrapped himself around her neck.

"Mostly he belongs to Levi and Noelle, as far as I can tell, but he goes wherever he wants, if his humans are to be believed," Tara continued. He purred, whapping her in the face with his tail. Watching the perfect Tara Chadwick splutter as a pony disguised as a cat tickled her was a sight Holly would always remember.

"I think you may be too quick to dismiss the idea that he's magic," Holly told her. "That's a forest spirit, obviously."

A lanky man with a tall swoop of brown hair topped with a floral satin yarmulke stuck his head through the still-open doorway. He was wearing a fringed leather vest and smudged eyeliner. "Hey, Tara, I'm so glad you're here! Have you seen—Oh, yep, you have seen Kringle. I heard him yelling and thought he was in trouble, but obviously he was being dramatic. Wonder where he gets that from?"

This last sounded like it was a joke, although Holly wasn't sure what the joke was. The man, who she recognized as Levi Matthews from both Instagram and the several magazines he'd recently graced the cover of, turned to her. "You must be Holly! Hi!" He stuck out his hand.

"It's great to meet you," she told him. "I hear you also recently had a wedding."

He grinned, and his face turned from interesting to breathtaking. She didn't watch food TV, or find men attractive, but she suddenly thought she might be wrong on both fronts. No wonder his cooking show was such a runaway hit.

"Which Tara did not make an appearance for. My wife may never forgive her," he joked. "Speaking of unforgiving, dinner is almost served and my mom does not look kindly on people who are late. Do you want to head down with me?"

Holly looked at Tara, who shrugged under her cat scarf.

"We'll finish the other discussion later," Holly promised with a wink, and she heard Tara draw in a sharp breath.

To Levi, Tara said, "You told me about the wedding less than twenty-four hours before it happened."

"More than enough time to hop a flight," Levi observed, and Tara huffed. From around her neck, Kringle huffed, too. Her huff turned into a squeak when Levi hugged her. "I'm glad you're here. Hannah's really glad, and, you know, Hannah's happiness is priority number one."

Tara pulled back and gave him a Lawyer Look, one that Holly suspected compelled many people to tell her the truth.

"Now," he amended. "Hannah's happiness is priority one now."

"It's good to see you, too, Matthews," Tara said. "I like the show."

Holly wouldn't have guessed that those two would get on well together, since from everything she knew about Levi he was pure unbridled chaos and Tara was the dictionary definition of Lawful Good, but they seemed to enjoy one another, walking arm in arm down the stairs, chatting about a recent episode of Living Bold that Levi had done featuring knishes.

There was not an empty chair in the dining room, and diners were spilling over into the high-ceilinged great room across the hall. Cole was acting as a waiter, and a short brunette who vaguely resembled Miriam was directing traffic.

"Who is that?" Holly whispered to Tara. She didn't recognize the person from the Carrigan's Instagram feed.

Tara looked puzzled. "I've never met them. Levi?"

"Oh, that's Gavi," he said. "They're a Rosenstein cousin we poached from B and P."

"Bread and Pastries," Holly told Tara, who seemed confused. "That's a real Davenport insider thing to call it." To Levi, she said, "I grew up about half a mile from the home office."

"For me it's a ‘married into the family and it's confusing that my in-laws and their business have the same name' thing," Levi countered. "But let's chat about old B and P recipes sometime. I bet you grew up eating some things I'd love to be able to reproduce."

Rosenstein's Bread and Pastries, begun in the 1800s by a Ukrainian immigrant, was a nationwide chain of bakeries focused on traditional Jewish recipes, but it was also her hometown business success story. She'd have to ask if Gavi had been at the home office and see if they could bond about Iowa. Not that Holly had a lot of positive feelings about Davenport, personally, but it wasn't a bad town for other people, and the Rosenstein's flagship store was one of the best things about it.

Tara nodded, her face clearing. "The new guest services manager!"

If Holly remembered correctly, Hannah had previously been in charge of both guest services and event planning, so they must have hired on extra help.

"Holly, I'm going to leave you with Cole to find a place to sit, and take Tara to say hi to my mom," Levi told her.

Tara's eyes widened and she mouthed, Help me , at Holly, but Holly was not going to save her from being well-liked by very lovely people.

She was, however, going to use the cover of being a loving girlfriend to get some more kissing in.

Before she could be drawn away, Holly swung an arm around Tara's neck and kissed her hard. "Come back to me soon, babe," she said before releasing Tara and watching her walk off. Maybe it was Holly's imagination, but she did look a little disoriented. Good.

Meanwhile, Cole slung an arm around Holly's shoulder and led her toward a table, where he introduced her to Sawyer, who might or might not be his boyfriend.

Holly wasn't sure what she'd expected from the man who had—according to Tara—made Cole realize, with one handshake, that he was gay, but somehow she was unsurprised that he was the opposite of the typical Charleston bro. Slight, with a waxed mustache and long hair in a French braid, he looked like he had a lot of thoughts about whiskey and might own a pocket watch.

Years of waitressing had made her very good at talking to strangers, which stood her in good stead as she was seated next to a family that told her they had been visiting Carrigan's for generations. The grandparents, in fact, had gotten engaged at Carrigan's one Christmas. Holly learned that, every year, on December 23, the Christmasland hosted a special anniversary dinner for all the couples who'd been engaged or married at Carrigan's over the years. It was supposed to be good luck.

Holly, who was as interested in either good luck or marriage as she was a hole in the head, found herself immensely charmed by all of it regardless. Still, she kept one eye out for Tara to return from the kitchen.

Cole leaned over Sawyer to stage-whisper to her. "Okay," he said, gesturing with a roll. "I hate to plot against my oldest and dearest friend, who is basically my sister—"

"You do not hate it at all, Nicholas Fraser," Holly interrupted.

Sawyer snorted. Cole smirked. "Of course I don't. And anyway, I'm not plotting against her. I'm plotting for her. And what I want is for her to have some damn fun."

"I'm not plotting with you to get your best friend laid."

He didn't appear convinced.

"Oh," she clarified, "I'm definitely plotting to get your best friend laid, no question, but I'm doing fine on my own. I don't need your help. It would be weird. It doesn't feel great."

"She's right, Cole. It's weird," Sawyer said, stealing the roll from Cole's hand and biting it.

No adult had ever sighed so dramatically. "Why does everyone have so many morals on this farm?" Cole whined. "If you regret this choice and need my help, you let me know."

"You an expert in romance now?" Holly asked skeptically. "From what I hear, you've seriously dated one person, ever, if in fact you two are seriously dating." She pointed between them.

Cole flushed. Sawyer rolled his eyes. "You can tell people I'm your boyfriend, Nicholas."

"I can't," Cole said, this time actually whispering, his voice serious, "say that to anyone until I've said it to Tara. She has to be the first to know."

Sawyer squeezed his hand, and Holly found her eyes unexpectedly wet. Something about this massive goofy man who was never serious about anything being so deadly serious that he had to tell Tara about his love life first pierced her. Maybe it was because she knew that Tara did not believe she held that space in Cole's life, or even deserved to, because Tara believed that she herself did not deserve to be anyone's other half.

"Does she know how much you love her?" Holly asked.

Cole looked confused. "Obviously. Why wouldn't she?"

That made her heart ache, because even the person who knew her best didn't truly see her. Hadn't noticed what she wasn't saying.

"TARA, FINALLY!" Cole shouted, and Holly turned to see her walking up to the table. "You know how much I love you, right?"

Tara blinked at him and smiled a small, pained smile. "Yes, Cole. I know exactly how much you love me."

Holly didn't know Cole well enough to know if he heard what she was really saying, but she thought she saw him stiffen a bit. Maybe something real and serious would come out of this fake dating shenanigan and they would have a real talk.

Sawyer rose.

"Tara, I would know you anywhere, based on Cole's description," he said, embracing her once Cole had released her and then holding her at arm's length to look at her.

Her eyes widened. "Oh no."

He grinned.

"Stunning blonde, eyeliner wings so sharp they could kill a man, always dressed like she raided Chanel's archives."

"Cole, you know I don't wear Chanel," Tara objected. "Coco Chanel was a Nazi."

"So is your aunt Cricket," Cole pointed out.

Holly laughed so hard tea shot out of her nose.

Once they were seated, Tara put an arm along the back of Holly's chair as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Holly reached up to weave their fingers together. She turned to Tara, who gave her a little smile, and on her other side, Cole winked at her.

"So," asked the wife who had gotten engaged at Carrigan's, "how did you two meet?"

Holly stared at Tara, her eyes wide. How had they not come up with a cover story? Two weeks to prep and two days on the road, and neither of them had thought to wonder how they were meant to have gotten together?

Tara squeezed her fingers reassuringly. "Let me tell the story, babe. I love it."

"You are better at it." Holly smiled in a way she hoped read as beguiled. They should be able to wing this—they were both professionally trained at reading people. Defense attorneys and diner waitresses had to be good storytellers.

Taking a deep breath, Tara looked around the table, obviously assessing her audience. "Holly is a waitress at my neighborhood cafe, and I went there a lot for cake and coffee, and to talk to the beautiful redhead. I know it's cheesy to have a crush on someone who's paid to smile at you, but what can I say? She was so snarky, and funny, and she bakes a killer pastry. I couldn't stop thinking about her."

"What Tara's not telling you," Holly interrupted, "is that she was far too honorable to flirt with someone who was paid to smile at her, so I kept mooning over her, bringing her pastries, and desperately trying to get her to ask me out, for months."

The husband clasped his hands to his heart. "So what happened? How did you break the stalemate and get together?"

Under the table, Holly kicked Tara, urging her to finish the story. This was the part where reality diverged from make-believe.

"Well, one night I was leaving as Holly was getting off work, and she asked where I was headed. I said home, to open a bottle of wine and watch a Bravo marathon, and she asked if I wanted some company," Tara said, winking at Holly.

"I do love Vanderpump Rules ." Holly nodded.

The wife laughed. "So you invited yourself over to Netflix and chill, and the rest is history? That's fantastic."

It did sound fantastic, Holly thought. A little bit of her wished it had happened that way.

They stayed close all through dinner, Holly leaning against Tara while they waited for dessert, Tara leaning over to whisper in Holly's ear when coffee came. It didn't seem to affect Tara at all, this dance they were putting on for her friends. Apparently, she'd been right that she didn't need practice—she was an absolute natural at having a fake girlfriend. Every time their skin brushed, a bolt of lust shot through Holly. She studiously ignored how much she didn't hate the handholding, either.

This is make-believe. Keep your head on straight. You don't even like all this stuff—your goal is short-term, hot sex.

As she thought this, Tara reached over to push a curl off her forehead and then "lovingly" caressed Holly's ear. Their eyes caught, and Holly almost got lost in a very dirty fantasy. How were they going to keep it up for several more days? It had only been a couple of hours, and Holly already felt like she was going to combust.

If this fake dating thing was going to work, they were going to need to actually sleep together. It was the only way Holly would get through this weekend without tearing off her skin from lust.

Back in their room, Holly had a plan, and that plan was to look so hot coming out of the bathroom that Tara threw her on the bed and took full advantage of her. The problem with this plan was that she had not accounted for Tara's skincare regimen.

Holly said, "I'll just wait for you to be done before I use the bathroom."

Tara said, "Oh, it will take me absolutely hours before I'm done. I insist that you go first."

As a result, Holly was relying on plan B, which involved lying seductively across the bed. It wasn't as satisfying as plan A, or as subtle. A person could, theoretically, happen to come out in sexy pajamas and saunter toward the bed. It was difficult to nonchalantly lounge in a seductive manner.

Still, she had tiny shorts and willpower, which had to get her somewhere.

The longer she sat propped up on the pillows, her legs extended over the covers, getting colder and colder, the more she suspected that Tara was staying in the bathroom until she thought Holly was asleep. Even with a fire burning, the room was too chilly for her to stay as she was.

It was time to resort to plan C.

She braided her hair, because having to untangle it tomorrow morning was not worth the potential sexy factor tonight, crawled under the blankets, and pretended to be asleep. She heard the door to the bathroom creak open, and then open all the way. Light footsteps crept to the bed, and then Holly felt Tara's weight sink down. On top of the blankets.

Well, if she could stand the cold, Holly guessed Tara had won this round.

This was what she thought, until she woke up in the middle of the night with Tara's silky legs tangled with hers, Tara's sleek head tucked up under her chin. She could smell Tara's breath, feel her heartbeat, and she tried to focus on her own breathing but she couldn't go back to sleep. She lay there, getting intimately acquainted with Tara's skin as Tara, in her sleep, turned into a very handsy octopus.

When one of Tara's hands closed over her breast, she couldn't stop herself from squeaking as her nipple immediately became so hard it was painful.

She heard Tara's breathing change, and then the hand was gone. "Oh my God, Holly, I'm so sorry!" Tara jumped up, taking the top blanket with her in her rush to get out of the bed.

"Please come back to bed," Holly said, rubbing her eyes. She was nearly vibrating with sexual frustration. She'd planned to be cool, to act unaffected and hard to get to pique Tara's interest. Instead, she whined like a needy puppy. "Tara," she begged, "please. If you don't let me fuck you, I'll die."

Tara laughed, which was perhaps not the response one hoped to get from this kind of declaration.

"I'm not sure what concerns me more," Tara said, wrapping the blanket around herself, but not coming back to bed. "That you think you can die of sexual frustration, or that you think you would be fucking me ."

"Explain to me why we're not having sex right now," Holly pleaded. "Like, this exact moment."

"Well, at this exact moment, we're not having sex because I haven't brushed my teeth, but in the larger scope of things, we're not having sex because we can't date."

Holly nodded thoughtfully, fully awake now and ready to argue her case. "And we can't date because we can't get married, right?"

Tara nodded.

"But here's the thing, I don't want to get married again. Ever. I'm not built for it, and if I were, marrying into any family that includes your aunt Cricket would be strictly outside my boundaries." Holly moved to sit up on her knees, aware her nipples were still pointing directly at Tara, like they were trying to hypnotize her. "I'm not asking you for anything, except your enthusiastic participation in a fling. Unless you wouldn't be enthusiastic about participating, in which case, we can table the whole discussion."

Tara sighed and looked up at the ceiling, and then she flopped back onto the bed. It was the least stiff movement Holly had ever seen her make, like all the marionette strings that normally kept her posture upright had been cut.

"I would obviously be enthusiastic. My physical interest in you is not the issue here," she said finally.

"Tara"—Holly shook her lightly—"we could be having hot gay sex in this bed at this instant. Don't we owe it to our foremothers, those Daughters of Bilitis who worked so hard to bring us sexual liberation, to be liberated?"

This earned her a grin. "I can't tell if I'm appalled or impressed that you just used lesbian history to try to get down my pants."

"Please. Herstory," Holly joked.

"Touché." Now Tara was laughing again, but this time, thankfully, not at Holly's seduction attempts. Progress! "Although that's a very gender essentialist, second-wave feminist term. But being clever won't win your argument."

Holly's stomach dropped, although she'd been briefly distracted by how hot it was when Tara got precise. If they weren't going to have sex at all, this whole weekend, she was going to need to sleep on the floor. Or the bathtub, like in "Norwegian Wood." That song was about lesbians, right? Or maybe in the reindeer enclosure. Somewhere she couldn't even smell Tara.

"However," Tara said, a mischievous grin on her face, "if there's absolutely no possibility that either of us will want anything more out of this, I don't see why we couldn't have a fling."

Holly's brain took a minute to catch up to what Tara had actually said, and then she wanted to punch the air in victory. Yessssssss. She started to reach out for Tara, who held up a hand.

"We'll have to have an ironclad agreement."

"Really? You're going to lawyer our sexual encounter?" Holly asked, not sure why she was so turned on by this. She raised her right hand. "I solemnly swear not to fall in love with you or expect anything from you at the end of this weekend."

"And as soon as we leave Carrigan's, we're back to being friends, without benefits," Tara added.

That was the perfect situationship for Holly. A whirlwind romance with a defined end date and no hard feelings so she wouldn't need to do a runner.

She held out the hand she'd raised. "Shake on it?"

Tara grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a blistering kiss. Their tongues tangled, and Tara's hands ran up and down Holly's body, leaving a trail of heat that pooled in her center. Then, suddenly, her hands were gone and Tara's mouth was saying, "We can't get started now, though."

What?!

"Why not?" Holly cried.

"We have to be at breakfast, bright eyed and bushy tailed, in two hours," Tara said breezily. "Which is not nearly enough time for what I have planned. In the meantime, you need to get some sleep."

Holly stared at her. "You think we're going to be able to sleep now?!"

"Oh, no, I won't, but I don't need very much sleep to operate. I'm going to shower, and then get ready for the day. But you should sleep." She hopped out of bed, grabbed the dress she'd ironed the night before, and carried it into the bathroom.

"We could shower together!" Holly called after her.

Tara's laugh rolled out and around her, surprising her again with its earthiness. She always expected it to dance in the air like icicles tinkling. "Haven't you ever heard of delayed gratification?"

Holly pouted. "I've already delayed my gratification!"