Chapter 1

Chapter One

Holiday

“Mom,” I said, pressing my fingers into my forehead to stave off an impending headache. “We’ve been over this. Danny and I have been best friends for years. Friends. That’s all.”

I couldn’t count how many times I’d said those exact words over the years. From the minute I’d come out to my family as bisexual in high school, they’d just assumed that I’d come out to them because I was actually in love with my best friend, Daniella. When that didn’t happen, everyone was perplexed. My mom. My dad. My sweet grandmother who immediately made me an afghan in the bi flag colors. Aunts and uncles. Cousins. The whole extended family. Even other friends.

Now here we were years later, and I was still fielding the same questions and assumptions. It probably didn’t help that Danny and I were joined at the hip, had gone to the same college, and decided to live together after we graduated. But why wouldn’t we want to live together? That was what best friends did . And sometimes people had platonic commitments that were just as valid as romantic ones. That wasn’t me and Danny, but no one seemed to understand. I’d given up trying to explain myself. I was over it.

Now here we were, a couple weeks out from Christmas and I’m already preparing myself to handle all the questions and the looks and the teasing. It was too much. Couldn’t I get a break this year?

“But you’re so good together!” Mom said. “You’d be the perfect couple. We already love her. Are you sure you don’t—” I set the phone down and let out a silent scream. Mom was oblivious and just kept yapping.

Danny needed to get home from work right now so I could vent to her about this. We’d both managed to get jobs in the city about forty-five minutes from our hometown, which was some kind of miracle.

Danny had a job as an assistant to a financial advisor and was looking to potentially get into that field while I’d wandered around doing various different jobs until I’d stumbled my way into two part-time jobs: one at a new romance bookstore called Between the Sheets, and also doing some social media management for authors that I’d found through the bookstore. Danny made way more money than I did, but I appreciated my freedom. I’d probably do a murder or throw myself out of a window if I had to work in a regular office five days a week. Not for me.

My heart jumped for joy when I heard Danny’s key in the door. Mom was still going.

“Bye, Mom, I’m burning something on the stove, love you!” I ended the call when she was still in the middle of a sentence.

“Thank fuck you’re home,” I said.

Danny raised her eyebrows. “Hello to you too? No greeting, no asking how my day was? You’re not going to be a very good wife if you don’t learn some better social skills.”

I rolled my eyes as she set her brown leather designer backpack down by the door and rolled her shoulders. Every day I watched her do the same routine when she got home from work. First the shoulders, then she’d reach back and release her light brown hair from the elastic or clip she’d put it up with. Then she’d stretch her back and make a noise that always made me uncomfortable because it was too close to a moan. After that was the shoes. She’d sigh and give me a tired smile before going to her bedroom to change out of her work clothes and into a T-shirt and shorts.

I couldn’t help but feel smug that I was the only one who got to see her like this. Danny hated leaving the house looking anything other than perfect. The only times she was ever late were because she’d had to fix something about her appearance.

We made an odd pair since I had left the house more than a few times with my clothes on backwards, with toothpaste stains on them, or with mismatched socks. Once I’d even gone out with two different shoes on somehow.

If Danny and I hadn’t been friends since we were kids, we never would have become friends as adults. There was just no way. Our relationship was built on a foundation of embarrassing moments, growth spurts, both coming out as bisexual, and inside jokes that we’d forgotten the origin of.

Once Danny had emerged after shedding her work persona, I filled her in on my call with my mom as I banged around the kitchen making dinner. Since I was home more and I actually enjoyed cooking, it had fallen to me to make most meals. We’d never even discussed it. I’d just done it. Kind of like how Danny did our laundry because she was the kind of person who actually did separate colors from whites and cared about what temperature you were supposed to wash your clothes in so they lasted. She also knew how to sew and more than a few of my clothes had evidence of her mending them without me even knowing.

Danny pulled one of her fancy beers out of the fridge and used the bottle opener magnet from the fridge to pop the top. With a sigh, she hopped up on the counter next to where I was chopping onions to throw in a pan. Chili was one of my go-to winter dinners and I had it down to a science. I also had some mix to make cornbread to go with it.

“So,” I said, blinking tears out of my eyes, “how was work?”

Danny waved her hand and gulped her beer. “You know. Numbers. Money. Things go up, people happy. Things go down, people unhappy. Same old, same old.” She’d explained some of the minutiae of what went on at her job, but my eyes had glazed over when she’d started discussing the different kinds of IRAs. I figured that was stuff that you only had to worry about when you were older if you were responsible. And if you actually had money. I went through a little panic at the beginning of every month trying to figure out if I was going to have enough to pay all my bills. Sure, I knew that Danny would float me some so I wasn’t in the red, but I tried not to let that happen. I didn’t want to be beholden to her. It also made me feel like a fuckup. Danny did her best not to ever make me feel that way, but it happened anyway. It was only natural when my best friend was so competent and responsible, and had been since we were kids.

Danny always did her homework and had perfect penmanship and won the geography bee and was every teacher’s favorite student. I would resent her if she wasn’t my ride or die.

“How was the bookshop?” she asked.

I snorted. “Some woman came in and asked what knotting was and I ended up explaining it to her. Sold her three books and a dildo.” The bookshop carried romance books exclusively, as well as other book accessories and then my boss, Larison, had added a few sex toys in the back. Discreetly of course. But they were there for those who wanted to partake.

The company we bought some of them from was also in Maine and had partnered with several authors to make anatomically adventurous models of some of their characters, which I got a kick out of. And then we had some simple and pretty vibrators. Larison was still deciding if butt plugs or nipple clamps were “too much” to add. I’d suggested blindfolds and she’d thought that was a great idea. They were a good entry point to spicing up your bedroom activities.

Danny stared at me. “What did you tell her?”

I threw the onions in the pan and double checked that I had the rest of what I needed.

“I think I pulled a book off the shelf and read her a passage and then pulled up a visual aid on my phone.”

Danny almost choked on her beer. “Oh my god. I don’t know what I would have done.”

I shrugged. “People ask all kinds of things. I’m happy to be an educational resource.”

“Better you than me,” Danny said, getting off the counter when I handed her the can opener. I almost never let her cook, but she could open a can as well as the next person.

She opened the cans and drained the beans, rinsing them in the sink before setting the bowl beside the stove for me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Anytime, H.” Danny was the only one who called me that. My parents had never really explained why they’d decided to name me Holiday (my secret suspicion was that I’d been conceived at a Holiday Inn, shudder), but I’d always gone by my full name. People always tried to shorten it to Holly, but that just wasn’t me. I wasn’t a Holly, sorry. When people in school had tried to make that nickname happen, Danny had called me H and that had stuck. But just for her.

Danny got out the big bowls with handles that we always used for chili and I put the cornbread in the oven. I browned the meat and threw everything in the pot to simmer. I should have started it earlier in the day and let it hang out in the crockpot, but I hadn’t gotten my act together this morning to do that. One of these days I would succeed at meal prep, but today hadn’t been the day.

The two of us ate on the couch, blowing on hot spoonfuls of chili and cramming cornbread in our mouths. Danny ate more delicately than I did, but she was the kind of person who never spilled anything on her shirt. It was a skill I’d never learned.

“There’s a new episode,” I said when I turned on the TV as Danny loaded the dishwasher. We tried not to watch our favorite shows without each other. It had caused too many fights in the past so now we just waited and avoided the drama.

“Yeah, sounds good.” Danny sat down with a sigh. Her forehead had just the tiniest wrinkle in it that you wouldn’t notice unless you had looked at her face every day for years.

“What’s up?” I paused the show and turned my full body toward her.

“Nothing. Just thinking about Christmas. With Raquel getting married, everyone is going to be on me about settling down and not being alone and I’m already tired of it.” She pressed against her forehead and I leaned closer to rub her shoulders in the way I knew she liked.

“God, I know. Mom was pestering me about it too. But it was just the same old song of thinking that we’re together when I’ve told her that we’re friends. I think we might need to wear shirts or something. We are not together, stop asking!”

Danny snorted. “They still wouldn’t get the hint. We’d have to do something drastic to get them off our backs.”

“We should just pretend we have to work and then book a cruise or something,” I said. The idea of just me and Danny on a cruise for Christmas sounded amazing. No personal questions. No avoiding uncomfortable topics. Just cold drinks and smooth sailing.

Danny made a face. “You know I would never set foot on a cruise ship.” She visibly shuddered. “I can’t go on one after that documentary I watched.” I rolled my eyes. The documentary had been about how cruise ships functioned, but to Danny it was a horror film.

“Okay, not a cruise then. How about a remote cabin with a wood stove? But not so remote that there isn’t a decent grocery store or hospital nearby.” Danny was all about being prepared. If there was someone who always had a band aid, or pair of tiny scissors, or a tire jack, it was her. Good thing for me because I was constantly forgetting my keys, phone, etc. whenever I went anywhere.

Sometimes I wondered if Danny and I were made to be best friends. If some cosmic force out there had said “yes, put those two together” that had led us to being in the same class in third grade after Danny’s family moved to town.

“You know our families would have our faces on the news if we did that. They’d have search parties out,” Danny said.

I laughed. They would. If I didn’t immediately call my parents back when they called me, their assumption was that I was dead in a ditch somewhere. My mom had gotten really into true crime in her retirement and that had made things even worse. She was always warning me that I was just one supermarket trip away from being kidnapped or something. No matter how many crime statistics I shared with her, I couldn’t temper her paranoia that something was going to happen to her baby. The perils of being an only child. I’d never really felt like that since so many of my cousins were around my age and all lived nearby. Lots of people assumed we were siblings when they saw us together.

Now a bunch of them were married and had babies and it was weird as hell to see the kids I used to play tag with now had children of their own.

Danny yawned and leaned against me.

“Can’t we just fast-forward to January? I’m ready for this year to be done.”

“Me too,” I said. “We’re on the same page.”

I breathed in the familiar scent of her peach conditioner and sighed.