“Don’t remind me.” I bit back a groan. “Turning thirty wouldn’t be quite so bad if it wasn’t the same month I also find myself unemployed. And single.”
“You know, those things aren’t so bad individually. You’re just stringing them together with a lot of specific inflection and making them sound worse than they are.”
Right again. But—“I want sympathy, Piper. Not a logical lecture.”
She held up both hands. “Sorry, that’s just how my brain works.”
Santa left. I lifted my eyes from the annoyingly cheerful row of holiday gift cards to the green-aproned barista, who wore a smile and jingle-bell earrings the size of golf balls.
“What can I get you?”
“A new job.”
Piper’s sharp elbow made contact with my rib cage.
“I mean, a white mocha, please. Grande. Hot.”
The barista picked up a cup. “Peppermint shavings?”
“Heck, no.”
Piper rolled her eyes skyward. “Throw in a shot of holiday spirit while you’re at it.”
It was my turn to elbow Piper.
The barista pressed her lips together, but her smile still escaped. “Name?”
“Holly.”
Her eyes, laden with glittery green eye shadow, darted to mine.
“I know.”
She scribbled with her black Sharpie. “Six twenty-nine.”
As I pulled my coin purse free of my bag, I mentally calculated how many more mochas I could afford before I crossed the line from charmingly irresponsible to stupid.
“Don’t worry about it. Coffee’s on me,” Piper said, pressing my coin purse back into the depths of my canvas tote.
I hesitated, the numbers I’d been crunching fading. “You don’t have to do that.” I hated pity—but I also really loved coffee.
“It’s fine.” She shot me a wink as she pulled out her debit card. “Merry Christmas.”
“Funny. Also, thank you.” My cellphone rang, saving me from the explosion of Christmas cheer around me. “Oh, it’s Ryan. Let me grab this.”
He didn’t call often. Usually, we kept a running text message going, most of which consisted of slightly inappropriate memes and family gossip.
I left the line and maneuvered through the crowd toward the holiday-decaled window. Apparently real snow wasn’t holiday-ish enough anymore. Now we had to default to stick-on snowflakes. “Hey.”
Through the phone I could hear a keyboard clacking. Always multitasking, that Ryan. He worked for Brand Blizzard in Cleveland, several hours from our family home in Point Bluff. “Have you heard?”
I leaned one hip against the stir stick and napkin station. “That I got fired? I did hear, actually.”
“What?” Disbelief coated his tone. “You,fired from a job you hated?”
Not disbelief. Sarcasm. “Cute. I’ve been there for almost three years. And if you don’t recall, it’s two weeks until Christmas.”
“Oh, I recall,Holly Berry.”
