Page 19 of Not Home Alone

“I dare you to toss this Christmas tree to the curb!” Merrily says, raising her arms up in the air.

“Who is that?” Quinn asks. “Wait. Is that…?”

“My delightful and charming girlfriend, Merrily Tucker,” I tell her. I can practically hear the screeching sound effect in Merrily’s brain. “That is who this Christmas tree is. She doesn’t always dress like this. Sometimes she wears snowman sweaters.”

Merrily blinks and lowers her arms to her sides. “What did you just say?”

“Yes, baby, I called you delightful and charming.” I step inside to grab her hand and pull her out onto the porch. “You are that and so much more.”

“What is happening?” she mutters.

“Come on out. It’s okay,” I tell her, in a reassuring tone that doesn’t hint at the screaming in my brain. “She’s not used to hearing me talk about her to other people,” I tell Quinn, who looks just as confused as Merrily does. “We’ve been so private about this… new, surprising thing. We got back in touch with each other recently and decided to stay here so we could have some time alone together. Before all the holiday festivities start up.” Jesus fuck the words just keep pouring out of my mouth. I try to wrap my arm around Merrily’s shoulder, but… she doesn’t have shoulders. Because she’s a Christmas tree. So, I place my hand on the squishy gold star atop her tree head and squeeze it. With the admiration and respect of someone who is definitely not going to toss her to the curb and really doesn’t want to date Quinn Whitmore. “So yeah. I’m bringing Merrily to the Christmas party at the winery. She is the Queen of Christmas around here, after all.” I chuckle. “And she’s my girlfriend.” I grab Merrily’s hand, to punctuate that statement.

“Uhh… huh…” Quinn crosses her arms in front of her chest. I’m sure she’d wrinkle her forehead or arch an eyebrow, but I don’t think her face can do that. “You’re dating Merrily Tucker?”

“Exactly. Good job summing things up. And we were just in the middle of rearranging some things, so…” I glance down at Merrily, who is frozen and staring wide-eyed at Quinn, like a tree in headlights. “We’re gonna get back to it…” I say to Quinn. With innuendo. Like she interrupted some weird sex thing that actually makes sense given who Merrily is.

“Right. Sure.” She is definitely skeptical. “Lovely to see you looking all festive, Merrily. We’ll talk soon, Grant,” she says, as she turns to walk back to her Mercedes.

“For sure. We look forward to seeing you around!” I say, adding, “Hey, if you’d like a Christmas tree, you can help yourself to this one!”

“No thanks!” she calls out.

I pull Merrily inside the house.

She is unusually silent and amenable.

I think this will work. Merrily is going to hate that I’m about to help her with something she didn’t know she needed help with, but I’ll make it work. I’m a fucking genius for thinking on my toes like that and coming up with a strategic solution to three problems at once.

As soon as I shut the door, Merrily yanks her arm away and says, “Oh hell no.”

I hold my hands up and say, “Calm down, O Tannenbaum. Just hear me out.”

I got this.

SEVEN

MERRILY

“I need your help, Merrily. It’s important,” Grant says, barely pausing to take a breath after calling me a fir tree in German like we’re on the same team and that’s my nickname. “I’d like to work out an arrangement wherein you and I pretend we’re dating.”

“Each other?!”

“Yes.” He’s rubbing his forehead and scrunching up his face. It’s almost as if he’s realizing he hasn’t been thinking things through before speaking. Dating each other. “As you may have noticed, Quinn is operating under the assumption that she and I are going to end up together.”

“Everyone has operated under that assumption forever.”

“I haven’t. And I don’t know why, but all of a sudden she’s getting really intense about it. So that’s one thing I need help with, getting her off my back. The other higher stakes item is that I might be taking over my dad’s company. Soon. And if I do that, I need the people of Holly Grove to view me as more townsy.”

“Townsy? Did you really just say that?”

“You know what I mean. I haven’t really lived here since I was ten, and even before that people have always made assumptions about the kind of person I am.”

“You mean the correct assumption that you’re a jerk which you have always confirmed by behaving like a jerk?”

There’s a flicker of something in his eyes. Something sad and vulnerable and entirely human. It makes me regret what I just said. It makes me want to reach out to him and run my fingers through his hair and let him rest his forehead against mine. But I’m not going to make that mistake again.

“Exactly,” he finally says. “I know people would perceive me differently if they see me with you. If they see us. Together. Dating. But not really dating. Just while you’re in town. And you can stay here. You can even have the master bedroom—I’ll take one of the other guest rooms. But we’d have to keep up appearances.”