Page 38 of Not Home Alone

“That’s business.”

What I want to say—what I’m really dying to say is: That’s not how you did business when Mom was alive. I may have only been ten when she died, but I know that to be true. And I know that if I say it out loud this conversation is over. So I don’t.

My father scrubs his face with the palm of his hand. “I rarely think Ava and Todd are right about anything, but I think they’re right about you. You’re still just a rebel who likes to cause trouble.” He’s only standing two feet away from me, but the distance between us is immeasurable.

Not one person in my family sees who I really am. Do I try to make them see who I really am? No. Am I starting to get a little tired of this? I pick up the candy cane in front of me and slide it into my pocket. To take home to another person who doesn’t really know me. “I just need time to think about the implications,” I tell him.

“Is this about your girlfriend?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“Joe Tucker’s girl. If you’re CEO, The Christmas Barn lease is safe, even if we’re based in New York. You aren’t thinking with your head right now, son. You go ahead and look at those reports more carefully. The analysis shows significant cost savings and revenue opportunities. The legal structure is sound. There’s no downside. I’ll see you at the winery.”

He leaves me alone in the boardroom, with my thoughts, which are being generated exclusively from my brain.

So now if I take over The Moody Group I get my trust fund, protect jobs, and we turn Holly Grove into one piece of the pie when it used to be the whole pie. If I don’t take over, Robert Moody sells to Voss… I honestly don’t even want to think about what will happen to this town. But I’ll figure something out. I have time.

Pulling my phone out, I see a text notification from Merrily. It’s just a bunch of Christmas emojis. And I’m so glad there’s no one here to see me smiling, because they would totally misunderstand what it means.

THIRTEEN

MERRILY

This afternoon, I spent three hours cutting shadow puppets out of cardboard in the Home Alone House living room, with the help of April. By “help,” I mean she questioned my every directorial and design choice. The most effort she made was when she rolled her eyes every time I asked her to do something. Or maybe that time I used the word “whimsical,” and she pretended to throw up in her mouth a little. Then she managed to make me feel like a total loser if I didn’t buy her beer to celebrate her hard work. She is a terrifying genius, and I have never wanted so badly for a sixteen-year-old girl to like me. Even when I was sixteen. But I also don’t want her to get drunk on my watch, so we walked to the liquor store on Main Street, and I got a bottle of sparkling apple cider too, which I’ve stealthily hidden from her. I’m going to pour out the beer from a bottle and refill it with cider.

It’s snowing the tiniest bit on our way back to the house. The slightest flurry. It’s pretty, but I don’t want to get too excited, because it could stop at any moment. Or it could just be a manipulative joke to get me back for liking snow. But Mother Nature isn’t a dick like some people are. And I wish I could say my attempts at making my fake boyfriend uncomfortable by faking loud orgasms from another room last night were 100 percent fake. I may have accidentally had a real orgasm while performing, but that has everything to do with a very well-engineered vibrating device and nothing to do with Grant Moody.

Okay, it had a little to do with Grant Moody.

“Eww, are you thinking about your boyfriend right now? Because you have horndog face.”

“What? No. Maybe. It’s nothing, I was just⁠—”

“Oooh, who’s that? Is she a witch?”

We’re approaching the Home Alone House and Old Lady Crowley is in front of her house next door. She’s wearing her usual long black coat and black boots, her long silver hair hanging so straight over her shoulders. “Don’t make eye contact!” I whisper.

“Why not? Are you scared of her?” April waves to Mrs. Crowley. “What’s up? Merrily says hi!”

I swipe at her hand, hissing, “Stop it!” Then I grimace at Mrs. Crowley, unable to wave at her because I’m carrying a full shopping bag in my arms. “Happy holidays!”

She is totally expressionless as she stares at us. Without even blinking, she turns away and goes back into her house. “She’s amazing,” April says flatly. “I love her, and I want to be her when I grow up.”

“I’m sure you will,” I mutter. “The rumor is that she murdered her ex-husband and burned him in the basement furnace. Some kids used to say she ate him.”

“That is such a baller move,” she muses.

When I carry the bag into the kitchen, I ask April to find the big red felt pen I left in the living room. Which is brilliant, because I didn’t leave a big red pen in the living room. I quickly unscrew the cap off two bottles of ’Tis the Saison over the sink and pour the contents down the drain. Then I fill the bottles with sparkling apple cider, wipe off the sides of the bottles, and carry them out to the living room. I’m very proud of myself for replacing two bottles with apple cider in case April suspects something and asks to switch bottles with me. “Here you go!” I say, a little too excitedly.

She’s sitting in an armchair, texting on her phone. “I didn’t find the red felt pen because you made it up,” she says, without even looking at me.

“I could have sworn I brought a red pen down here, hunh.”

She takes the bottle from me and takes a sip, smacks her lips, and says, “Mmm, I love the hops.”

“Hoppy holidays!” I say cheerily, and then, because she makes me nervous, and I don’t want her to bash me over the head with that glass bottle when she figures out I tricked her, I hop over to the record player like a bunny rabbit. I can feel her rolling her eyes behind my back, but at least she hasn’t attacked me yet. I put on the Dean Martin Christmas record again, dim the overhead lights so the Christmas trees are even prettier, and get cozy on the sofa.

“When’s your boyfriend coming home?”