Her Pretend Christmas Date: A Lesbian Christmas Romance

“Ugh. Here we go again.” Laney dropped her mom’s hand and turned away.

She stalked off into the living room to grab her purse and keys. They’d had this argument a million times in the past few years. It was like the big three-oh was seriously threatening to her mom. Like she thought Laney was a bomb just ticking down to ovary implosion or something. She couldn’t stay and talk about this, because her mom wasn’t going to listen to anything she had to say. They were just going to end up in a fight, and she seriously hated fighting with her.

Most of all, she hated that she felt like her mom was disappointed in her.

“Laney! Laney!” Helena screamed out the front door as Laney charged to her car. “If you bring a date to your brother’s wedding, I promise I won’t mention any of this again for at least a year.”

“A whole freaking year?” Laney spun around and gaped.

Helena nodded solemnly. Her mom might be many things, but she felt that lying was just about the worst affront in the whole entire world. If she had her word on that, then it would be worth trying to scrounge someone up.

“Yes. A year.”

“Fine,” Laney ground out. “Bringing someone will be worth the peace.”

“You can’t bring a fake date. It has to be someone you’re truly interested in. A real date!”

Her mom must think that real dates grew on trees. Like Laney would just reach up and pick one off and beg her to come to her freaking brother’s freaking wedding so her freaking mom would stop freaking begging her to get freaking married and have freaking children.

“Fine.” Laney turned and kept her head down until she got to her black sedan at the end of the driveway, but then she forced herself to turn and wave at her mom and blow her a kiss.

Corny? Yes. Cheesy? Totally. Never leaving mad? Worth it.

Her mom taught them a long time ago to not leave the house angry. A person never knew what could happen out there on the road and no one wanted a fight or heated words to be the last memory someone had of them.

Laney always considered herself fairly resourceful. Creative. Innovative. Her personality, her drive, her natural talents, were part of the reason she was so successful. She could employ that creativity and innovation to other areas, couldn’t she? Dating sites or a dating app?

Whatever. She was above going to the bar and trying to con someone into going to her brother’s wedding. The only way she was going to find someone in a week was to pick some dating sites, sign up, and just go for it.

A whole year of peace would be worth the humiliation a thousand times over.

Chapter 2

Morgun

“This is not going to work. I don’t need a social life. I’m perfectly happy working myself to death and being incredibly lonely on nights that all my friends are busy with their significant others. It’s okay. I can die all alone, without a family to love. I’ll be fine.” Morgun Hewat could always hope that her best friend would just drop the whole dating thing, but it was clear she wasn’t going to be swayed.

Chelsea rolled her blue-gray eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re never going to meet someone if you don’t even try.”

“I have tried. It didn’t work out.”

“You broke up with Cheryl over a year ago. It was a mutual parting because you guys never really clicked. You’ve never really clicked with anyone. You’re twenty-six and you’ve never fallen in love.”

“Yes, I have!” Morgun protested. She could feel her face heating up.

“No, you haven’t. Don’t argue with me. We’ve been friends since seventh grade. I know you. I can see that just about everyone you’ve ever dated hasn’t been right for you.”

“Okay, that’s not true!”

Chelsea let it drop. Both women were sitting in front of Morgun’s laptop on the desk in her living room. As usual, it was cluttered with work paraphernalia so that only a little square of the desk space was usable. Chelsea had come over for girls’ night, brought a bottle of wine, and promptly declared that no, they weren’t going to watch some sappy romance movie or go out and shop. They were going to find Morgun a date.

She had been talking to Chelsea for months about maybe giving an app or an online dating site a try, but it was more to placate her friend than anything else. Chelsea met Dave, her boyfriend of three months, online, and they were doing really good. So good that it made Morgun aware that she was lonely.

She’d buried herself in work to the point where she didn’t even have time to date, but watching Chelsea find someone perfect for her, watching her best friend fall in love, made her long for something more than her empty apartment and endless hours of work. Plus, it was almost Christmas. So, in a moment of weakness, she’d let Chelsea make a profile for her on some online dating site. As soon as it was done, Morgun wanted to undo it. She was having serious second thoughts about the whole process.

Meeting someone the traditional way, at a bar or something, was out of the question. Morgun always hated the trying. The trying to meet someone. The trying to pretend she wasn’t crazy nervous on the first date. Trying to make it work when it clearly wasn’t. Her whole life she’d felt like she’d been trying and not getting anywhere. When Chelsea suggested making her a profile a few weeks ago, Morgun caved because she knew she’d never hear

the end of it otherwise.