Her Pretend Christmas Date: A Lesbian Christmas Romance

Morgun’s eyes flashed again. “Why does everyone think I’m made of glass?” she hissed.

“No one thinks that, but David probably told you that he’s seen a lot of people come and go. He has. He knows exactly what kind of person won’t last.”

“Thanks. That’s so reassuring.”

“It’s not like that. That’s not what I’m saying. You’re hearing the words, but you don’t really understand.” A huge truck whizzed by them, the wind throwing dirt and dust into their faces. Laney blinked and rubbed at her eyes. Morgun rubbed hers too, and maybe that grit was well-timed. She seemed totally frustrated, and Laney didn’t blame her.

“Then tell me, because I work with draining people already—families, crying babies, unhappy people, bridezillas!” Morgun rubbed her eyes furiously. “I do all my own bookings. My own editing. I have no assistant. I carry all my own equipment. It’s just me and me only. How could I not handle it?”

“It’s not that you couldn’t handle it,” Morgun tried to explain, more gently than she could have ever spoken to anyone else. It didn’t escape her that she suddenly felt invested. In what, she couldn’t quite say. “It’s that you’d have those bad experiences that we know will happen and it will ruin photography for you and that’s a shame. Really. To hate what you once loved, that’s hard.”

“Do you? Hate it?”

“No! I love my job. But there are days, moments when I hate it. When I resent my clients. When the demands and the scheduling and the stress and the travel gets to be a lot. If I had a dollar for every time a client was rude to me… People get angry about not getting the position they wanted because their headshots weren’t good enough; the modelling job they were trying out for because their shots showed a blemish, or the lighting was off. People get angry when their house doesn’t sell after a week on the market because their listing photos are clearly to blame. A lot of our clients come to us because they want something that most other people can’t give them. They want perfection. They want what’s unattainable. They think that anything can be fixed with edits and with the right lighting and angle, and most of the time, they’re right and that’s why they pay two or three grand for ten minutes of our time and a few head shots.”

“Are you for real?” Morgun asked. She didn’t look like she believed Laney, but there was enough of her that did, that grain of doubt that brought with it an equal amount of horror.

“Yes. It’s always my fault when a shoot doesn’t go right. If the client wants their money back, they get it back. There aren’t any reshoots. I’m not my own company and I represent someone else, so when my work isn’t perfect and they hear about it, that sucks. I’ve learned not to perfect my art, but to make my art perfection. That’s not the kind of photography that I wanted to do. That’s not what I imagined myself doing.”

“It sounds awful.”

“It’s not. Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. For me, at any rate. I guess I’ve learned to just deal with it and move on. I don’t really even think about the remarks or the pissed off clients or the irrational ones anymore. For every bad client, there are ten more good ones. I love my job, but if you can’t take the good with the bad, if you can’t handle a pissed off client blaming you for something that isn’t your fault, insulting your work, and swearing at you, promising to end you in the industry, or even sending you death threats, then you won’t make it long.”

“Death threats?”

“Yeah. Once.” Laney grinned. “Anyway, I’m making it sound terrible, but it’s not.

But that’s what David means. If you can’t deal with that, then you won’t last long. He probably told you the grass was greener where you are, and he’s right. Aside from the messy newborns and the bratty kids and the bridezillas, I almost envy you.”

“What? Me?”

Even Laney looked surprised at that, like she’d just discovered something about herself she never expected to find. Buried treasure of the personal variety. “Yeah. I guess. I don’t want to work for someone forever. One day, and one day freaking soon, I want to be out on my own, running my own company.”

Morgun grunted. “Want to give me a job, then?”

“Ha!” Laney snorted. “Not a chance.” Morgun could see that she was just kidding.

Somehow, during the whole conversation, Laney had softened. To the smallest degree, but it was still there. Like choosing a really bad fabric softener over a good one and noticing that your favorite sweater wasn’t so scratchy afterwards and being pleasantly and unexpectedly surprised at the notable difference. It was a difference she could feel.

“Morgun, I didn’t catch up with you just to ask about your interview. I wanted to, um, apologize to you for the other night. At the wedding. You were right. When you asked me what was wrong with just being me? I’m not mean and nasty, at least, not all the time. I don’t like to act that way. I love my life and I’ve been very blessed. I know I got good breaks when I needed them and I’m happy where I’m at. I’ve practiced it for so long, pretending that things don’t matter, not letting anything get to me, that I probably come across as being really terrible.”

“Yeah. You do. Kind of.”

Laney grasped at that kind of, since it watered down the harshness of the first bit just a little. “I just freaked out. I’m not good with intimacy, I guess, and it was unexpected. I don’t usually do impetuous things like that. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. Or that I regret it. Sorry, that came out wrong. Ugh. I’m not good at talking about any of this.”

“It’s alright,” Morgun urged. “Continue.”

Laney knew she was probably bright red. She wasn’t used to feeling flustered, especially not in public, but there was almost no one around and the traffic rushing down the street obviously wasn’t going to overhear them.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go back on my word about payment of the deal and I wanted to make sure you got home safely. I’d had way too many drinks to drive and I needed to give you money for a cab to make sure you got back okay, since I was originally going to drive you and I couldn’t. I didn’t mean to make you feel cheap or something.”

“Well, it was a bargain in the first place, so maybe I overreacted.” Morgun stared down at the sidewalk, but her tone was gentle.

“My brother and my sister-in-law just announced, at Christmas that they’re pregnant.” Laney couldn’t believe she’d just said that. Apparently, neither could Morgun, because her head snapped up and she stared at her open-mouthed. “I know this is going to sound incredibly stupid and maybe even crazy, but when they told us, I was jealous. I have no idea why. I’m happy with my career. My mom will finally stop bugging me now. There was this feeling that I didn’t understand.” Laney tore her eyes away from Morgun’s.

Morgun seemed to understand. Both that Laney had no idea why she was telling her that, and that she had to look away.

“Do you want to get lunch?”