Her Pretend Christmas Date: A Lesbian Christmas Romance

“What?” Morgun had always been under the impression that having someone else pay for her food, unrelated to a job interview or an interview with a client, was a date. This definitely wasn’t a date.

Maybe Laney was just being nice. Practicing, like she’d said. It was only six ninety-five. Was that really so bad? Seven dollars? Could she do it? Yes, she decided. She could let Laney pay.

“Thanks.” She smiled at Laney and slipped the card into her tote. “You too. Good luck. With everything.” Somehow, saying that made her sad. She should have been glad to get away from Laney, but even at the wedding, when she’d climbed in that cab, pissed as all heck, she wasn’t glad.

Laney nodded and Morgun got her things together and walked out. She’d parked a few blocks away and was glad she’d put in money for a couple hours, anticipating that the interview might run longer than the twenty minutes it had taken.

She power-walked the few blocks because she was worried about the time left on the meter after taking so long at breakfast, not because her heart was pounding so furiously and pumping blood so fast that her brain was basically on overload and commanded her body to move fast in response. No. It wasn’t that it all. It was the meter. Parking tickets were expensive.

As Morgun got in her car, with twelve minutes still on the meter, she felt relieved. She’d basically held it against Laney for two years for getting that job that she wanted. It was a long time to detest someone. She’d met Laney and Laney seemed to prove to her that she was indeed deserving of that detesting. She made it easy not to like her, but maybe that was because Morgun was just primed for it. It’s easy not to like someone when you’re only looking for the bad in them.

Now she’d seen the good. She’d seen so much more than that.

This time she couldn’t blame the meter for her furious heartbeat.

Chapter 17

Laney

After giving Morgun her card, Laney didn’t really expect her to call. Or text. Or email. She didn’t expect to hear from her at all. So she had no idea why she found herself checking her phone more often. Finding excuses to take it out of her pocket. Getting her hopes up when it did ring. She’d given herself hope, and any spark of hope was a terrible thing, in her opinion, especially when it came to another person.

She didn’t realize that was what she was doing when she handed over her card. She just wanted Morgun to have her contact info for work. Starting a new job was hard. Morgun was bound to have questions. Laney felt she owed her this for going to the wedding with her. She just wanted to make sure she was able to succeed at her first assignment, and if she needed help, she was there. Everyone should have someone to fall back on because first days sucked. That’s why she’d done it.

Not because she wanted Morgun to call for an

y other reason.

It was illogical, what she was doing. Checking her phone. Holding that little spark in her chest and nurturing it. It was never going to turn into a flame, because Laney didn’t play with fire.

She wasn’t entirely surprised when Morgun sent her a text nine days after their lunch together, asking her if she could spare half an hour to go over the edits from her first shoot. It was a commercial building that was going up for sale and Morgun wrote in her text that she was worried her shots were too artsy and wouldn’t be acceptable. She was going to die of embarrassment if she had to ask to reshoot it.

Laney was busy. She had clients booked solid and anticipated a full evening of editing, but she sent a text back asking if seven was okay, and Morgun replied that it was.

Laney made sure she was just slightly late, so that she didn’t look desperate or eager. In reality, she’d circled the block no less than twenty times so that she would show up ten minutes after seven. She’d come straight from her last shoot. She still had on her work clothes, which were nicer than what she wore around the house, but she was glad she had an excuse to look good. She was mortified when she lifted her hand to ring the buzzer and found that it was both damp and trembling slightly.

She set her finger on the button she remembered well from the last time she was there. Christmas. When Morgun hadn’t answered. It was a good thing she hadn’t answered. Laney had no idea what would have happened if she had.

She was about to push the button when a strange noise, a hissing sort of whisper, came from behind her. She whirled, already reaching into her purse for the can of hairspray she kept in it. It wasn’t pepper spray, but hairspray was supposed to work just as well, or so she’d heard. She’d never had to use the little travel sized bottle before. Her fingers curled around the metal can, but when she turned, there was no one there.

Laney’s eyes dropped immediately to the ground and she let out a shriek.

There was a huge rat! A rat with bristly hair and long whiskers and beady, glowing little eyes. She produced the can of hairspray, popped the lid and shook it hard. The animal stared back at her and then hissed again, like it had a right to be there and she was the intruder.

“Get back!” The horrible looking rodent was just a few feet from the concrete doorstep. “Get back or I’ll freaking use this!”

The creature blinked eyes that seemed to glow. Laney shuddered. It didn’t move. She didn’t move. It hissed again. Laney shook the can.

“I swear on my freaking life that I will spray you with this if you take a step forward. Hairspray isn’t good for rats. It’s probably lethal. I wouldn’t come any closer, if I were you!”

The creature considered her. It blinked. Hissed again. And took a step forward.

Laney shrieked. She shook the can, but dropped it because her hand was shaking so violently. As the largest rat she’d ever seen, more the size of a cat than a rat, charged forward, Laney spun back towards the door and stabbed at the buzzer over and over again. Finally, there was a crackle and Morgun’s voice.

“Hello? Laney?”

“Help! There’s a wild animal out here! I think it’s a rat! But it looks like it got into nuclear waste or something! Oh my freaking God, it’s huge! It’s trying to get me. It keeps coming closer. You have to open the door!”

The door buzzed without comment. Laney grabbed for it, threw it open, and tugged it closed The animal charged the door, but stopped and just stared at her menacingly. She could see it hiss, but couldn’t hear it through the glass. She shuddered again. God, it was frightening. She dug out her phone and quickly typed in a search for a pest control company. They probably specialized in infestations, and one overgrown, very creepy, very feral rat hardly constituted that. She thought again and typed in animal conservation and was flipping through the options when Morgun came charging down the stairs.