Club Endless Fantasy

Elly: I’ll delete it later. I’m still at the office, and I have a lot of work to do.

Ian: Why not give it a shot? You might get matched with someone you like.

Elly: We covered this last night…

Ian: That’s why I’m trying to change your mind.

Elly: You won’t. I’m not looking for a relationship, and I don’t like Christmas.

Ian: But you could have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas ever.

Elly: Did you run out of traditional Christmas one-liners? Now you’re borrowing them from Clark W. Griswold…

Ian: No, I’ve got plenty more. Wait, I think we just had a breakthrough. You’ve actually seen a Christmas movie!

Elly: A long time ago, yeah…

Ian: It’s been a while since I’ve seen it too. Maybe I’ll watch it this weekend…

Elly: Have fun. I really do need to get some work done.

Ian: Okay, I’ll stop bothering you if you agree not to delete the app.

Elly: I could just delete the app and stop you from bothering me.

Ian: But I’m not out of cheesy Christmas one-liners yet…

Elly: Fine, but only because you made me laugh.

I stared at Elly’s picture on the screen for a few minutes after I ended the conversation. She really was pretty—beautiful even. She had dark raven-colored hair, misty gray eyes, and a half-smile on her lips that made it look like she wasn’t thrilled that the picture was being taken in the first place. I wondered if my cheesy one-liners had put a smile like that on her face before she finally succumbed to actual laughter.

I still didn’t quite understand why she had such a sour mood towards the holidays. I assumed there was a reason for it, but that didn’t mean it had to be a permanent outlook. I had plenty of reasons to devolve into Ebenezer Scrooge after my relationship with Abigail fell apart, but I forced myself to find a reason to keep celebrating holidays—that got easier after my niece and nephew were born.

Elly needs to find her reason. There has to be something out there that would make this time of year worth celebrating…

I normally spent my evenings alone at my house. I had become rather proficient at cooking for one and finding ways to entertain myself. I liked listening to True Crime podcasts, but I had to be in the right mood for it. Usually, if there was nothing on television, and I had read all the new books by my favorite authors, I would just end up working. There was never a shortage of that. The only drawback was that when I worked, I created work for my team, so they weren’t always thrilled to walk in the next day to a slew of ne

w assignments. I was just about to pour myself a drink and pick up my remote when my phone lit up with a notification—I had a message from Elly.

Elly: I’m done at the office. If you’re going to annoy me with one-liners, now is the time.

Ian: How about a Christmas joke?

Elly: A joke?

Ian: It’ll make you laugh.

Elly: Fine…

Ian: What kind of Christmas music do elves like?

Elly: Christmas carols?

Ian: ‘Wrap’ music!

Elly: Oh my god, that’s even worse than your one-liners.

Ian: Did you laugh?