Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Mac smacks her forehead. “What is wrong with me?” She whirls and races up the floating stairs strewn with garlands, past the floor-to-ceiling windows with the stunning view of the Golden Gate Bridge, to her bedroom on the third floor.
“Apparently, managing you is a full-time job for her,” Bibi says, then pats my cheek since she’ll never stop patting my cheek.
“Eleven going on forty,” I muse as Mac’s boots echo through the house.
“I’m surprised you let her go upstairs with shoes on,” Bibi says, glancing around.
I know what she means. Nothing is out of order in my home. The coffee table is neatly covered with a tasteful array of pinecones, and a mini Christmas tree perches next to the gleaming baby grand piano in the corner. The holiday decor is classy, courtesy of my daughter. She has an eye for it. I don’t. Chess pieces I can visualize—not furniture pieces.
“She didn’t give me much choice.” And it wasn’t a battle I wanted to fight. When she’s older, I don’t want my kid’s main memory of me to be as the dad who never let her wear shoes in the house.
Mac flies down the steps, and the three of us head out, piling into the sleek black limo that carries Bibi everywhere she goes. “Thank you, Reagan,” Bibi says to the woman who’s been driving her since I first moved to San Francisco. “You are the absolute best.”
“Thank you, Barbara. I have Playlist Number Three all queued up and ready to go,” the driver says.
“Nope. I’m wrong. You’re not the best. You’re an official goddess. In fact, I had a dream in which I gave you a bigger-than-ever Christmas bonus this year, and that dream will come true later today.”
Reagan beams. “Thank you, Barbara.”
“You deserve it.” Bibi turns to me. “And will you be giving out bonuses, too, this year?”
I give her a seriously? look. “Is the sky blue? Is my daughter sassy? Is my aunt relentless?”
Bibi pats my cheek. “That’s the right answer.”
“They’ll be in the stockings we pass out before the holiday break.”
Reagan gets behind the wheel and pulls into Monday morning traffic as Elvis’s “Blue Christmas” fills the ride. Bibi likes to pick us up on her way into the office. It’s a chance to spend time with Mac every day, which she’s been doing more often since my mother—her sister—moved to London a few years ago to earn her bachelor’s degree. Then, Mom stayed because she fell in love—with school. Now, she’s working toward her master’s in fine arts, and I couldn’t be prouder.
Bibi fishes in her vegan leather bag, digs out a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses, then swipes open her phone. If she’s looking at her calendar, I’d better get out my shield. Tapping her regal chin, she says, “What’s your schedule like this week, Wilder? It’s December, so it’s time for my favorite holiday activity—proving I’m better than a dating app. And lucky you! You continue to qualify as my favorite project.”
Mac snort-laughs. “I wonder who she got this time,” she says to me under her breath.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I whisper back.
Bibi looks at me. “I heard you, and I do know how to pick ‘em, thank you very much. I was a matchmaker in a past life.”
Maybe so, but my answer’s the same as usual. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
She’s not the only one I’ll say that to. I’ll say it when my sister, Caroline, and her wife plot my romantic future and when my assistant tries to write a dating profile for me. There’s not a man or woman I’m close to in a fifty-mile radius who isn’t trying to set me up, especially around the holidays.
It’ll be fun, they say.
Fun is a game of golf with my friends, a round of pickleball with my daughter, or a good book. Fun is not a string of bad dates leading nowhere, which is precisely where my aunt’s past setups have always gone.
Bibi gestures to the car’s tinted windows as it cruises through the city on a foggy morning in the first week of December. San Francisco is decked out for Christmas, with twinkling lights hanging from streetlamps and nutcrackers standing tall in store windows.
“And that means what?” I ask as Elvis croons.
“Wilder, it’s the holidays,” Bibi presses, like that’ll change my mind. “What’s wrong with a little romance?”
“Nothing,” I reply, and Mac joins in as I say, “I just don’t have time right now.”
I wince, meeting Mac’s gaze. “Do I say it that often?”
She nods with all the authority of an eleven-year-old. “Yes. Along with eat all your kale and no YouTube after six on a school night.”
“Sage advice.” Bibi turns to me, shifting from dreams analysis and past life regression to boss mode. “But you know I was very happy with my husband for forty fantastic years before he died. It was the real thing, and it was wonderful—especially having him by my side during the holidays. We used to dance to ‘Blue Christmas’ every Christmas Eve as the lights on the tree flickered and the fireplace crackled.” She sighs contentedly, and the picture she paints might be enough to make a weaker man second-guess himself. But not me.