Santa (Maybe): A Rom Com Novella Read Online Free

tempted to have a fling , but a fling was out of the question. Madeleine had a rule. She never went out for more than three dates with any man who wasn’t husband-material and she never ever brought men home to meet Emily. As it had turned out, since her divorce she hadn’t met a single man who was husband-material. At least not one who was both husband-material and shaggable.
    Oh, well. She’d go have a drink with Mark and Ami. That might be the last she’d see of him. Just one drink. Or maybe two. She was sure she’d lost her chance with Mark. He’d given her an obvious opening to jump his bones and she hadn’t taken it. Men like him were quick to move on.
 
    Mar k watched Madeleine across the table. He knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it. She avoided his eyes and concentrated on her glass. She was out-drinking her sister three drinks to one. Mark wondered how often she drank like that. It wasn’t celebratory drinking. It was more of the drown-your-sorrows variety. It made him sad. Everything about Madeleine made him sad. It wasn’t only that he wanted her and couldn’t have her. It was seeing her so miserable that devastated him. All those years he’d imagined her being happy. In pictures, she’d always looked happy. Apparently, the pictures hadn’t been telling the whole truth.
    M ark nursed his fourth seltzer. He wondered who would end up driving Madeleine home. He hoped it would be him.
    A mi, content to carry the conversational ball, chattered away about her neighbor who was renovating an old Victorian next door and who kept her up nights with his sawing and hammering.
    They’d been at the bar since 9. It was midnight and still Madeleine had said barely three words to Mark. Apparently, she was not one of those people whose tongues got looser the more they drank.
    “So, Mark —“ Ami enquired, “—how’s the personal trainer game going?”
    Madeleine looked up from her drink for the first time in half an hour, but she still didn’t say anything. Mark was afraid Madeleine might ask how Ami knew what he did for a living, but this didn’t seem to occur to her.
    “Not so good.”
    “How so?”
    “I got fired two weeks ago. Long story.”
    “Go ahead and tell it. We have plenty of time.”
    “Well, the short version is that I didn’t want to sleep with one of my clients. She’s actually something of a local celebrity and has lots of connections around town. Local news anchor. If I told you her name, you’d recognize it. Anyway, the long and short of it is that she doesn’t take rejection well and I find I’ve been black-listed at pretty much every gym between Ballard and Bellingham. That’s how I came to be a Professional Santa Impersonator this holiday season.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Ami. “Madeleine here is trying her best to get fired. She hasn’t succeeded, yet. She could have tried refusing to sleep with her boss, but unfortunately she works for a woman. A man-crazy woman—“
    Mark was surprised. “You hate your job that much, Madeleine?”
    “Yep!” Madeleine said. “I’d like nothing better than to go in Monday morning and—“
    She made a sweeping gesture and knocked her empty glass off the table. It rolled underneath their feet but didn’t shatter.
    “Where do you live, Mark?” Ami asked.
    “On Lake Washington. In a houseboat.”
    Madeleine was making a fumbling attempt to retrieve her glass from under the table.
    “Did you hear that, Madeleine?” Ami stuck her head under the table. “Mark lives in a houseboat on Lake Washington. Isn’t that cool?”
    There was no answer from under the table. Ami came up for air.
    “Madeleine has a house in the University District,” she informed Mark. “Would you mind driving her home?”
    Mark didn’t have to be asked twice. Madeleine made some noise about Ami sending her home with a strange man, but Ami argued that Mark wasn’t that strange of a man. This reasoning made no sense to Mark, but it pacified