Page 1 of When in December

one

. . .

Poppy

To be honest,for a while there, I really thought love was dead. Dead in the ground. Torched with flames. Dead. I was never going to find the magical fairy tale—and not for a lack of trying or sparing my own feelings.

I did the dating thing. I went on blind dates that only served to convince me my parents either had no idea who I was at all or they were secretly laughing behind my back at the comically terrible men they’d set me up with. I even tried the more socially acceptable thing where I dressed in something pretty and low-cut so that someone would notice me in a bar, where I sipped a drink that tasted like too much lime, far past my normal bedtime. I even did the relationship thing. And that one? That one nearly ruined me entirely.

Then, everything changed.

Falling in love, I learned, could be situated tightly against the phrasehas potential.

It was a famous line in an interview from Michelle Maven, my boss and the creator of one of the most recognized home design and entertainment companies in the entire city—and soon, the country.

Home Haven insisted that making a house a home could easily be the most stunning of mundane magic. It was romanticizing your own life. In this world, we all needed a little of that. That kind of comfort. That kind of love.

It was also what Michelle had said when she took a chance and hired me two years ago.

I had potential.

She’d also told me I had a strong self-starter personality. That was likely why I was still in the office at seven thirty in the evening when I was supposed to go home at five, dropping a bag of takeout on my desk, covered in layout plans detailing my next project and paint swatches that were beginning to look a little too similar to one another.

At the paper bag crinkling, Hannah perked up on the other side of our shared cubicle. She twisted around in her plush, pink-cushioned desk chair, which, though comfortable, squeaked incessantly with every tiny movement. At first, the sound had been annoying. But after Hannah sitting behind me five days a week, at minimum, for the past two years, the high-pitched squeal of metal on metal was almost comforting to my otherwise shot nerves.

Hannah also had a keen sense of hearing whenever food was brought into the office past six p.m.—it was basically her love language.

She leaned back in her chair, a soft blanket hanging over my friend’s shoulders. A piece of the black licorice she normally kept in a glass container on her desk dangled between her teeth.

Soft hazel eyes widened behind clear acetate blue-light glasses.

What are you doing here?she mouthed, pointing to her headset, where I could hear the distant hum of someone talking to her over the Home Haven Hotline.

What does it look like I’m doing?I mouthed right back.

With a click, Hannah muted herself. “Clearly, you’re not at home, like you should be.”

I waved her off.

“You said that you were going to get some sleep for once.”

I’d slept. Sure, it might not have been as much as some people within the past week or two, but it was enough. I started to take out the to-go containers. Immediately, Hannah’s attention shifted toward the Thai noodles and spring rolls with peanut sauce. Once, I’d made sure to get vegetarian just for her until she turned me on to them.

I could never resist a good peanut sauce.

“I have to go back over the plans for the Hayes-Preston home.”

I handed her container over. She took it from my hands and popped open the lid.

“Again?”

“Construction is set to be complete tomorrow, which means I start tomorrow,” I reminded her.

Even though, as of now, the construction company we’d hired this past summer to get a head start on the place still hadn’t replied to my emails or phone calls for a more updated update.

“And the floor plan is a tad out of the ordinary.”

“If you have the place completely done already by the time you get up there to decorate for the holiday, there’s going to be nothing left for you to do for the rest of the year. You’re taking the fun out of it,” said Hannah.