“The family to-do is dinner on Christmas Eve at my parents’ house, then presents in the morning. I’ll stay over—they’re on Long Island. Christmas Eve dinner is a huge spread, but then for Christmas morning we eat Christmas versions of kids’ cereal—Lucky Charms, that sort of thing. My sister and I weren’t allowed sugary cereal as kids, except at Christmas, when my parents would buy us one box. That was all we ever wanted to eat on Christmas morning, and at some point, they started eating it, too, saying they were too tired from cooking the dinner the night before to make a proper breakfast. It evolved into a thing, and now we have a full-on buffet of trashy Christmas cereal. Then we have a reprise on January 6, which is Epiphany. That’s when my dad’s side of the family—they’re in Mexico—celebrates. We go see my grandparents every few years, and in the off years we all FaceTime. That’s part of why I’m kind of strict about when I start doing Christmas. It’s a long holiday season for us!”

“That all sounds wonderful.”

She looked at him quizzically, and he thought back to her saying that things came easily to him. Not all things, he’d been tempted to say, but he hadn’t wanted to sound like a jerk.

“What do you do for Christmas?” she asked.

Nothing. He showed up at the appointed time for the family lunch and went through the motions, but that was the extent of it. “I celebrate whatever I can, whenever I can,” he said by way of deflection. “I don’t limit it to Christmas.”

“I bet you do.” She snorted. “I bet you ‘celebrated’”—there were the air quotes again—“After the party last night. Who was the lucky girl?”

“I will have you know I didn’t ‘celebrate’ after the party.” It was true. He’d gone back to his hotel to brood in the sauna. “I did, however, make out with a charming partygoer in the coatroom.” Not the partygoer he was meant to connect with at the party, though. Not the partygoer who had been the whole reason for his New York trip. He’d only talked to her long enough to be able to go home and tell his parents that, yes, he met her.

His duty done, he’d allowed himself to be hit on by the event’s photographer. They’d had a perfectly pleasant time, hidden among the coats, but for some reason, when she’d invited him to come home with her, he’d pled exhaustion.

“Back to celebrating. If you could do anything this weekend, what would it be?”

“Get dressed up in this silly, fancy dress I bought last fall but have never worn and go see The Nutcracker.”