Dani didn’t remember The Nutcracker being so good. She hadn’t seen it since she was a girl, and she’d been wondering if her adult self would be too jaded to suspend her disbelief and enjoy a story about toys and candy and flowers come to life. But a few bars into the overture and she’d fallen right into the story, and Mom must have, too—she kept looking at Dani at the same time Dani looked over at her.

“That was lovely, Max, thank you so much,” her mom said when they reached the lobby.

It really had been. Even though Dani had had to be talked into coming, she was bummed that it was over.

“May I take you ladies for a post-show drink?” Max asked as they waited in line at the coat check.

Yes. Dani didn’t want to go home yet.

But her mom said, “Thank you, but no. It’s a long ride home, and my husband waits up for me even though I tell him not to.”

“Let me call the car,” Max said, holding their coats for them one at a time.

It was just as well. Dani took her mom’s arm. “I need to pick your brain in the car about gift ideas for Dad.” Though maybe admitting she hadn’t bought gifts yet was a dumb move—it might lead to a line of fruitcake questioning, and Dani had never been able to lie to her mother.

“Oh, no, you two go have a drink!” Mom shrugged out of her grasp. “I’ll enjoy the peace of a cozy ride home.”

Dani looked at Max, who had an eyebrow raised—the man had the uncanny ability to lift one eyebrow at a time—like he was daring her to do something as transgressive as have a drink with him. She wanted to, but without her mom as an excuse, she should refuse. Spontaneously going out to drinks with Max last night had been one thing. Doing it again felt like veering into list-violating territory. But really, there was nothing on it a drink with Max would be violating, except #6, and she had already violated that one by being here to begin with. And perhaps more to the point, Max wasn’t a “man” in Things I Will Never Again Do for a Man sense. He was a baron who lived on another continent. There was no danger of him upending her life.

“Stay, honey,” her mom said.

“It is the first day of the Christmas season according to the Daniela Martinez calendar,” Max said.

She made the decision by not making it, by not saying anything as she let them sweep her along.