NathanLucy stood, hand on hips, dressed in dark red and with murder in her eyes.“There you are,” she scolded. “Where have you been?”Nathan frowned, not understanding. There was no meetings until later in the day. He’d double checked.“What do you mean?” he asked her.“I messaged you. We need to talk,” she said. “Didn’t you get my text?”Nathan fumbled for his phone and found two missed messages from Lucy. He had been so caught up in designing the laptop in his head, he’d neglected his phone entirely.“Wow. She’s even more in your head than I thought,” Lucy said, crossing her arms. He knew she was referencing Holly. The way she said it twisted Nathan the wrong way. No one should talk about Holly like that.“What do you want, Lucy?” Nathan asked her. He could feel his time in the R&D department slipping away from him.“We need to talk. In private.” She turned on her heel and began walking. “Follow me.”Nathan raised an eyebrow and glanced at Gregory.Gregory grunted.Nathan had to ag

Holly“There,” Holly whispered, carefully placing the last piece of tape.She smiled at her work. The wrapping paper was neatly folded around the corners and she’d even made the tape look nice. She wrote Nathan’s name in neat print on the corner. It was possibly the best wrapping she’d ever done on a present.It was just a copy of A Christmas Carol, but it seemed like the perfect Christmas Eve present for Nathan. She’d agonized over which book to get him for the Christmas Eve tradition, but had finally settled on this one.It was tradition in her family to gift a book on Christmas eve. She was excited to share this tradition with Nathan. She was excited to share everything with him.Life was good. She tucked the book under the small tree in her apartment next to the other gift she’d picked out for him. It was just a t-shirt with the name of the town and a printed mountain background. It wasn’t much, but she thought he would like it since he was moving his company here. It felt like a

HollyHolly sat before a roaring fire, watching the flames jump and dance around a yule log. She wondered if it would be appropriate to put another shot of rum in her hot cocoa or if three was already too many.She wanted to feel happy. It was Christmas Eve. She was warm and full of good food. Her father had made his famous pot roast and she’d eaten enough mashed potatoes that she was probably at least fifty percent potato herself. There would soon be presents and cookies.There was every reason to be happy and content. But, all she could think about was Nathan.So, she sat on the floor in front of the fire and drank rum.It was her annual place to sit on Christmas Eve. Holly and Mark had already watched the old Claymation version of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Now they would exchange books as was their tradition.When Holly was a little girl, they used to do this every year. Her mother would pick out an educational book with beautiful pictures for her. One year, she got an encyclo

NathanThe walk up the small flight of stairs to Mark’s office was the longest one of Nathan’s life. He could feel Holly’s hand in his, but he still had to keep looking back and making sure she was real.They stepped into the office, and Holly closed the door behind her.“Are you really here?” she asked, a hint of fear in her voice and eyes. “I thought you said you didn’t think this was going to work.”“It wasn’t the way things were,” he told her. “But, I made changes. I hope I haven’t missed my chance.”“No.” She shook her head and smiled. “You haven’t missed it. But I need to know you aren’t going to leave again. That we’re not just going to end up in the same place as before.”Nathan reached into the back pocket of his Santa costume and pulled out a piece of heavy paper. He handed it to her.“This says you’re the owner of Elements Computer Technologies,” Holly said, reading the paper. She looked up at him still confused. “I thought you were always the owner.”“No. Paradigm was the