Chapter 36

Sure enough. His hair is shorter, still good and wavy on top, and he’s wearing heavy-framed glasses, but it’s him all right. The specs throw me for a second, but the big optimist’s grin twitching beneath the cracks in the slapdash veneer of concern is a dead giveaway.

“Shannon, right?” he says. “The Curse of the Christmas Boyfriend?”

“As the Scooby-Doo episode about my life is called.” I smile, madly wiping at my cheeks. God he must think I’m a mess.

“You okay? Don’t tell me it happened again? Let me guess: he turned out to be two elves, one on top of the other in an overcoat, and they left you because they had to get back to Santa’s workshop?”

“You saw the thing they did about it on the news?”

“Dude, you had to suspect…”

“They were very convincing.”

“You poor bastard. Buy you a cup of coffee?”