Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Christmas Past
🚨 VIRAL HOOK: "They rushed into his apartment to hide his failed life. But they forgot the one thing that would expose them instantly..."We had exactly twenty-two minutes before Meena and Nani arrived in their Uber. Priya and I had taken a yellow cab to sprint ahead and "prepare the apartment."
The moment the door to my apartment closed behind us, Priya collapsed against it, her head in her hands.
"I am so sorry," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I never meant for this to happen. I thought we would meet at the gate, have a tearful reunion, they would go to the Marriott, and I would pay you for your time and never see you again."
"I don't want your money, Priya," I said, shedding my coat and throwing it onto a chair. "Right now, we have a logistics crisis. Look around."
She looked.
The living room was a monument to a canceled wedding.
Three large cardboard boxes labeled "RETURN TO SENDER: CATERER."
A towering silver espresso machine with a bright pink "GIFT RETURN" sticker on it.
On the mantelpiece, a framed engagement photo of me and Dana, smiling on a beach in Maine, looking like the poster children for boring stability.
"Oh my god," Priya breathed, running a hand through her disheveled dark hair. "Who is she?"
"My fiancée. Ex-fiancée. As of eight days ago," I said, already grabbing the boxes and shoving them into the coat closet. "She left me because I was too predictable. Let's make sure your mother doesn't find out how predictable I actually am."
Priya jumped into action. She grabbed the framed photo of Dana and me, looking around frantically for a place to hide it. "Where do I put this?"
"Under the bed. In the master bedroom."
"The master bedroom," Priya repeated, her face flushing. "We have to make it look like we both sleep there. Nolan, she’s going to check the bathroom. She's going to look for a second toothbrush, makeup, women's products."
She was right. Meena Anand wasn't just a mother; she was a detective looking for a crime scene.
"Take my extra toothbrush out of the package," I called out, sprinting to my closet to pull down a random assortment of sweaters. "Throw some of your makeup on the counter. Do you have any hairpins?"
"Yes," she said, pulling a handful of bobby pins from her hair and scattering them on my bedside table with practiced ease.
We moved like a synchronized team, a precision dance born of sheer panic. I threw half of my clothes into a suitcase and shoved it under the bed to make room in the closet. Priya grabbed a bottle of her perfume—something warm and sweet, smelling of sandalwood and vanilla—and sprayed it liberally in the bedroom.
"It smells like a home now," she said, panting, standing in the middle of my bedroom.
I stopped. The scent of her perfume was completely different from Dana's lavender. It was richer. Alive.
"Nolan," she said softly, looking at the bed. There was only one pillow on the left side. I had slept on the right side for five years.
I grabbed a pillow from the guest couch and threw it onto the empty side of the bed. "There. Two pillows. One happy, married couple."
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
We froze.
"This is it," Priya whispered. "If my mother finds out, she will take Nani back to Chicago, and Nani will spend her last weeks in a hospital bed, heartbroken that I lied to her. I can't let her die thinking I'm alone."
"She won't," I said. I reached out and took Priya's hand. Her fingers were ice-cold. "Remember: bookstore. Eight months. We are happy. We are steady."
I opened the door.
Meena stood there, her eyes immediately scanning the entryway. Behind her, the Uber driver was wheeling Nani in.
"Welcome to our home," I said, offering Meena a warm, polite smile.
"It is... clean," Meena noted, stepping inside. She walked straight toward the mantelpiece where the framed photo had been just minutes before. She noticed the slight circle of dust where the frame had sat.
She ran a manicured finger over it.
"You have a lovely home, Nolan," Nani said, her eyes watering as she looked around. "Ah, the smell of sandalwood. Priya, you always did love that scent."
"Yes, Nani," Priya said, walking over to kiss her cheek. "Nolan bought me a new diffuser last week."
Meena walked toward the kitchen. I followed her, my heart hammering against my ribs. She opened the fridge.
"A lot of takeout containers for a married couple," Meena observed, lifting a plastic box of cold pad thai.
"I've been working late on a massive insurance audit," I lied smoothly. "And Priya has been busy with her..." I paused. Damn it. What did Priya do for a living?
"My gallery opening," Priya filled in, stepping into the kitchen and placing a hand on my lower back. The touch was warm, sending a jolt of electricity straight up my spine. "Nolan has been so supportive. He practically lives on takeout when I'm in curation mode."
Meena closed the fridge. "I see." She turned her sharp gaze to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. "I would love to freshen up. Where is the guest bathroom?"
"Right through there," I said, pointing.
As Meena walked down the hall, Nani called out from the living room. "Nolan, beta, come sit with me. Tell me how you proposed to my little bird."
I sat on the coffee table in front of her wheelchair, taking her fragile hands in mine. Priya sat on the arm of the sofa, her hand resting on my shoulder.
"Well, Nani," I began, looking up at Priya. "It was raining. In New York, when it rains, everyone is in a hurry. But when Priya knocked over that display of poetry books at the corner store on 14th Street... time just stopped for me. I didn't care about the rain. I just wanted to help her pick up every single page."
Priya was staring at me, her chest rising and falling. The look in her eyes wasn't acting anymore. It was something deeper.
"And the proposal?" Nani asked, her face glowing.
"I took her back to that same bookstore," I said, the words flowing easier than they should have. "I hid the ring in a hollowed-out copy of her favorite book."
"Which is?" Meena’s voice cut through the room like a knife.
She was standing at the end of the hallway, holding something in her hand.
My blood ran cold.
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It was a custom-printed, silver-foil wedding invitation. The one we had spent weeks designing.
The text read: "The wedding of Nolan Reyes and Dana Harrington."
