Page 8 of Holiday Wishes and Tentacle Dreams

Jake rolled his eyes at his grandmother’s reluctant offer. She would do anything for him, he knew that, but she also didn’t want him around to cockblock her.

God, just thinking about that made him shudder.

“You don’t want me there, Gram.”

“Jakey—”

“It’s okay.” Jake reached out to pet Miranda Priestly, who had jumped up on the kitchen counter to hunker down in a sunny spot. The kitty had a sixth sense for when Jake was struggling and always seemed to show up when he needed support. “You’re allergic to cats, and I have nowhere to leave MP.”

“Oh, bring her here. I’ll be fine.” She might be utterly unperturbed by the idea, but Jake knew better.

“You have asthma; I’m not invading your house with an allergen.”

At his words, Miranda Priestly let out a mighty meow, and gave Jake an almost indignant look.

“Don’t be ridiculous?—”

“Absolutely not. The last time you had an asthma attack, you ended up in the ER.” As he spoke, Jake surveyed the empty containers of top ramen and cheap Thai food littering the countertop. “I can find somewhere to go. I have a few days before the subletter moves in. There’s got to be a friend who has a couch I can crash on until I figure things out.”

Or he could always sleep in his car. He just didn’t want to do that to Miranda Priestly. She deserved better than being stuffed into his old junker for however many nights.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. That Phil was a real fuckin’ douchebag.”

“Gram!” His grandmother had always had a mouth like a truck driver. He found it pretty adorable, especially when she wielded it against his dickhead ex, but he kept up the facade of being scandalized.

“Just callin’ like I see ‘em, Jakey.” The clicking of an ice cube against a glass tumbler came through the receiver loud and clear. She must be finishing off her nightly bourbon. “You don’t want to come all the way to Massachusetts, anyway. Your life is in New York.”

“It is.”

Jake stopped and considered that fact. Was his life in New York City? He didn’t have a boyfriend or a job. He had a few friends, but many of them had faded away in the few days since Phil left.

“I don’t know,” he continued. “I don’t hate the idea of getting out of the city. New England doesn’t seem so bad. Honestly, disappearing into the backwoods of Vermont or something sounds amazing.”

“Wait.” His grandmother let out a few rough coughs. “Sorry, whiskey went down the wrong pipe. Why don’t you go up to your great-uncle’s beach house?”

“I thought you’d sold it. For your retirement fund.” Jake didn’t know anything about the house beyond the fact that it was up in Maine. A little town called Linwood Falls. He’d never been, and he was a little resentful about it. His great-uncle Charlie wasn’t rich, but he was much better off than Jake and his grandmother, especially back when Jake was a kid.

Charlie hadn’t been willing to help the two of them at all after Jake’s mother died. He’d only met the man a handful of times. But when Charlie died last year, he’d left his beach house to Gram.

“The lawyer convinced me to rent it out. Said that it’s worth more that way. But it’ll be December in a couple of days. No one’s renting it now.”

Jake's eyebrows furrowed at the thought. He’d been kidding before when he said he wanted to disappear into the backwoods. Mostly kidding. Wouldn’t it be admitting failure, running all the way to Maine?

Then again, by any reasonable metric, hewasa failure. If this were a lifeline, he should take it. He’d asked Santa for a place to live, and here one was, at least until the tourist season started again in…what? May?

Miranda Priestly licked a stripe up the back of his hand and meowed, begging for more pets. Jake happily obliged. She’d always annoyed Phil with her neediness and bossiness, but Jake found her comforting. At least he could provide this one thing.

“Are you sure?” Jake asked.

“Of course, sweetie,” she answered. “It shouldn’t be in bad shape. One lady in town cleans it every couple of weeks. I called her to tell her she could stop, that I wouldn’t have money to hireher until I rented it out again, but she insisted Charlie had paid her for the next three years. Which is fucking crazy.”

Itwascrazy. Who could afford to pay for house cleaning three years in advance? Then again, it emphasized again what a dick move it had been for Charlie not to help him and his grandmother when they were struggling.

Well, the man was dead, so that was that.

“Okay. I’ll go. I have to figure out how to afford gas, but one of my friends might?—”

“I can send you cash, Jakey.”