Page 69 of The Christmas Yes List

Cost: Looking crazy to a few total strangers Choosing to be relentlessly brave and stand up to the person I want to please most.

Reward: Sanity. Personal victory. Taking back my life. Valuing myself.

“You know, now that I think of it, I’m not feeling like Chinese after all. Do you . . . want to switch back to that Italian place and eat there?”

James’s jaw tightens, his hand on the wheel of his family member’s sedan. But sure enough, even though we are four restaurants in now, he turns to look at me. And nods. “Okay. Yes.”

“Are you sure? I know it’s another fifteen minutes back that way,” I say, pointing behind me.

We have doubled back on this highway four times in the past hour.

Genie, who is tracking my phone at this moment (this is a theme, I’m realizing actually, and a concern I should probably take up at another time), is so proud. Every time our car makes a U-turn at my suggestion, I hear another bolstering ding of praises coming from my purse.

To be clear, James has not cracked yet. He’s gone along with every one of my “suggestions,” but each time he says yes when he should say no, I remember my goal here. It’s not to get a small rejection but to earn the ultimate one.

I need James to say Forget this. You are too difficult. You win. I’m taking you home.

My goal is to win. And I’m reminding myself of this aim as I look at his perturbed face and feel a quake within. I hate hate hate, for the record, this mission. Everything within my being wants to pull open the door mid-highway and roll out.

But I can’t.

I won’t.

I have to do this. For me.

And gratefully, Genie is giving me just enough backseat support with her dinging texts that I am propelled to brave on.

“But I just . . . really don’t like the idea of a place with that many free breadsticks,” I say, far more boldly (and annoyingly) than I feel.

It’s terrible. I’m like that whining girl in Clueless. Frankly, I would chuck myself out of the car right now if I were him.

James pulls at his neck collar in irritation. “You don’t have to eat the breadsticks,” he comments.

I tilt my head, my eyes squinting. “Can I resist, though? They’ll be right there in front of me. The waiters just slide them beneath your nose before you know what’s happening. I won’t really have a choice.”

He gives the tiniest, stilted, tight sigh. That’s it, though. He’s determined, it’s clear, not to crack.

He also looks incredibly handsome tonight, which doesn’t help. It’s hard to look directly in his eyes because they are a beautiful and unfairly God-given shade of vibrant green against his mossy brown turtleneck, and his jaw is lean and handsomely chiseled as he drives the car. Plus he smells good.