All Chapters of The Holidate Pact: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

SLOANE Here's what nobody tells you about being thirty-five and single during the holidays: it's not the loneliness that kills you. It's the pity. The head tilts. The soft voices. The "How are you doing... really?" I'm standing on my parents' front porch, staring at the wreath, gathering courage I don't have. Through the window, I can see them: Peter, his wife, Jennifer, and my dad. The door swings open before I can knock. "Sloane! Finally!" My mother pulls me inside, her perfume hitting me like a wall. "We were starting to worry." "Traffic was bad." She takes my coat and ushers me toward the dining room. The table is set like we're hosting the President. "Sloane!" Peter raises his glass. "The prodigal daughter returns." "It's Christmas, not Easter. Wrong parable." "Still freelancing, I see. Plenty of free time for church." I smile. "Doing great, actually. Just landed a campaign with a regional athletic brand. How's pharmaceutical sales?" His jaw tightens. Point to me. J

SLOANE The smell hits me first. Old coffee, fryer grease, maple syrup that’s been warming since the breakfast rush. It’s not pleasant, but it’s honest, and after the plastic cheer of the last forty-eight hours, honest feels like oxygen. Doris, the waitress who has probably worked every graveyard shift since 1998, doesn’t bother with a smile. Her name tag is crooked, her hair is the color of midnight in a bad decisions bottle, and the coffee pot seems permanently grafted to her right hand. "Sit anywhere, hon." Jackson chooses the booth under the flickering fluorescent by the window. The vinyl seat is cracked and patched with silver duct tape that matches the sky outside. I slide in across from him. The table is sticky. The menus are laminated and permanently stained with coffee rings older than most TikTok trends. I love it here. Doris fills two chipped mugs without asking if we want coffee. In Mel’s, coffee is assumed. It’s the only thing that keeps the place alive. "Food?" she g

SLOANE I spent all of December 27th trying to talk myself out of it. Didn’t work. By four-thirty in the afternoon I’m sitting at my kitchen table, laptop open to a gym campaign that’s due tomorrow, cursor blinking like it’s personally offended I haven’t written a single word. The document is titled “NEW YEAR, NEW YOU – DRAFT.” The only thing on the page is the title and a coffee stain. My phone is face-down beside my mug. I’ve read Jackson’s last text seventeen times. JACKSON (TARGET GUY): Thanks for meeting me. Even if you say no tomorrow, tonight was nice. My reply: It was. Two words. Safe. Non-committal. Adult. I flip the phone over again. Open Notes. Start a new one titled FAKE DATING SANITY CHECK. CONS - This is objectively deranged - Lying to my entire family for a year - If we get caught the fallout will be biblical - I know almost nothing about him - Attractive Australian accent might be a problem for my impulse control PROS - Mom stops ambushing m

SLOANE I woke up on the 29th convinced I had made the worst decision of my adult life. The kids’ menu was on my nightstand like evidence in a crime scene. Crayon signatures, dinosaur border, three-second-kiss clause. In the gray morning light it looked exactly like what it was: proof of temporary insanity. My pulse was already sprinting. I grabbed my phone and opened a blank text to Jackson. Draft one: This was a mistake. I’m out. Sorry. I stared at it until the words blurred. Too cold. Draft two: Hey, I’ve been rethinking everything and I don’t think I can do this. Too polite. Too easy for him to talk me back in. Draft three: I can’t lie to my entire family for a year. I’m sorry. True, but dramatic. I deleted all three and threw the phone across the bed like it was radioactive. Then I did what any sane person does at six-thirty in the morning after agreeing to a year-long con: I made coffee and panic-listed. THINGS THAT COULD GO WRONG 1. My mother cries when sh

SLOANE New Year’s Eve, 08:17 a.m. T-minus 11 hours, 43 minutes I’d been awake since 4:58. My brain ran the same loop on repeat: Peter’s smirk, Mom’s soft-voiced interrogation, Susan three glasses in and telling Jackson every embarrassing story from my childhood. At 6:03 I gave up pretending to sleep and opened a blank document titled HOLBROOK THREAT ASSESSMENT – NYE 2025. By 7:30 it was four pages, color-coded, footnoted, and borderline certifiable. I attached it to an email and stared at the send button like it might detonate. My phone buzzed first. Jackson: You’ve been typing for two hours. Whatever it is, just send it. Of course he was awake. Of course he knew. I hit send. Thirty seconds later my phone rang. “Morning, sunshine,” he said, voice gravel-rough. “You wrote a dissertation on your own family?” “It’s concise.” “It’s color-coded by threat level. Your mother is literally red-flagged.” “She earned it.” He exhaled a laugh that made the speaker crackle. “Walk me