Chapter 3
Olivia
The two weeks leading up to my trip back to Fisher Creek flies by.
Between work and getting ready for the holidays I don’t have time to overthink or even really consider meeting up with Noah until I’m in Fisher Creek.
I only last a whole twelve hours before I’m itching to get out of the house and escape my mind.
The cold, brisk air hits my face as I brush my hair out of my eyes. I’m walking to start my old car to venture to the only coffee shop within a twenty-mile radius. I feel the subtle vibrations of my phone ringing in my heavy-padded pocket, and as I pull it out I see Mason’s name on the screen.
“Enjoying the cold?” He chuckles as I answer the phone.
“Jerk…” But he’s right, I really hate the cold and am honestly a little jealous that he traveled back to Southern California while I traveled to my hometown for the holiday.
My hometown, Fisher Creek, is the epitome of a small town and there is a reason most of our graduating class left without looking back.
I fully intended on being one of them like my sister, Penelope, but things changed.
This is the first holiday season without my beloved grandmother and all I want is to spend it with my family and a bottle of wine.
“It's eighteen degrees, not including the wind, and I’m not even caffeinated yet,” I grumble, starting the car and blasting the heat.
“You’re a grump this morning. I was just curious if you finally said yes to hanging out with Noah tonight?”
My entire body tenses at the sound of Noah’s name and the fact that he asked to get drinks while I’m home. We were inseparable in high school, the best of friends, until, well, we just weren’t.
But time does that to people, right? They move to different cities, take different life paths, and just grow apart.
“I don’t know. I only get to see the boys for a few days a year, I should probably just stay in with the family,” I blurt out as quickly as possible, trying to avoid thinking too much about the topic.
Everyone who knows Noah and me knows that I have such a soft spot for this man even after all these years, even after everything that happened.
“Stop being a chicken, your family is going to go to bed at eight p.m, and then you’re going to be bored.
Go out! Plus, you never know what might happen,” he says, and I can hear the smirk on his face as he says that last bit.
Living with Mason means he is fully aware of my love life and all of its crazy ups and downs.
“Goodbye, Mason, I’m going to get coffee now,” I say as I hang up the phone before he can badger me anymore regarding my relationship status.
Mason and I have been friends since we both moved to Milwaukee for PT school.
He moved out of Southern California to experience something different.
He wanted to see the snow and cold, and for whatever reason was a big Bucks fan.
I moved to Milwaukee to move off the farm but stay close enough to go home if necessary.
Little did we know, we moved into the same neighborhood, and were in all of the same introduction classes at school.
That first day, I walked into the large 150-person lecture hall and just stopped.
I have always been relatively reserved, and never really flourished in big crowds.
And then, there I was in a new city, a new school, knowing no one aside from some faces I recognized from the required class Facebook page.
Mason walked in behind me, stopped next to me, smiled, and said, “Come on, let’s go sit.” Then ushered me toward the middle of the big hall before I could nod in agreement. We have been friends since that day ten years ago, living together for the last nine of them.
I hear the ridiculous quacking text tone of my group chat with Mason, Caroline and Savannah, reminding me to silence my phone before getting to the coffee shop.
Even ten years later, I’m still baffled that I haven’t changed the tone yet.
When we first started the group chat to plan nights out and keep track of everyone it was a quiet little chat only used when necessary but the closer we became as friends the louder the chat got.
I frequently ignored the chat on the premise that it was just a text notification like any other text I got.
Until Caroline had my phone one night and changed the ringtone to the most annoying duck noise she could find in the phone setting under the premise that I would never ignore a text that reminded me of home.
She then proceeded to leave the ringer on and tell everyone to avoid the group chat until the next morning when they blew it up while I was contemplating my night choices.
And yet after all these years and jokes later, I never changed it.
I ignore the text as I pull up to the local coffee shop, Creek and Kettle. After parking, crossing the snowy street, and ordering my decadent hot peppermint mocha, I sit down at a little wooden table and look around amazed at how timeless our community is.
Julianna, the owner, played on my high school soccer team and went on to get a degree in business administration before returning to our hometown to open up this coffee shop. The building was a breakfast restaurant until the owner passed away and there was no family to take over the business.
When Julianna bought it, she kept everything.
And I mean literally everything, the old tables, booths, bar stools, everything.
The only difference is that she refurbished it all so they have the old-timey look and feel, but, functionally, are brand new.
She maintained the brick interior wall and turned it into a beautiful accent piece to draw attention to the large picture windows in the front.
I look up from my small table and can remember back to being a child and having breakfast here with my grandparents, looking at the same beautiful Christmas decorations that I see now.
If there is one thing this small town does well, it’s Christmas. Nothing changes year after year but it never fails that I'm always mesmerized by the beauty and dedication everyone has to the holidays and traditions.
Pulling out my phone, I see that the text isn’t from the group chat, but from him. And I'm instantly transported back in time.