Chapter 9 #2
She’d told herself not to fall. Not to get attached. That this was a job. A favor. A performance.
But last night… God, last night hadn’t felt like pretending.
And now she was here. Alone. In a kitchen filled with pine scent and sparkling lights, playing the part of the girlfriend to a woman who’d made it very clear: whatever happened between them in their bed late at night… it was nothing.
Riley wiped at her cheek, furious to find it wet.
She sniffed, squared her shoulders, and made herself breathe.
She could do this. A few more days. Just until Christmas. Then she could leave this snow globe fantasy behind and never look back.
Never, except every time she closed her eyes.
The house was too loud.
Riley slipped her arms into the borrowed wool coat hanging by the back door and stepped outside without bothering to explain where she was going. No one noticed. Not with the cousins shouting over a game of charades and the adults comparing spiced cider recipes with tipsy laughter.
The screen door clicked softly behind her, muffled almost entirely by the thick hush of falling snow.
The cold kissed her cheeks at once, bracing, welcome. Her boots sank into the powder gathered along the stone patio. The snow had been falling steadily all day, and now the entire estate was blanketed in white, the trees heavy with it, their branches bending low as if in prayer.
It was peaceful here.
Still. Silent.
Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Riley stood just beneath the eaves, where the snow couldn’t quite reach, and let herself look out over the garden. The fairy lights strung through the arbor glowed faintly beneath a dusting of frost, and the stone bench where they’d once shared cider was now half-buried in white.
It felt like standing at the edge of something sacred. Or maybe at the edge of something lost.
She swallowed.
She hadn’t meant to fall for Elizabeth Hale.
It had been a job. A lie. A beautifully wrapped charade they were both in on.
Riley blinked hard, wiping her cheek with the back of her mitten. It came away damp. She clenched her jaw.
This wasn’t the plan. She wasn’t supposed to fall for the woman who could shut her out with a single glance. The woman who wore silence like armor. Who had spent the last twenty-four hours pretending that Riley didn’t matter.
But the worst part, the part that made her stomach twist, was that it hadn’t felt one-sided.
Riley had seen it. Felt it. In every moment Elizabeth’s mask slipped, in the warmth behind her eyes, in the way she touched Riley when she thought no one was looking.
So why did she keep running?
Why did she keep pretending this was nothing?
Riley breathed in the cold, the scent of pine and frost curling in her lungs.
And then, quiet footsteps behind her.
She turned.
Elizabeth was there.
She stood at the edge of the patio, bundled in a long charcoal wool coat, hair tucked into a loose twist, a dusting of snow catching on her lashes. In her gloved hands, she held two steaming mugs of cocoa.
Riley froze, heart thudding.
Elizabeth didn’t speak right away. She stepped forward, her boots crunching softly on the cleared stone. She stopped a few feet away, like she wasn’t sure if she should come closer.
“I thought you might be cold,” Elizabeth said quietly, offering her one of the mugs.
Riley took it slowly, her fingers brushing Elizabeth’s glove.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
Silence stretched between them, thin and taut.
Riley looked down into the cocoa. Tiny marshmallows floated on the surface, perfectly square. Of course.
Elizabeth glanced away, as if the snow beyond the trees was more interesting than this unbearable stillness between them.
“I wasn’t sure if you… wanted to be alone,” she said at last, her voice careful.
Riley’s lips parted in disbelief. She let out a quiet laugh, sharp and tired.
“Seriously?” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve been pretending I don’t exist all day.”
Elizabeth’s jaw tightened. “That’s not true.”
“It’s not?” Riley shot back. “Because from where I’m standing, it really felt like you couldn’t wait to make me disappear.”
A flicker of something passed through Elizabeth’s eyes, guilt, maybe. Or fear.
She looked down at her cocoa, held it like a shield.
“Last night…” Elizabeth began, then stopped. Her throat worked around the words. “It was… complicated.”
Riley stared at her. “It didn’t feel complicated. Not to me.”
Elizabeth took a slow breath. Her hands curled tighter around the mug.
“It was a lapse—”
“In judgement? Yeah, you’ve used that one before.”
“It was. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Riley nodded slowly, like she was parsing it in real time. “Right. Of course. Just another mistake in your very tidy life.”
Elizabeth didn’t respond.
The snow swirled around them, thick and silent. The lights from the house glowed golden behind the frosted windows, but it felt like they were standing a world away.
Riley’s voice dropped, softer now. “You know, I don’t need you to be perfect.”
Elizabeth flinched.
“I just need you to be honest.” Riley’s eyes searched hers. “That’s all. Just… tell me the truth. About what this is. What we are. If it’s nothing, say that. If it’s too much, fine. But don’t lie to me with silence. That’s worse than anything you could say out loud.”
For a moment, Elizabeth didn’t move.
Her eyes were wide, unreadable. Her lips parted. Riley thought, hoped, she might say something, finally, something real.
But Elizabeth looked away.
And then, without a word, she turned and walked back into the house.
Riley stood there, cocoa cooling in her hands, watching the snow fall.
The den was dim, the fire in the grate reduced to a faint orange glow that threw shifting shadows over the walls.
The old TV in the corner flickered with washed-out color, the kind you only got from too many years of cable and a screen slightly warped by time.
The Christmas movie marathon was in full swing, third or fourth one of the night, and the actors’ voices warbled in that overly sentimental cadence only a holiday script could get away with.
Riley was curled on one end of the couch, the tartan blanket tucked tight around her legs, glass of wine balanced precariously on the armrest. She’d stopped paying real attention to the plot half an hour ago.
Every so often she glanced toward the window, where the snow still fell in thick sheets, settling over the estate like a second, quieter world.
Somewhere upstairs, the rest of the house was going still.
Laughter and chatter from the evening had thinned, footsteps had faded, doors had closed.
One by one, the stragglers in the den had drifted off too, first Elizabeth’s cousin, then her aunt, then the uncle who’d been dozing since the opening credits. Riley found herself alone with the movie, her thoughts, and the uncomfortable tightness in her chest she’d been trying to drink away.
She didn’t hear Elizabeth at first. She just felt her, the way the air shifted in the doorway. Riley looked up, and there she was, leaning against the frame, long and poised even at this hour.
Riley almost didn’t say anything, but the silence felt heavier than the words. She rolled her eyes, partly at the ridiculousness of the moment, partly to hide the way her pulse had quickened.
“Well,” she drawled, gesturing toward the couch with her free hand, “you’re already here. Might as well join me.”
Elizabeth hesitated, because of course she did, but after a beat she crossed the room with that measured grace of hers and lowered herself onto the other end of the couch. She didn’t sit close, but Riley still felt the nearness of her, the subtle heat radiating across the space between them.
For a while, they just watched. Or at least, they both kept their eyes on the screen.
Riley could hear Elizabeth breathing, slow and deliberate, as if she were willing her own body to behave.
Riley found herself cataloging every little sound, the faint rustle when Elizabeth shifted her legs, the quiet exhale when she settled deeper into the cushions.
On screen, the movie reached its inevitable climax: a snow-covered, small-town square, twinkle lights in the background, and two leads about to make a grand romantic gesture.
The male lead, wearing an atrociously oversized scarf, blurted out his love in a monologue so saccharine Riley almost laughed.
Instead, she muttered, “At least he had the guts to say it.”
Elizabeth’s head turned fractionally toward her. Riley didn’t look back, she kept her gaze on the TV, but she could feel the shift, the way Elizabeth’s attention sharpened like a spotlight. There was a pause, and then Elizabeth’s weight shifted beside her.
“You think that’s brave?” Her voice was quiet, almost neutral, but the question landed like a stone between them.
Riley took a sip of wine, stalling. “I think it’s honest. Which is harder.” She kept her tone casual, but her chest felt tight. “Better than pretending you don’t feel anything.”
Elizabeth’s jaw flexed. “Not everyone has the luxury of blurting things out,” she said softly, her voice edged with something that wasn’t quite anger, more like self-defense.
Riley finally turned to look at her. “Luxury? Is that what you think it is?”
The fire popped behind them, filling the silence that stretched between their words. Elizabeth’s gaze was fixed on the TV, but her eyes were unfocused. Riley saw her fingers curl slightly against the blanket pooled in her lap, the only outward sign of tension.
“You don’t get it,” Elizabeth said, still not looking at her. “Saying it doesn’t… make things easier. It makes them harder. Messier.”
Riley swallowed, heart pounding now. “And what if messy is the truth? What if you’re just using ‘easier’ as an excuse to keep hiding?”
Elizabeth finally looked at her then, eyes sharp but unreadable. Riley thought she saw a flicker, just a flicker, of something raw beneath the steel. It was gone almost instantly.