Hold My Hand, It’s Christmas

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Eli Winters pushed open the bakery door, and a solid wall of warm air and cinnamon hit him, the kind of aroma that made him feel as though he was eight years old again, full of hope and yearning for Christmas to finally arrive.

The bell over the door gave its tired jingle.

Inside, The Merry Crumb was humming. There were townies in heavy coats, and a seven-year-old in a puffer jacket, making a solemn decision between ginger snaps and snickerdoodles, as if the fate of the world hinged on nutmeg.

The chalkboard menu was smudged with flour handprints.

Nothing changes around here.

“Eli Winters,” someone called from the far end of the counter. “The city boy returns.” His face was kinda familiar, but Eli didn’t have the spoons to chase through his memory for it.

He lifted a hand. “Just for the weekend,” he said, his automatic smile sliding into place.

Thanksgiving? Sure. Two nights, maybe three.

Then back to Boston Monday, to a very adult apartment with a very teenage bank account and an inbox full of Can we revisit this conversation in Q1?

He grabbed a bag of bagels because they looked too delicious to ignore.

That city boy remark rankled. I was born and raised here, right?

Yeah, but then you escaped. Maybe spending thirteen years in Boston meant he had to give up his small town boy card.

Aileen emerged from behind the espresso machine, her hair pinned up with a pencil, and a smear of powdered sugar across her cheek like war paint. She was older than him by two years, infinitely bossier, and the only person who could make him feel both twelve and safe in under a second.

“You look thin. Are you eating enough?”

“Hello to you too,” he retorted.

“I’m glad you’re here.” She came over to stand beside him, her tone more gentle.

He bumped her hip. “I’m literally holding a bag of bagels. You can’t insult me and expect tips.”

“Oh, I expect nothing from you but manual labor.” She slid a bag of rolls across to an elderly customer. Then she shot Eli the look, the one he recognized instantly.

The one that said we need to talk.

Aileen finished taking payment before casting him a glance. “Why don’t you grab a table, have some coffee, and I’ll get back to you when it calms down a bit?”

The words filtered through his stomach like cold air. He’d heard them from professors, ex-bosses, and boyfriends, and usually they preceded a very polite disaster.

So what am I going to do? Turn around and leave?

He couldn’t do that. Instead, he nodded and drifted to a corner table, where he could pretend to respond to emails and watch his sister run an empire built on butter, sugar, and sheer audacity. Aileen paused long enough to bring him coffee before heading back behind the counter.

A floor heater clicked on. Outside, November in Maine tried to gnaw its way through the windows. Inside, Aileen and one other member of staff performed a well-rehearsed ballet of tray passes and register beeps.

Why are there so few people working in here? If every day was like this, she’d end up in an early grave, and she was only thirty-four.

He answered three emails, deleted six (We’re excited to explore AI options for our brand story…), and stared at a spreadsheet until the numbers blurred. By the time the lunch rush thinned, his shoulders were tight.

Aileen untied her apron and gestured with her chin toward the back. “I just need ten minutes.”

He followed her through swinging doors into the kitchen with its stainless-steel counters, the thrum of mixers, and trays of cooling pumpkin rolls exhaling cinnamon steam. He pressed his palms to the metal and let the chill soak in.

“So,” he said, aiming for breezy and landing somewhere near resigned, “is this the part where you ask for a kidney, ask me to taste-test something experimental, or question my life choices?”

“Don’t be dramatic,” she said, then made a face. “Okay, be a little dramatic. Two of my people are gone. Laurie moved to Florida—traitor—and Ben came down with pneumonia. Christmas orders are already bananas, and I have no one except Sam out there to cover mornings. I’m drowning here.”

He watched the mixer paddle turn frosting into silk. He pictured his inbox again, the slow bleed of clients posting, We tried Midjourney and it’s, like, close enough. The last time he’d told someone his rate, they’d said, “Wow, you’re proud of your time,” as though he should feel bad for eating.

Eli saw where she was going in a heartbeat.

“I’m supposed to head back Monday,” he said, his tone level and quiet.

“I know.” She braced her hands on the counter. “I wouldn’t ask if I had another option. I just want to borrow you for a bit.”

“And how long is a bit?”

“A couple of weeks? You’ve always been good with people. And your window displays were better than mine even when you were fifteen and moody.”

“I was artistic,” he corrected.

“You were unbearable,” she said fondly. She paused. “I could pay you. Not much, but some. Room and board. And you can work your design gigs at night.”

He snorted. “And when will I sleep?”

“January, like everyone else. And we’re talking temporary.”

They stood there, the mixer humming in the background.

He’d planned this trip like a pit stop: in Friday, out Sunday, just enough family to prove he still had some.

But Boston was a cold apartment with the couch indent still shaped like his ex.

Four years together and then, boom—his boyfriend came down with a case of ambition that proved as subtle as a wrecking ball. I love you, El, but I need more.

More what? Speed? Noise? Someone with an organizer instead of a heart?

“I don’t want to get sucked into the festival,” he said, hedging. “You know how I get. This town turns into a Hallmark movie, and I turn into a Scrooge with a Pinterest board.”

Aileen’s face fell. “I know holidays weren’t great for you.

For us.” The divorce had made Christmas a relay race: Dad’s on odd years, Mom’s on even, the cheer always a little brittle, ornaments breaking and somebody crying in the laundry room.

He still couldn’t hear “Silent Night” without wanting to apologize for nothing in particular.

She leaned in, her gaze warm. “But you don’t have to perform here. You can just…be. And maybe let me perform enough for both of us.”

The thing about Aileen was that she never said I need you unless she truly meant it. He looked at her tired face, at the racks of cookies waiting to be iced, the stack of take-home pie boxes with lopsided snowmen he’d painted last year while tipsy on eggnog and sentimentality.

“How temporary is temporary?” His tone was pure caution.

“Through New Year’s,” she said. “Then you can run back to your glamorous life of arguing with clients about hex codes.”

He blinked. “And what do you know about hex codes?” He laughed, a small, surprised sound that unclenched his chest.

I could say no. He’d practiced saying no to a lot of things lately, including the urge to text his ex at 2 a.m.

He could also hear the echo of the word help and the way it had always been a rope between them.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Just for the season.”

She didn’t whoop or cry, but squeezed his wrist, quick and grateful, as if any greater display of emotion might scare him all the way back to his car and onto the highway.

“Great,” she said briskly. “You can start by carrying fifty-pound bags of flour like a festive mule.”

“Ah, the holiday spirit,” he said. “Backbreaking labor and carbohydrates.”

He worked until twilight, when the sky over Mapleford did its winter trick and went navy in a heartbeat.

He hauled flour and sugar and tried not to ruin the royal icing.

Aileen taught him which cookie cutters were non-negotiable.

“Moose, yes. Lobster, no. We are not a novelty state.” He made the window display a little less chaotic, moving the ceramic houses so their tiny streets formed a loop, and tucking fairy lights into the fake snow so it glowed instead of screamed.

When the last customer left and the CLOSED sign hung in the door, they locked up. The street was mostly dark, save for the diner’s harsh neon light and the pharmacy window where Dennis Harvey had put a Santa hat on a blood pressure cuff again. Their breath came out in ghostlike plumes.

Aileen glanced at his hands. “Good, you remembered the rolls. Mom will be calling me any second now, wanting to know if you’ve arrived.”

“Can I ask where I’m sleeping tonight?”

“You’re crashing at my place. Your old room smells of paint: Mom is turning it into a craft room. And no, you can’t stop off at my place first. You’ll disappear into emails and I won’t see you till Easter.”

“Wow,” he said. “Drag me, why don’t you?”

Then he steeled himself for the inevitable interrogation.

Thanksgiving dinner had been its usual combination of too many side dishes, a turkey that should’ve been brined, and mashed potatoes that tasted exactly as they always had when he was a child.

His stepdad Trevor asked a ton of questions—How’s work?

Still doing logos?—and Eli answered with the minimum amount of information.

His half-brother and two half-sisters swarmed around him, filling the air with the constant buzz of chatter and squeals, and more than once he escaped into the pantry to breathe for a minute.

Except Mom always found him and dragged him back, insisting he spend time with his half-siblings, eat more dry turkey, and have at least one more piece of pie.

At some point in the last thirteen years, a whole lot of distance grew between us. She’d always be his mom but he didn’t feel as if he was an important part of her life anymore, which was sad but true.

Aileen was his buffer zone throughout the meal, and as they left the house to go to her place, Eli gave her a hug.

“Thanks for that.”

She smiled. “Hey, you’re about to do me a huge favor. Saving you from death by questions seemed the least I could do.” She cocked her head. “Especially all those questions about your personal life, which I’m guessing you don’t want to tell me about either.”

“You guess right. You don’t need to know how big a screw-up I am when it comes to love.”

Aileen kissed his cheek. “You just haven’t met the right man yet, that’s all. Let’s see what Christmas brings. It’s the time for magic and miracles, isn’t it?”

Eli snorted. “I grew out of believing in Christmas magic years ago.” He peered at her. “And speaking of love, is there anyone special in your life that I should know about?”

She snorted. “Like I’d tell you.”

“Hey, turnabout is fair play. You get to ask me embarrassing questions about my love life, remember? Or have you forgotten?”

She shivered. “As if I could forget.”

She’d texted him when he was in his early twenties to ask how a date had gone. He’d been noncommittal, but when she pressed him relentlessly for details, Eli had decided to fire with all guns. He’d replied that he and his date had fucked for two hours.

It had taken her a month to text him again.

Back at Aileen’s, he showered off the sugar and borrowed a pair of flannel pants that made him look like a lumberjack with a graphic design minor.

The guest room was small but tidy, quilted and unpretentious.

On the dresser sat a ceramic reindeer with a broken antler he vaguely remembered gluing in eighth grade, when he’d believed anything could be fixed with craft supplies and patience.

He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. The apartment in Boston had a bump where a skylight used to be; this ceiling had a faint crack shaped like a river. He followed it with his eyes and let his brain do the churn.

Clients had been cordial while they replaced him with software. We loved the concepts, but we’ve pivoted. A brand manager had actually said, “We tried an AI logo and it’s pretty close.” When Eli had asked, “Close to what?” the manager had replied, “Close to free.”

Eli had stared at his coffee and pretended his stomach wasn’t folding in on itself.

The bed creaked when he rolled over. He thought about his ex, about the way the toothbrush had left a polite vacancy in the holder, about the couch indent that never sprang back.

I love you, El, but I need more had translated to What I don’t need is you, and that was a sentence he kept trying to rewrite in his head.

He wasn’t ambitious enough. He wasn’t enough of a risk.

He was solid and steady and boring and kind, and maybe that last word was the quietest curse of all.

The wind pushed at the window. Somewhere, a neighbor’s porch light clicked on, an ordinary star in the dark.

His phone buzzed, and he glanced at Aileen’s message.

Yeah, okay, I know we’re in the same house, but I’m too warm to get out of bed and come to your room, so bite me.

Tomorrow can you swing by Home Depot first thing?

Need extra strings of warm white lights.

Not blue. Don’t you dare. Also extension cords, command hooks, and those big outdoor timers.

Also, if they have the heavy-duty storage totes, grab two. [heart emoji]

He stared at the text. He pictured aisles of lumber and PVC pipe and inflatable grinning snowmen twelve feet tall. He pictured himself at 10 a.m., coffee in hand, wandering under a ceiling of fluorescents, pretending he wasn’t a little relieved to have a list and a purpose.

Sure, he typed. One question though. What are command hooks?

Aileen: they’re those hooks with adhesive on the back that you can use of any surface without damaging it.

He sighed and typed, Fine. Consider me your festive mule with a corporate charge card.

Three dots. It’s my debit card and if you lose it I’m changing my name and moving to Florida with Laurie.

Three dots. And you don’t have to visit Mom again. You’ve done the duty visit. She might want to see you at Christmas, but that’s more than three weeks away. Besides, I could have worked you to death by then, thus sparing you the agony of Trevor asking you again if you do logos. Night, dummy.

He smiled into the pillow, his breathing slow.

Failing feels farther away here. As though if he reached out, he could touch something solid.

“Just for the season,” he said to the empty room that didn’t argue.

Outside, Mapleford settled into its late-November hush. Tomorrow would be errands and ladders and a war over which white lights were truly white. He’d keep his head down. He’d help.

Then he’d go home in January and figure out how to be a person again.