Chapter 2
two
. . .
HARRISON
My fingers disappeared into the sticky brown dough, the scent of cinnamon and cloves tickling my nose, when my phone’s ringtone cut through Mariah Carey’s high notes on the kitchen speaker.
“I saw the Instagram posts.” Bristol’s voice crackled through my earbuds. “Tell me everything.”
Using the back of my wrist, I pushed my hair back off my forehead. “It wasn’t my finest moment. That’s for sure.”
Bristol Rhew and I met almost immediately after I moved back to Mistletoe Bay, and we became fast friends.
One day, we were splitting a fried seafood platter at The Groggy Lobster when the bell above the door jingled.
I’d looked up to see Jeremy standing there, his flannel sleeves rolled to the elbows to reveal strong forearms, and his ever-ready scowl on his face.
Our eyes locked for two heartbeats before he backed out, the door slamming shut behind him.
My trembling hands had spilled iced tea across the table and onto Bristol’s lap.
That was when I told her about my former best friend.
Where I saw a hopeless situation, she saw an enemies-to-lovers scenario straight out of the romance novels she loved so much. Her optimism would have been cute if it weren’t so damn heartbreaking.
“Did you at least get to talk to him?” she asked.
I pictured Jeremy standing across from me earlier in the field of Douglas firs, his hands braced on his hips and his feet planted wide, his nostrils flaring with annoyance. “If you can call him yelling at me about, and I quote, ‘your fucking goats’ talking, then yes. We talked.”
“Yelling is progress, though. Better than his grunts,” Bristol tried to assure me.
“That’s one way to look at it.”
I rolled out another section of dough and reached for the Santa-shaped gingerbread man cookie cutter. The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and molasses and butter, scents that usually calmed me down but weren’t doing much for my mood currently.
“Though I guess I’ll be getting yelled at a whole lot more this week, whether I like it or not.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“Jemma came up with an idea for me, Winterberry Farm, and Stella McKinley over at Mistletoe Brewing to partner on a big holiday event next weekend. Petting zoo, beer and cheese tastings, her and Charlie donning their Santa and Mrs. Claus costumes again. The whole nine yards.”
“That’s perfect! It’ll force you guys to spend time together, and maybe you can finally hash everything out.”
“Spending time with me is the last thing Jeremy wants. That man would sooner murder me than have an honest-to-god conversation about our past.”
Our past.
As if those two words could sum up seventeen years of guilt and regret. We’d been best friends since we were in elementary school, then teammates in junior high and high school … and then more.
Until I screwed everything up.
I’d been too scared to come out, too worried about what my family would think, so I’d hidden what we had.
What Jeremy was to me. Dated girls while meeting him in secret in the rows of trees behind his house.
And when prom came around and I’d taken Sarah Mitchell instead of being brave enough to go alone—or god forbid, ask him—Jeremy had looked at me like I’d stabbed him in the back.
He’d stopped talking to me after that. Stopped looking at me at all except with that particular brand of hurt that had eventually hardened into anger.
I’d left for Harvard that autumn, thinking time and distance would make it easier.
Spoiler alert: it hadn’t.
And now here we were, nearly two decades later, and he was still looking at me the exact same way.
“Personally, I’ve always thought hate is much better than indifference,” Bristol continued, her voice pitched low and thoughtful. She was probably thinking about her … situation with Rhett Jennings, a local handyman. I was pretty confident Bristol wouldn’t mind if he got handsy with her.
“If you say so.”
I pressed the cutter into the dough, my mind replaying the moment when Jeremy and I had crashed into each other chasing after Comet. The way his heart had pounded under my palm. The way he’d looked at me—just for a second—before shoving me away like I’d burned him.
In some ways, his reaction felt worse than indifference.
At least indifference would have meant he was over it, over me, over everything that had happened between us all those years ago.
But the way he’d pushed me away—like he couldn’t stand to have me that close for even a second—meant he still cared. Still hurt.
And knowing I was the one who’d caused that hurt? That I was still causing it just by existing in his orbit?
That was worse than anything.
“Speaking of hate.” Bristol’s voice shifted from thoughtful to irritated. “Did I tell you what that good-for-nothing wastrel Rhett Jennings did now?”
I pressed out another row of gingerbread men, grateful for the change of topic. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“He—”
Over the soft crooning of Bing Crosby singing about a white Christmas coming from the speaker on the shelf in my dining nook, I heard a loud banging sound that didn’t belong.
“Hang on,” I said, interrupting her mid-sentence and wiping my hands on a dish towel. “I think someone’s at the door.”
I tossed the towel over my shoulder and headed through the dining room to the living room.
Through the window, fat snowflakes spun under the porch light.
Jeremy stood in the glowing circle, his hat pulled low on his head, his hair curling out from underneath the folded brim.
His lips were set in a hard, determined line, and his cheeks were flushed from the cold.
Or anger. Honestly, it was hard to tell with him sometimes.
My pulse tripped, then took off.
I opened the door, making sure to school my expression into polite welcome instead of the panic I’d felt only a short second before. “Jeremy. Hi.”
“We need to talk about this event my sister cooked up.”
“Is that him?” came Bristol’s voice in my ear, sounding loud enough I was certain Jeremy could hear her. “Oh my god, it is him, isn’t it? Ask him if he wants to stay for—”
I reached up and tapped my earbud, ending the call abruptly. I’d bring her a batch of cookies later as an apology.
“I was just—” I gestured vaguely toward the direction of my kitchen and then down to my apron. As I did, wind gusted over my porch, sending whorls of white flying in every direction.
Jeremy blew into his gloveless hands and stamped his feet.
“Oh my god. Come in,” I said, stepping aside. “It’s freezing out there.”
He hesitated for a second, his mouth turned down in a deep scowl. Finally, he stepped over the threshold, bringing cold air and the scent of Christmas trees with him.
“Tomorrow’s photoshoot is off,” he said without preamble. “Storm’s supposed to be a big one, so the kids are all staying at Charlie’s tonight. DPS has already closed most of the roads between here and town.”
My stomach sank. I’d been dreading tomorrow—hours of Jeremy being forced by his sister into taking pictures of me and the goats while clearly wishing he was anywhere else—but at least it would have been something.
A reason to be in the same space. An opportunity to pull him aside and ask if he might ever be able to forgive me.
I’d never been into masochism before, but it was never too late to develop new kinks.
“Oh.” I waited for him to say more, to explain why he’d walked over here instead of just sending a text to the group chat. “That’s … did you need something else, or …?”
“I just—” He stopped, his attention snagging on the shelves flanking my fireplace, and his whole body went still.
My gaze followed, and I stifled a groan.
His eyes were locked on a photo of our hockey team from senior year.
I’d had it framed years ago, back when I was living in New York and feeling nostalgic for the past. Twenty guys in their Mistletoe Bay jerseys, grinning at the camera like we owned the world.
Jeremy and I were in the back row, standing shoulder to shoulder.
Close enough that, if you knew what to look for, you could see how we were angled toward each other, how neither of us was quite looking at the camera but at each other instead.
I didn’t know what had possessed me to put it up in such a prominent place, knowing anyone who stopped by would see it. Jeremy’s family lived next door, for fuck’s sake. If Jemma or Eli ever came inside, they wouldn’t be able to miss it.
Jeremy’s jaw worked, like he was chewing on words he didn’t want to say—about the photo, maybe, or about the seventeen years between then and now neither of us had spoken about.
“The issue is, we still need the content.” He swung back to face me, his voice gruff. “Storm’s not supposed to get really bad for another couple hours. We could shoot some pictures now. Just us.”
My brain stuttered over those two words.
Just us.
Suddenly, I was sixteen again. It was late spring, the air thick with the smell of waking earth and Axe body spray. Jeremy had grabbed my arm after practice, his grip warm even through my hoodie, and said, “Meet me tonight. That secret spot at the back of the farm. Just us.”
I’d gone, obviously. I would have followed Jeremy Price anywhere.
That was the first night we’d kissed. The first night I’d understood that whatever was happening between us was bigger than friendship, bigger than anything I knew how to name.
Just us had meant everything back then.
Now it just meant we were out of other options.
“Yeah,” I said, too quickly. I cleared my throat. “Yeah, that works. Let me just—” I looked down at my flour-covered apron. “Give me five minutes to change?”
He shrugged. “Sure, lemme go get my camera. I’ll be back.”
He turned for the door, and I practically ran up the stairs to my bedroom, tugging my dirty apron off over my head and tossing it behind me, not caring where it landed.
I darted to my closet and pulled out a pair of dark jeans that made my ass look fantastic and a soft, cream-colored cable-knit sweater a friend once told me was “very Chris Evans in Knives Out.”
Yes, I wanted to look good for the photos, but I couldn’t deny that I mainly wanted to look good for Jeremy.
I didn’t know what labels he used, but once upon a time, he’d told me I was the most beautiful person he’d ever laid eyes on, and part of me desperately wanted him to think that again. If it took sacrificing my Ralph Lauren to Comet’s fascination with eating clothing, then so be it.
I dressed quickly, catching my reflection in the mirror mounted on the wall across the room. I had flour on my face, and my hair was sticking up in a few different directions.
Great. Very attractive.
I stepped into my en-suite bathroom, flipping on the light and bracing my hands on the counter. My reflection looked … not great.
Tired. Stressed. And maybe a little bit hopeful.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I told myself, turning on the faucet and splashing cold water on my face to get rid of the flour streaks. “It’s a photoshoot for promotional content. That’s all.”
My reflection didn’t look entirely convinced.
I grabbed a hand towel, dried my skin, then reached for my brush and tried to tame my hair into something resembling a hairstyle.
“He’s not going to care what you look like,” I continued, pointing the brush at myself in the mirror. “He’s going to take the pictures, leave the second he’s done, and pretend this never happened.”
That was all likely true, but even as I said it, I couldn’t forget the way Jeremy’s eyes had lingered on that photo. The way his whole body had gone still, like seeing us together and happy, had hit him somewhere he wasn’t prepared for.
“No,” I muttered with a shake of my head, setting down the brush and giving myself one last long look. “You’re reading into things that aren’t there. This needs to stop.”
My reflection stared back at me with something that looked suspiciously like pity.
I turned off the light and headed back downstairs, my heart beating fast while I waited for Jeremy to get back with his camera.