Chapter 12
Reeve: (Link: Grey Bruce This Week) Brawl over butter tart! Two local West Lake men arrested.
Reeve: You weren’t kidding about people taking butter tarts seriously up there
Jules: I actually went to high school with one of those guys. An ex-girlfriend and an ATV were also involved, but I like that they went with the butter tart angle.
Reeve: I know you knocked Toronto butter tarts, but I found an amazing place in the Junction. I had one with walnuts that I swear I had dreams about.
Jules: I will entertain the idea of raisins in my tarts, as I am more liberal than most, but nuts are a hard no. You’re only reinforcing my point here.
December 6, 2024
Reeve: Jean L. from Markham claims they’re better than sex
Jules: I think Jean L. from Markham needs to have better sex
December 8, 2024
Reeve: I have in my possession Nana Baldwin’s prized butter tart recipe. I told her I needed to woo a beautiful woman, so she said she’d let me have it on the blood oath that I only use it once and then destroy it by fire.
Jules: You bake?
Reeve: I’m trying
Jules: I’m impressed
Reeve: You might not want to get too impressed quite yet.
Jules: You’ll have to give me the recipe if it works out
Reeve: Can’t. I will be burning it once these tarts are made. A blood oath is a blood oath.
December 25, 2024
Jules: How’s the baking going?
—
“Who ya sexting?”
I look up from my phone, my face the same color as Zoe’s velvet stocking hanging next to me in front of the fireplace.
“No one.” I set down my phone as Zoe hands me a boozy white drink that I think is supposed to be eggnog.
“Your face is a full-on smitten kitten. You never look like that, Jules.”
I attempt to school my face into a more neutral expression. “Just read something funny, that’s all.”
Zoe eyes my phone but lets it go. “If you say so. And in that case, I still think you should hook up with cousin Clive. He’s still single. We could be family. Even though we basically already are.” She climbs into my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck and pressing our foreheads together.
“I love you, Ju-Ju.”
I can smell the faint hint of eggnog on her breath.
“I love you too—”
My phone lights up on the coffee table next to us.
I grab for it before Zoe can see.
It’s another text from Reeve. A picture of a very sad-looking butter tart, the pastry cracked and the insides crumbly, less “gooey filling” and more “dried brown crust.”
Reeve: This is not going well
I quickly type back.
Jules: Looks to me like you need to add more love.
I go to set my phone down again, but Zoe is staring at me, arms crossed.
“Either share the meme or spill the beans. Who are you talking to?”
She is still in my lap, her bony butt bones digging into my leg.
“It’s Reeve,” I concede, flipping my phone around to face her.
Zoe scrunches her forehead. “Hot funeral guy? I thought we hated him.”
“Not anymore. We’ve been texting. A little.”
“For how long?” Her voice is a teasing singsong.
“A few weeks.”
“Weeks, huh?” Her gaze shoots to the opposite side of the room. “Poor Clive.”
Poor Clive is chugging a tall boy of Pbr to the rhythmic chants of his two brothers.
Zoe turns back to me. “So. Reeve. Tell me more.”
I shrug, not wanting to get into details. “It’s nothing.”
Zoe glances at my phone. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”
I pick up my phone and try to shove it into my pocket but can’t with Zoe still sitting on me. “Yeah, well, it can never be anything.”
Zoe wiggles out of my lap and plops down on the couch beside me. “And why not?”
I avoid her eyes. “Because he lives in Toronto. This is just…” I wave my phone around.
Zoe gives me a single, unimpressed eyebrow. “He has been texting you for weeks, Jules. That feels like a little more than…” She mimics my phone movement from a moment ago.
“Zoe.” I roll my eyes, but she catches my head between her hands.
“What I want to know is why I’m finding out about this now. After I practically forced it out of you.”
“You didn’t force—”
“Jules.”
“Because of this.” I point at her. The way she’s staring me down. Looking at me like I should expect more.
Now it’s she who rolls her eyes. “Ohhhhhh. Me pointing out how a guy sees all your wonderful qualities and wants to have more than hot, sweaty sex with you? Yes, then I am a terrible friend. I don’t know how you put up with me.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulders. “It was a vocation. I was called.”
“Speaking of calls.” Zoe nods at the lit-up phone in my hand. “You’d better answer that.”
I glance down at the screen. Reeve’s name is there next to Incoming call.
I stand.
Actually, jump.
My legs move toward the tiny screened-in porch outside the front door. There is a rush of cold air as I push it open, biting against my thin wool sweater. I can see my breath when I take a long exhale before swiping and pressing the phone to my ear.
“Hey.”
“Jules?”
There’s a tiny pause while neither of us speaks.
“Is this okay?” he finally says. “I figured since we were texting, you might be home.”
My heart is beating double time. A fitting drumbeat to the new mantra I made up as I stepped outside. He’s just a guy. This is just a casual conversation. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
“I’m actually at my friend Zoe’s. You met her that night at Kitty St. Clair’s wake. The tiny brunette. I think she stole your beer.”
He laughs. “Yeah. She’s not one I’d easily forget.”
“Well, she has this party every year. Takes in all of us Christmas orphans who have nowhere else to go. It’s a weird collection of misfits. My mailman, Marv, is here. We have lasagna.”
I am very aware that I am babbling like a prepubescent middle schooler.
My voice is a full octave higher than normal. I have underarm sweat.
“Are you at home?”
There’s a sound on Reeve’s side like crunching leather. I imagine him settling on a sofa, stretching his long legs out onto a coffee table in front of him.
“I am. My brothers all do dinners with their in-laws or friends tonight, so my parents go out. I’ll see them all tomorrow for Boxing Day.”
There’s a loud cheer from inside Zoe’s living room, followed by another round of “Clive, Clive, Clive.”
I can hear Reeve’s low laugh on the other end of the line.
“Sounds like a good party. I don’t want to keep you from it, and I should probably get back to my baking, but I wanted to say hey and merry Christmas.”
My insides melt despite the cold.
“Merry Christmas, Reeve.”
There’s a pause on his end of the line. “Maybe I’ll see you in the new year?”
He’s just a guy. This is just a casual conversation. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
“Maybe you will.”