Chapter 21
EASTON
P aying off the sleigh driver so I could take over at the last second?
A no-brainer. Just like pulling every string I could to make it to this wedding—the only shot I had at winning back the girl who broke my heart.
As I stood in the fresh snow, watching Natalie eye the empty driver’s seat of the sleigh with uncertainty, it felt like I was making all the best decisions in my life nowadays.
“Where’s our driver?” Natalie asked, glancing around the snowy yard in confusion, her lavender scarf snug around her neck, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold.
“You’re looking at him,” I said, giving her my best confident smile as I took the reins in hand.
She hesitated, then shook her head firmly. “Absolutely not. You don’t know how to drive a sleigh.”
I raised an eyebrow, feigning offense. “Excuse you—I was in a commercial once where I had to drive one of these. I’m basically an expert.”
“A commercial?” She eyed me skeptically. “Was that the same commercial where you stood around shirtless next to a horse, or is there an entirely separate horse-themed incident I should know about? ”
I grinned, pleased she’d been paying attention to my career. “Same one. Look at you, keeping track of my shirtless exploits.”
Natalie rolled her eyes dramatically, but I caught the twitch of her lips fighting a smile. She sighed heavily and stepped toward the sleigh, brushing snowflakes from her coat. “Fine. But if we crash, I’m leaving you for dead and going straight for the eggnog.”
“Harsh,” I said, laughing softly as I offered her a hand up.
Her gloved fingers slipped into mine, sending warmth racing through me despite the cold. She settled into the sleigh, rearranging blankets around her lap, clearly doing her best to appear unaffected by the intimacy of the moment.
I climbed in beside her, took a steadying breath, and flicked the reins gently. Mercifully, the horse moved forward smoothly, guiding us down the moonlit path. I released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“See?” I said gently, nudging her softly. “We’re fine.”
“We’re still within fifty feet of the driveway,” she pointed out dryly. “Let’s not celebrate yet.”
I laughed, and it was kind of crazy how light my chest felt this week. Like every second with her shed something off me.
The sleigh glided through the snow-covered woods, the night wrapping around us like a dream stitched in ink and frost. Trees dusted in white stood tall on either side of the path, their branches bowing gently beneath the weight of the snow.
The only sounds were the crunch of hooves against the icy ground, the soft jingle of bells from the harness, and the steady beat of my heart—which hadn’t quite settled since the moment I saw her again.
As the trees thinned and the world grew quieter, Natalie shifted beside me, reaching into her coat pocket. Her phone screen lit up in the moonlight, and I caught the way her expression pinched, subtle but sharp.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual even as something in my chest went rigid .
She hesitated for a second too long, then turned the phone toward me. A single text blinked on the screen from an unknown number.
Unknown: Call me back.
My jaw tightened. “Is that the same number that’s been calling you?”
She nodded, slipping the phone back into her pocket. “Yeah.”
“You gonna call it back?”
The growl in my voice surprised even me.
She smirked at that, a teasing glint lighting her eyes as she leaned back in the sleigh. “Please. I already have one overly devoted stalker,” she said, shooting me a playful look. “I don’t need to add another.” I watched as she blocked the number.
Despite myself, I barked out a laugh. “You think I’m a stalker?”
“I think you flew across the country to crash a wedding and win me back,” she said with a wink. “If that’s not stalker behavior, it’s definitely stalker-adjacent.”
“Yeah,” I said, leaning a little closer, eyes laser-beamed on hers. “But I’m the charming kind.”
She grinned, the edges of her smile softening just enough to make my chest ache. “You’re not a bad stalker. You haven’t locked me in a basement yet, I’ll give you that.”
“Low bar,” I said, deadpan. “But I appreciate the positive feedback.”
She laughed, and I loved how it was easy…light. The kind of sound that threaded right through me. And she didn’t try to immediately put up walls…so that was a plus.
Natalie brushed a clump of snow off her knee like we weren’t still adjusting to this new-old thing between us. Like we hadn’t already said yes —to the risk, to the mess, to each other—and now we were just learning how to breathe inside that choice.
The silence stretched again, deeper now. The sleigh drifted forward under the moonlight, and I glanced over, watching her face in the silver glow.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked quietly, unwilling to break the moment but needing her voice, needing her thoughts.
She hesitated, and I felt her shift beside me. Then she looked at me from beneath her lashes, her voice low. “Just wondering if this is weird for you. Being back here after living in Hollywood. We haven’t talked about it.”
I glanced ahead, guiding the sleigh gently around a curve in the trail. The reins were loose in my hands, but my grip on reality—on her presence next to me—was anything but.
“It’s different,” I said honestly. “But this…this feels nice. Normal.”
She gave a small nod, her hand tugging her scarf a little tighter around her neck like she was tucking herself into a memory. “Do you ever miss it? Normal, I mean.”
I didn’t answer right away. Not because I didn’t know, but because I wanted to answer it right—for her. For me.
“Honestly?” I said after a beat, keeping my voice low, the reins loose in my hands. “Yeah. Hollywood’s…a lot. It’s loud and glittery and exhausting in ways I didn’t expect. And under all of that—it gets lonely.”
Natalie didn’t say anything right away, just looked over at me, her brows gently furrowed like she already knew where I was going. Because she did. We’d already been peeling back the layers in our conversations this week, one exchange at a time.
“I got caught up in what everyone else wanted me to be. What they thought I was. There were moments I didn’t even recognize myself. But not once…” I paused, my chest tightening. “Not once did I stop missing you.”
She reached for my hand, and her fingers slipped between mine—easy, instinctive.
Like it was nothing. Like it was everything.
My heart thudded once, hard. Because she was finally touching me like…she’d never stopped .
It was a sign I’d been waiting for.
“You told me that already,” she said softly, her voice brushing against me like snowfall. “But I don’t mind hearing it again.”
That smile she gave me—it did something to me. Knocked the air out of my lungs. Because she wasn’t looking at me like Easton Maddox, movie star. She was looking at me like the boy she used to know, and the man she’d decided to choose again.
“I meant it,” I said. “All of it. The movies, the premieres, the awards—none of it ever mattered if I didn’t have you to share it with.”
She gave me a long, thoughtful look. “You don’t have to keep proving it, you know.”
I laughed under my breath. “I kind of want to, though.”
Her mouth curved. “Well…you’re off to a decent start.”
“Excuse you,” I said, scandalized. “I risked a lifetime ban from wedding vendors everywhere for hijacking this sleigh. I deserve chocolate. And possibly a statue.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Dasher.”
She laughed again, and it wrapped around my ribs and settled there. Easy. Warm. Real.
We rode in silence for a few beats, the soft clop of hooves on snow the only sound between us.
And then she said, “You didn’t change into someone better, Easton.”
I looked over at her, my brows tugging in question.
“You were already perfect,” she said, her voice steady. “I just wasn’t ready to believe someone could love me like that…without it falling apart.”
My chest pulled tight.
“I kept waiting for it to break,” she added softly. “And when it didn’t…I broke it myself.”
I squeezed her hand, my thumb brushing over her knuckles. “But now?”
She glanced at me, a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth, quiet and sure. “Now I want to see what it looks like when I don’t run.”
Natalie toyed with the edge of her scarf, not nervously this time—just distracted, thoughtful. Her gaze flicked to the snow-laced trees ahead, then back to me with a smile that tugged something deep in my chest.
“I’ve watched all your movies,” she said casually, like it wasn’t a confession. Like it didn’t mean everything.
I tilted my head, grinning. “Even the one with the talking dog?”
She laughed. “Especially that one.”
That sound—fuck, I’d missed it. Laughter that cracked something open in us both. Easy and unguarded.
“I always told myself it was just curiosity,” she added. “But it wasn’t. I missed your voice. Your face. Even when it wasn’t really you up there.”
That stopped me. My grip tightened slightly on the reins, not from nerves—just the force of feeling everything at once.
“I kept thinking,” she said, a little softer now, “that you looked like you were trying to be okay. Like you had everything you were supposed to want…but you were still missing something.”
“You,” I said simply.
Her eyes met mine, steady and unflinching. “Yeah. Me.”
And there it was.
No deflection. No retreat.
Just the truth, sitting between us like the quietest kind of promise.
“You know,” she murmured after a while, “this still feels a little surreal.”
I turned toward her, my voice low and certain. “It doesn’t to me.”
Her brow lifted slightly, amused. “No?”
I shook my head. “I knew the second you let me back in, it was over. For anyone else. For anything else. I’ve got you now— and there’s not a force in the world that’s taking you from me.”
Her breath hitched faintly, but she didn’t look away.