Chapter 3
THREE
By the time Alma and I stumble off the dance floor, I’m sweating, starving, and buzzed—in that order.
My mask is definitely crooked, the loose waves of my auburn hair are probably dying a slow death, and I’m pretty sure one of the sequins on Alma’s dress has lodged itself into the crease of my elbow.
“We really need to eat this time,” I gasp. “Not just fill up and abandon plates.”
“God, yes,” Alma agrees, fanning herself with a cocktail napkin. “If I don’t get carbs in the next five minutes, I will perish, dramatically, in your arms—and then you’ll have to drag my body into the new year.”
“That’s not happening,” I chuckle, yanking her toward the buffet. “You dying would absolutely ruin my resolution arc and I can’t afford such a tragedy.”
The buffet line is somehow even more chaotic than earlier.
The clock sculpture is dripping like it’s melting under the pressure of Van Corp’s party expectations, some drunk guy (I think he’s from accounting) is arguing with the veggie platter as if the broccoli personally wronged him, and two women in elaborate feather masks are having a whisper-hissed fight over who gets the last stuffed mushroom.
It’s perfect.
Loud, distracting, ridiculous, and most importantly, Klaus-and-Nick-free.
Loading my plate with reckless abandon, I grab mini sliders, the creamiest mac and cheese known to mankind, star pastries, pretzel bites, that smoked salmon thing, and something that looks like a tiny savory empanada but could also be a dessert trap.
Alma builds her own edible mountain and hands me another champagne flute as she downs hers with astonishing speed.
“Now this is healing,” she declares with a broad smile.
I’m halfway through spooning something unknown and very suspicious onto my plate when my phone vibrates again.
“Oh no,” I mutter, glaring down at my cleavage—the unintentional storage unit of doom.
“Don’t you dare,” Alma warns. “You are not checking whatever that is.”
“I need to at least—”
“I said no.”
But I do it anyway because clearly I have the self-preservation instincts of a blind squirrel and I’m a fucking masochist. The minute I look at the screen, I realize I should’ve listened to Alma because it’s him.
Again.
Klaus:
Why haven’t I heard from you in months, Noelle?
For a fleeting moment, something tightens in my chest. Not guilt, exactly, but the memory of how messy things got.
He wanted exclusivity, I wanted both of them, he hated that, and I promptly panicked my way into silence.
But it’s not like he chased me, either. The man can hold a grudge like it’s a family heirloom.
So him playing the confused card tonight?
Absolutely not.
He doesn’t get to pretend like he doesn’t know how we ended up here.
I lock the screen. No reply. My resolution still firmly intact.
Alma takes one look at my face and groans. “So help me, Noelle, I will yeet that phone across the room.”
“No need. I’m ignoring him,” I rush out, waving her off as nonchalantly as possible. “See? Growth.”
“Your version of growth looks very tense.”
“That’s because growth is uncomfortable.”
We continue shuffling down the buffet, loading our plates until they’re borderline unsafe. Alma plucks the champagne from my hand—still full—and replaces it with an entirely different drink.“Here. Vitamin C. The orange slice makes it healthy.”
“That’s not how this—”
“Shhhhh.” She pets my cheek. “Let me take care of you.”
I cackle despite myself. This is why she’s my work wife. Somehow she can simultaneously mother me, bully me, and make me laugh in the same breath.
Said cackle dies when my phone buzzes again…
I try to ignore it, I really do, but the knowledge it’s likely him is a reminder that these men won’t go away just because I’ve declared them a Past Era. I pull the phone out, more annoyed than anxious now.
Klaus
I know you’re seeing these. Answer me.
I roll my eyes so hard I swear I see my brain.
“Persistent,” I mutter. “Would be hotter in almost any other circumstance.”
“At least it wasn’t a dick pic,” Alma says. “You’d cave immediately.”
She’s not wrong…
We finally reach the desserts—thank God—and I build an entirely new, smaller plate featuring tarts, cookies, a slab of cake, and enough sugar to legally classify my bloodstream as frosting. I reach for the last gold-dusted truffle just as my phone buzzes again, drawing out a beyond frustrated sigh.
Klaus
Look up and turn around.
I gasp and nearly drop all of my food as my stomach simultaneously almost drops out of my ass.
“What now?” Alma questions, more tense than a cat near a vacuum cleaner.
“I think… I think he’s here.”
“Here? At this party? As in this ballroom?”
I swallow hard and nod, showing her the text. “He told me to look up.”
“And turn around,” she adds grimly. “Noelle, do not turn around.”
My body moves before my brain can process what I’m doing.
I lift my chin, turn slowly, and sure enough, there he is.
Standing at the opposite end of the ballroom, all tall, broad-shouldered, and devastatingly sexy in a black tux that fits like a second skin.
Donning a dark golden half-mask, it’s sharp-edged and sculpted in a way that makes his green eyes glow like something carnivorous.
And he’s not alone…
Beside him, equally stunning and equally disastrous, is Nick.
Nick in a fitted charcoal tux with a sleek black half-mask perched on his fine face.
Nick with that cool, quiet intensity that hooked me from the very beginning and has not once loosened its grip since.
Nick, whose presence hits me in a different place entirely—lower, deeper, more complicated.
Two men.
Two masks.
Two pairs of eyes locked directly on me.
Two ghosts of Christmas’ past.
I think I stop breathing. And my heart? That traitorous thing doesn’t just sink. It flips, ricochets, and takes off in a sprint I did not give permission for.
Klaus lifts his hand, beckoning me to come forward with a wave of two fingers. Nick, on the other hand, remains unmoving and unreadable. Together they look like the universe scripted a scene specifically to ruin whatever emotional progress I made since making my resolution.
Or maybe it’s some twisted cosmic intervention.