Chapter Thirty
Drew
Dread hits funny.
It doesn’t announce itself like panic does; it slides in under the door, cold and certain, and waits for you to notice.
I noticed the second the bell over The Rusty Stag’s door chimed, and Janey Sawyer walked in.
She wore a neat camel coat, blonde hair pulled back tidily as a decision, snow still freckling the shoulders.
Downtown was all white and glitter this morning, wreaths fat as hippos, and she looked like a catalog model set against it: composed, lowercase smiling, the kind of pretty that photographs well and complicates memory.
Around town, folks called her Sawyer—real estate brand, rental listings, that whole persona with the crisp fonts. But to me, there’d always been a different name attached to her—Janey. Which is probably why my gut reacted like I was stepping back onto black ice.
Couldn’t have been worse timing. Couldn’t have been a worse person.
All I could think was: keep it clean.
No flirting.
Keep it friendly and move her along. Janey had always been a casual thing for me—a few easy months, followed by “good seeing you” before we drifted.
No grand speeches. No promises to ruin. Certainly nothing like what I’d started building with Melanie.
Janey swept her gaze over the bar, taking in the tree in the corner, the garland looped over the backbar mirror, the chalkboard sign Lydia bullied me into drawing that said MERRY he knew the wake she left and the stories that followed.
I plated her brioche sandwich, stacked high with eggs, cheese, crispy bacon, and those hash browns that have their own fan club.
I set the plate in front of her. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
Janey leaned in, inhaled, and closed her eyes in prayer. “God, I missed this.”
“That’s because Seattle hashbrowns are just shaved hubcaps,” I said.
She laughed. “True, but how would you know? You’d never go down there.”
“Things have changed.”
Her brows lifted. “Yeah? And you didn’t call?”
I ignored the comment and refilled her mimosa.
For a minute, we found a groove.
I could do this. Keep it in that lane. No reminiscing, no names we didn’t need. Melanie would be here late morning with Lydia.
“So,” Janey said, too casually. “I ran into Riley this morning.”
“Mm.” I aligned cocktail straws, like that required precision.
“She said the town’s feral with Christmas. Not news. She also said you were good.” Janey tilted her head. “And busy.”
“I am.”
“With someone?” She popped a piece of hashbrown, chewed. “Or just in general?”
My jaw worked. I slid a tray of clean glasses closer, took my time aligning them.
“What did Riley say?” I asked mildly.
“Nothing specific,” Janey said, eyes bright. “But her face is gossip with a frother.”
“Then you know as much as you need.”
She traced the condensation ring her flute left on the wood.
“I always liked this place at Christmas,” she said softly, as if we were looking back over a scrapbook together. “The tree you insist on cutting yourself. The tacky paper snowflakes that the high schoolers make, and you pretend to hate. You get stubborn about tradition.”
I kept my voice even. “Tradition keeps a town stitched together when the weather wants to take it apart.”
Her smile warmed.
“There he is,” she murmured, like she’d coaxed something out of me and wanted to reward it. “Always did like your sermon voice.”
“I’m out of those. We only preach on Wednesdays.”
Janey took another sip, another bite. The conversation hummed along the edge of nice, where it’s easy to tip into familiar if you’re not careful. She knew the dance, and so did I, but I had no interest in the old steps. Not anymore.
“How long are you in town?” I asked, deflecting.
“Depends on the weather,” she said. “Depends on whether I remember how quickly this place gets under my skin.” She dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin, gave me that sideways glance I remembered. “Depends on who convinces me to stay.”
That earned a slow blink from me.
“Renter applications,” I said. “That’d do it.”
She laughed softly. “I forgot how literal you get when you’re determined not to flirt.”
“Then let me remind you,” I said, not smiling.
She sat back a fraction, amusement and curiosity mixing.
“Okay, Benedict. Message received. We’re being responsible.”
“Look at us,” I said. “Grown.”
“Tragic,” she murmured, and the word hung like a ribbon between us.
A couple of regulars waved on their way out, clapping shoulders, telling me they’d see me for Sunday football. The door swung open, spilled a gust of white as someone else bustled in for to-go chowders.
Janey polished off the last triangle of sandwich, pushed her plate back with a satisfied sigh. “That,” she said, “still ruins me in the best way.” She lifted her empty flute. “Another?”
“Two and through,” I said, taking it before she could set it where her elbow might “accidentally” brush my hand. “You said you had work.”
“I did,” she said. “I do.” Her gaze snagged on the sprig of holly tucked in the corner of the backbar mirror. “But what’s the point of coming home if you don’t let the place get to you a little?”
I washed, dried, and set the flute upside down. “Janey.”
She met my eyes, and for a second, the practiced ease dropped. There was a flicker—nostalgia, maybe honesty, maybe just the same stubborn streak I’ve got when I tell myself I’m not tempted by bad ideas.
“We were always easy,” she said. “You and me.”
“We were always casual,” I corrected.
“Potato, puhtahto.”
“Those are different words.”
She smiled. “Are they?”
“Janey,” I said again, quieter. “I’m seeing someone.”
There. Clean. Put it on the wood like you put a drink: no wobble, no spill, no apology.
“Riley’s face did say as much.” She glanced down and smoothed her sleeve, giving herself the half-second to decide how to play. When she looked up, the smile was softer. “She’s lucky.”
“I am,” I said, surprising myself with how easy the pronoun landed. “If I don’t screw it up.”
“You?” Janey’s mouth quirked. “Never.”
“Constantly,” I said, which earned the first real grin out of me all morning.
She pulled on her coat, tucked her hair free of the collar. “Well. If you’re determined to be noble, I guess I’ll let you.” She slid her card across. “Put me down for the tab and a donation to whatever holiday fundraiser Lydia’s shaking a bin for this week.”
“Pancake breakfast,” I said. “Raising money for the winter coats drive.”
“Perfect.” She lifted her purse, looped it over her shoulder, then leaned both forearms on the bar and tipped her head, considering me for a long moment. “One thing about you, Drew,” she said, voice velvet. “This place sets you in amber. It’s… nice.”
There are words I could’ve said, a dozen angles to take. I chose the simplest. “I like who I am here.”
She nodded. “I did, too.”
She pushed back her stool. It scraped lightly on the floor. I exhaled, just a fraction, with tension easing off the muscle like a cramp deciding to be merciful. I’d kept it clean. Platonic. No sparks, no embers, no little story that could blow into a lie when told by the wrong mouth.
Then the wind made its own entrance—door flying open on a gust that jostled the wreath and sent a flurry across the boards. Janey instinctively reached out to steady herself—hand landing on the bar, leaning in toward me.
“Sorry,” she laughed, breathy. “Graceful as ever.”
“I got it,” I said, stepping around the edge to shove the door back into its frame and flip the latch.
When I turned back, she was there, too close, too sudden, and before I could put an inch between us, she was standing on tiptoe, arms sliding quickly around my neck in a hug that only looked like a hug from one angle.
Her cheek pressed warm to mine.
“Happy holidays, Benedict,” she said against my ear. Then—fast, practiced, intentional—she turned her head enough that her mouth skimmed the corner of my jaw. Not a kiss, not technically. Just enough contact to read wrong from a doorway.
“Janey,” I said, stepping back, hands gentle but firm at her arms. “No.”
“I know,” she said. “Couldn’t resist saying hello like a local.”
“You’re not a local,” I said, not unkindly.
Her eyes flicked past my shoulder then, and something like satisfaction sparked there, quick as a match to dry pine.
The bell chimed again.
I didn’t have to turn to know.
I did anyway.
Lydia stood just inside the door, mittened hands paused halfway to unwrapping her scarf, expression sliding from “I love snow” to “oh no” in about a blink.
Beside her, Melanie, with cheeks flushed from the cold, hair tucked into her hat, carrying that wary hope I wanted to keep safe in my pocket, had stopped dead.
Her eyes went from Janey’s arms on my sleeves, to the space where our shoulders had just been lined up, to my face.
You can read a lot in a heartbeat. Disbelief, calculation, the fast shuffle a brain does when it’s trying to give someone you love the benefit of the doubt and already building the case against.
“Mel,” I said, name coming out like an apology I didn’t get to finish.
Janey, consummate performer, stepped back with an easy smile and said too-brightly,
“Hi there,” like we were a commercial for small-town friendliness.
Lydia’s jaw worked. “Oh, for the love of—”
I lifted both hands, empty and useless, feeling the whole morning tilt. The song on the jukebox chose that moment to swell into a chorus about mistletoe, which would’ve been funny any other day.
“This isn’t…” I started, but the sentence didn’t know whether to be past tense, present, or a plea.
Melanie blinked once, slowly, as if she were absorbing the impact and cataloging the damage. She didn’t say anything.
The dread that had slid under the door when Janey walked in rose up and settled in my ribs like it had been waiting for this exact beat.
“Hi, Drew,” Melanie said softly at last, voice polite in the way a person goes polite when they’re working very hard not to bolt. “We brought the wreath tags.”
Janey’s smile did that small, satisfied twitch.
“I should go,” she said, like she was doing a kindness.
The door shut. The cold lingered.
Silence pooled, thick and awkward, full of every wrong conclusion a scene like this invites.
“It’s not what it looked like,” I said, hating the cliché and needing it anyway. “Mel…”
Her eyes stayed on mine, steady and unreadable.
“Let’s not do this in the doorway,” she said.
And if a man can be grateful for a sentence that still sounds like a chance, that was me, standing behind a bar that suddenly felt like a very small raft in a very cold river.