Chapter Thirty-One
Melanie
The human body is a marvel. It can walk into a bar made of warm wood and cinnamon air, see a blonde woman’s mouth brush the corner of a man’s jaw, and perform three feats simultaneously: stop breathing, keep standing, and smile politely.
Mine did all three. I wanted to send it a fruit basket.
“Hi, Drew,” I said, and the words felt like glass marbles rolling around in my mouth—bright, cold, slippery.
Lydia, bless her violently festive heart, took one look at Janey and made the face of a woman preparing to throw herself on a grenade.
Drew lifted his hands, palms out, as if he could stop momentum with sincerity. “It’s not what—”
“I know,” I said lightly, cutting him off now that Janey had left.
“No mistletoe, right? We have bylaws.” I held up the stack of tags and jingled the ribbon. “Here. Lydia’s genius idea: names on one side, silent auction bids on the other. The bells are purely for intimidation.”
Lydia swallowed a sigh. “That’s right. We’re weaponizing cheer.”
I handed the tags across the bar to Callum, safe hands and neutral ground, and set my tote down carefully, as if the floor might crack under anything heavier than diplomacy.
Drew watched me like a man trying to read a menu after the words had rearranged themselves into a threat.
“Melanie,” he tried again, voice low. “She came in for breakfast. It was a hello.”
“And a goodbye,” I said, crisp as cellophane. “We all saw it. Very… festive.”
“I told her I was with someone.”
“How are the famous hashbrowns? I heard they convert the faithless.”
Callum, sweet, doomed peacekeeper, cleared his throat. “Uh, crunchy.”
“Marvelous,” I said. “We’ll take two plates to go.” I turned to Lydia, who was staring at me like I’d just told her I’d given up sugar and friendship. “Right? We have bows to tie and a town to bedazzle. Can’t stand in The Rusty Stag all morning.”
“Mel,” Drew said, softer now.
I looked at him.
He was just… Drew. Flannel rolled to his forearms. That stubborn mouth that had learned to be soft. The eyes that had watched me sleep like it was a privilege. He looked guilty and confused and like a man trying very hard not to swear at fate.
I was so mad at him I could have screamed, which was ridiculous because I was mostly mad at myself.
Of course, there was a woman. Of course, there were several.
He was a bartender with tattoos and one-liners that came pre-salted; women like me fell onto those lines the way snow falls on pine—predictably, beautifully, stupidly.
Why wouldn’t there be a blonde from the archives, coming back to town with a rental property and a memory?
This was the part where I reminded myself of my vows: I, Melanie Sauser, will not cry in public. I will not stage a scene in my best friend’s fiancé’s bar. I will not explain to a man why watching another woman lean in like that made every promise in my chest detonate.
Instead, I arranged my sarcasm like very sharp, very pretty cutlery and set the table.
“So,” I said, congenial as a talk-show host. “Holiday rush going well? Lots of…traffic?”
Lydia shot me a look. The one that says, I love you.
Drew flinched almost imperceptibly.
“It was nothing,” he said. “I told her I’m seeing someone.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “Have you told her who yet or are we keeping that part a fun surprise?”
“Mel—”
“Because I’m very pro-clarity,” I went on, bright. “For instance: I am now pro-staying-with-Lydia, because when I say I’ll sleep at a place, I enjoy knowing who else’s lips might be air-kissing the perimeter.”
The bar went so quiet you could hear Bing Crosby reconsidering his life choices.
Drew’s jaw hardened.
“You think I’d do that to you?” he asked, incredulous.
I blinked. “I think you have an enthusiastic alumni network.”
Callum muttered something that sounded like
“I’m going to check the… walk-in,” and vanished.
Drew took a breath, set his hands on the bar, and leaned forward just enough that only I could hear.
“I didn’t flirt,” he said. “I didn’t invite it. She hugged goodbye. That’s it.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, tossing my hair back like a flag. “And Paris is just a little town with a tower.”
“Mel.”
The way he said my name, frustration braided into something tender, almost unhooked me.
Almost.
I could feel the heat behind my eyes and the humiliating wobble in my throat and the heavy truth lumbering toward me. I liked him enough to be this unfunny in public.
So I did what I do best when a feeling gets too big. I made it small and wore it like armor.
“We’re fine,” I said brightly, scooping the tote back up. “Honestly. This is all very Hallmark. Woman from past, woman from now, man in flannel—if the tree falls on someone, we’ll hit bingo.”
Lydia breathed through her nose like she was counting down from ten in three languages.
“Mel,” she said gently. “Maybe—”
“We have wreaths to deliver,” I reminded her, sugary. “And I promised to help cut ribbon without bleeding on the merchandise.”
Drew shook his head once, a tiny, incredulous movement, like a man watching someone put a life jacket on wrong by choice.
“Let me talk to you,” he said. “Not as an apology. As a fact.”
“Fact,” I repeated. “Like how gravity works? Or how women sneak kisses in bars?”
“That wasn’t…”
“Not a kiss, I know,” I said. “It just looked like one from the moral high ground of the front door.”
He stared at me for a heartbeat.
“You’re scared,” he said quietly.
I laughed. It sounded like something delicate breaking. “Of what? Hashbrowns?”
“Of staying.” He didn’t blink. “Of letting something be good.”
“And you,” I said, “are confident you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t,” he said simply. “But I can be sorry it hurt.”
That was unfair.
That was exactly the kind of sentence that could make a sane woman do unsane things, like forgive without evidence or throw herself into a hug she didn’t trust yet.
I put my hand on the stack of wreath tags like it was a podium.
“For Callum and Lydia’s sake,” I said, steady as I could make it, “let’s keep this amicable. I’ll help with the market, I’ll help with the pancake breakfast, and I’ll stay out of your way.”
His mouth opened. Closed.
“Stay with me,” he said finally, hushed. “Don’t run.”
“Staying with you would involve staying,” I said lightly. “I’m switching to beginner mode. One sleepover at a time was clearly advanced. I don’t have the heart or the patience to see too many of your goodbye hugs with women.”
Lydia pressed her mittens to her cheeks, as if she needed insulation from the emotional weather.
“Okay,” she said faintly, “so we’re all going to hydrate and use our inside voices—”
“Inside voices,” I agreed. “So inside you can barely hear them.”
Drew scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, like he was physically restraining himself from saying something that would either fix me or ruin us.
“I didn’t lie to you,” he said. “I didn’t hide her. I didn’t touch her.” He exhaled. “If you can’t believe me, say that. But don’t dress it up as a joke and pretend it doesn’t matter.”
I hated him a little for being right. I hated myself a lot for knowing it.
“Believe is a big word,” I said. “I’m more of a ‘collect data, draft a memo’ kind of girl.”
“Funny,” he said. “I thought you were the show up anyway kind.”
The words hit me square in the sternum.
Because I had. I’d shown up in a snowstorm, stupid and brave and reckless. I’d let myself want, and he’d met me in the wanting, and it had been so good my bones had felt new.
And now a tidy blonde with a rental property had turned me back into a punchline I’d written for myself. That wasn’t on Janey. That was on me.
“Hashbrowns,” Callum announced too brightly from the kitchen pass, as if he could feed the moment into submission. He slid two takeout boxes onto the bar.
“Extra crispy,” he added pointedly, “because we love you.”
I swallowed.
“Thanks,” I said, because manners are the last defense of the doomed.
Lydia threaded her arm through mine.
“We’re going,” she told the room in her Chief Elf voice. “We’ll see you at the square in an hour. Or we’ll see you in two hours if anyone needs to cool down by walking around the river and talking to themselves. Both are valid.”
“Copy,” Callum said.
Drew didn’t move.
“Melanie.” Soft again. Damn him.
I turned, because I’m not a monster. His expression had shifted—not the defensive set of a man pleading a case, but the tired truth of someone offering his last good thing. “If you need to be mad,” he said, “be mad at me. I can take it. But don’t be mad at yourself for letting it be good.”
I almost said something ugly, just to reassert my right to the high ground. Instead, I nodded like a statue might nod at a pigeon.
“For Callum and Lydia’s sake,” I repeated, because repetition makes a thing feel official. “Amicable.”
His mouth twisted. “I don’t want amicable.”
“I do,” I lied.
Lydia tugged me toward the door. I scooped up the boxes, the tote sliding bumpily against my hip, and the bell chimed as we stepped into the white.
The cold hit like a blessing and a slap. I stared hard at the wreath on the Stag’s door so my eyes would water for a reason that wasn’t humiliation. The tag tied to the bow read JOY in Lydia’s looping hand, which felt like satire.
We walked in silence for half a block. Reckless River glittered like a set designer’s dream. Kids threw snow at the kids they loved and apologized mid-giggle. The air smelled like fir and sugar and the smoke of someone’s woodstove. I wanted to hate it. I couldn’t.
“You want to go back in and let me do the yelling?” Lydia asked finally, not unkindly. “I can do it in three registers and with two Bible verses.”
I laughed, short and sharp. “No.”
“Do you want to go back in and kiss him hard enough that everyone forgets the blonde’s name?”
I made a sound like a wounded accordion. “Also no.”
“What do you want to do?”
I looked down at the to-go boxes in my hands, small, hot comforts I hadn’t earned, and tried to name a thing that didn’t make me feel foolish.
“I do not want to be dumb,” I said, and the honesty surprised me. “I let it feel good, and now my stomach is in my shoes because of a woman with a ponytail and a history. I hate that about me.”
Lydia slowed, bumping her shoulder against mine.
“I love that about you,” she said. “The part where you let it feel good. The stomach location we can work on. I’ve met her a few times. She’s got nothing on you.”
I snorted. “Thanks.”
“And for the record,” she said, tilting her head back to watch a snowflake flutter onto her nose, “I’ve known Drew Benedict a long time.
He’s got a past. So do you. So do I, and mine involves a Halloween party and a mariachi band I am not prepared to explain.
But his present is the kind that doesn’t lie. ”
“Tell that to my anxious brain.”
“I will,” she said solemnly. “I’ll say it over and over.”
We reached the square. The tree glittered as if pleased with itself; the gazebo wore a skirt of garland; the river moved in its quiet sheet of steel. I could feel my anger settling into its less showy cousins, hurt and fear.
She squeezed my hand once and then got down to business, because that is who she was—she saves the town and the people in it with the same list.
“We drop these at the gazebo, we string the last set of lights along the booths, and we make fun of Callum’s attempt at calligraphy until he cries. Then we reassess your desire to make poor choices.”
“Perfect.”
We set the boxes on a bench and divvied ribbon as we ate crispy hashbrowns.
Behind us, the town moved like it always did.
“He’ll come find you,” Lydia said after a while, not looking at me, because she is merciful. “He’s a stubborn man with a good compass.”
I blinked hard at a knot that refused to untangle.
“He looked…hurt,” I said, the confession escaping before I could cage it.
“Yeah.” Her voice was soft. “So do you.”
I fixed the bow. I put the twine through the tag. I hung the wreath where it would make strangers smile. And I let the snow do its gentle, relentless work of covering sharp edges, at least for now.
For Callum and Lydia’s sake, I could be amicable. For my own sake, I could be honest later. Maybe not today. Maybe not until the heat behind my eyes cooled to something I could hold without burning.
Tonight I would stay at Lydia’s. I would not cry in a bar. I would eat famous hashbrowns and pretend they were armor.
And tomorrow—well. Tomorrow, I’d decide whether I was the woman who ran because someone existed before her, or the woman who stayed because she existed now.