Chapter 11 #2
I shrug and dump the chocolate into a sauce pan, then turn to grab the milk from my fridge. “She’s old.”
“She’s not that old.” Eve’s baiting me. I can hear the smile in her voice without looking up. I turn on my stovetop and pour some milk over top of the chocolate.
“She’s older… than us. And she can be forgetful.”
“Mmmmm.”
I dare a glance in her direction as I snap the candy cane into little pieces. “I don’t like that mmmm. It sounds conspiratorial.” One by one, I drop the pieces into the melting hot chocolate.
Her grin widens. “If you ask me, it sounds like maybe you made me that hot chocolate and used Aunt May as your front.”
Busted. “Well, if that’s how it sounds then it must be right, huh?” I stir the hot chocolate as it all melts together until the edges are bubbling and it’s all blended together. Using one of Aunt May’s old ladles she gave me, I fill two mugs and top them with mini marshmallows.
I hand her the larger of the two mugs and settle on the couch across from her, elbows on my knee, bringing my own mug to my lips.
The fire crackles beside us. The storm rages outside. But inside, something quiet and electric thrums between us.
I look at her and shake my head. “I can’t believe you really named my reindeer Princess Yuletide Sparkles.”
“Yep.”
A pause.
“…It’s kind of growing on me.”
She gasps dramatically. “Luke Dawson, are you finally admitting that my chaos has charm?”
I side-eye her. “I’m admitting you’re persistent.”
“And adorable?” She wiggles her brows.
I fight the pull at the corners of my mouth. “Something like that.”
We sit in silence for a beat.
“Why do you hate Christmas?” she asks softly, breaking the silence.
I blink. “What makes you think I hate it?”
“You flinch every time someone says ‘Merry’ anything.”
I lean back, balancing my steaming mug on my knee. “Didn’t realize I was being studied.”
“You’re like a fascinating reindeer-shaped puzzle.”
I exhale slowly. “Contrary to what everyone thinks, I don’t actually hate Christmas. I just…” My jaw tightens. “It reminds me of a time when everything in my life went sideways.”
Eve’s quiet, waiting. She doesn’t push, just watches me like she sees more than I want her to.
“I hate… what it reminds me of,” I continue. “What I lost. What I don’t have anymore.”
There it is. Out in the open.
Her face softens. “Luke…” She shifts to stand up and walks over to me. Then, sitting beside me on the couch, she pulls a blanket over our legs like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I should lean away. I should make space.
I don’t.
I keep my eyes on the fire. “My mom loved Christmas. Loved it like you love it. Our house looked like a holiday movie threw up all over it every year.”
“I remember,” Eve says, softly.
“Since she and my dad died, it just felt… wrong. Being a part of it without her.”
After a moment, she whispers, “I bet your mom would love to see you enjoy the holiday again. Even if that means decorating gingerbread slaughterhouses every year.”
This earns her a little smile. And something that almost sounds like a chuckle escapes my throat.
“I have a confession, too,” she says. “I lied before when I said I didn’t have a secret.”
I suck in a breath, holding it. Waiting until she finally says, “I lost my job.”
My face goes slack. I wasn’t expecting that. Eve lived for that job. She gave up everything to move out there.
“In Los Angeles,” she continues, sniffling.
“I don’t have anything to return to the city for.
I don’t know what to do after Christmas.
I always thought that’s where I’d be happiest, but now?
Now I’m not so sure. And now that my parents are struggling to keep the lodge afloat…
I don’t know. I feel like I have to win the festival. For them. For us. For our legacy.”
Her confession unlocks a whole new level of sadness, but also relief that she finally told me. “The North Star Lodge has been a staple of Holly Ridge for as long as I’ve been alive. I can’t imagine it not being here.”
She shrugs and picks at a piece of lint on the blanket. “The big chain hotel moving in right outside of town is really hurting business.”
“Well…” I lean forward and put both of our mugs onto the coffee table. “I guess that means we have no choice but to win the festival this year.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “We?”
I nod. “We.”
“You know what I love about Christmas?” she says.
“What?”
“That I don’t have to be who people expect of me. For a whole week, I don’t have to be the executive scraping by in Los Angeles. I can just be the real me. The me who loves cookies and hot chocolate, not kale smoothies that cost twenty bucks.”
My face twists. “A twenty dollar smoothie?”
She rolls her eyes, “You have no idea.”
I glance at her. “Well… you’re never what I expect. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
Oh shit. Why did I say that? She meets my gaze, startled, something sparking between us.
We sit there like that, quiet and close, the air humming with words unsaid. Something shifts. The air changes. It’s like that moment before a storm, electric and still. I don’t know who leans in first. Doesn’t matter.
Our lips meet in the soft glow of firelight, tentative and searching, until it deepens—hotter, slower, like we’ve both been waiting for this too long.
My hand slides to her waist. Hers tangles in my hair.
She tastes like peppermint and chocolate and stubbornness, and I’m half a second from losing my damn mind.
I stand up, wrapping Eve in the blanket and caveman style, I carry her all the way to my bed.