Chapter 20
twenty
LAILA
Love and Lattes is a sweet little coffee shop nestled in downtown Sweetheart Springs, and it smells like toasted sugar and nostalgia.
It doesn’t carry the same magic as Once Upon a Brew, but I like it all the same. A warm place with caffeine is really all I need. I’m pretending to work—half a dozen tabs open, none of them productive—when a familiar voice breaks through the hum of espresso machines.
“Laila?”
I glance up, nearly choking on my gingerbread latte. “Henry?”
He’s exactly the same and somehow older all at once. A dark cardigan, a brilliant red scarf, and glasses on top of his head that he’s probably lost twice today. But the years have added a calm to him, and that’s exactly what I need right now.
“I’ll admit,” he says, crossing to my table, “this is the last place I expected to find one of my favorite people hiding.”
I wrinkle my nose as he settles into a seat across from me.
“I’m not hiding,” I protest.
“Working, then,” he says easily, nodding toward my laptop. “On what appears to be an email draft that’s been blank for ten minutes.”
I snap the lid closed, heat rising in my cheeks. “You’re observant as ever.”
“Occupational hazard.” He gestures toward the counter. “Have you tried the eggnog latte yet? Emma swears it can solve most crises.”
“You’ve seen her?”
I’ve wondered if I should. The last time I was here, Holden and I were celebrating our “sixth month fake-a-versary,” and I don’t know what I’d say if I show up alone. We never made a huge deal about being a married couple, except to Winnie at The Sweetheart Inn, but most people assumed.
Not that I blamed them. Holden and I have always been easy around each other, but I don’t know how to do that now.
“Just this morning. She and Miles roped me into speaking at the farm’s winter market about local folklore and modern storytelling.” A small smile. “I think they have selective memory where I’m concerned in their love story.”
I can’t help but smile. “They always speak of you fondly, Henry. You’re almost myth status where they’re concerned—the man who single-handedly revived their business for good.”
His cheeks pink up, and he ducks his head for a second. Henry is usually so confident, almost overtly so. Not rudely, he’s just smart enough to know it. So, it’s amusing to see him blush at a compliment.
Then I realize it’s because Emma and Miles are part of his story now, too.
“They put in the hard work, don’t let them tell you otherwise. They had a lot of money they needed to raise in a short period, but they were doing okay on their own. The bachelorette auction helped.”
“So you didn’t deliver a baby goat in the bakery kitchen?” I grin.
He huffs out a laugh. “No. And for the record, I’m also not the town’s resident Christmas ghost who shows up every few winters to ‘restore belief.’ If that’s true, someone owes me back pay and a better costume.”
“This is amazing. Should I be taking notes?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. But if we’re on the record, I also didn’t officiate their secret wedding under the mistletoe, rescue a lost reindeer, or single-handedly save their bakery from an oven fire. It’s all a bunch of malarkey.”
“And yet, you came back?”
“I did.” His voice softens. “This town has a way of convincing you there’s more to the world than logic and frostbite. But Emma and Miles have a way of making the farm feel like home without expectations. A safe place to retreat and all that. We can all use one of those, I think.”
That lands harder than it should.
Holden has always been that for me, for as long as it mattered and even before then. I just don’t know how to build a bridge back to that place, how to settle all the feelings inside and accept that I’m not my mother.
Not that I ever wanted to be.
“So,” he says after a beat, “tell me the truth. Why are you here, if not hiding? Thanksgiving escape? Romantic exile?”
“Work,” I answer too quickly. “A brand thing.”
“Ah, the classic avoidance pilgrimage.” He takes a thoughtful sip of his coffee. “Doesn’t usually work, I’m afraid. But the cookies help.”
I laugh despite myself. “Do you always psychoanalyze your former students over pastries?”
“Only the promising ones.” He studies me for a long moment, then asks quietly, “How’s the new account coming?”
I hesitate. “It’s fine. Just… harder than I thought to find my voice. The story. The purpose. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He nods, eyes kind but knowing. “That’s usually when the story’s about you.”
My breath catches. “That’s not very academic of you.”
“Don’t tell my department.” His lips curve into that crooked, almost-smile. “I just mean, sometimes what you need to share is deeper than surface-level attraction. Or someone else’s story, like the way you told Holly’s story. Sometimes it’s confession.”
I stare at the foam art on my gingerbread latte, melting into a white blob of nothingness.
Henry stands, tugging his scarf back into place. “For what it’s worth, Sweetheart Springs has a way of reminding people what they’re really looking for.”
“Belief?” I tease, half-hoping to derail the conversation.
“Home,” he says simply. “Belief usually follows.”
And just like that, he’s gone—off to find something else about this town with his notebook and his dry humor, leaving me with the one thing I didn’t want: too much to think about.
I watch Henry weave through the café crowd, stopping twice. Once to jot something down in his notebook, once to greet the barista who already knows his order. He belongs here in that quietly unassuming way Henry always does. The world just seems to make space for him.
His words linger long after he’s gone.
Home.
It shouldn’t sting. But it does, because I don’t even know what that means anymore.
Enchanted Hollow feels like a fairytale I keep rewriting. My influencer persona feels like a performance I can’t take off. And Holden—Holden feels like the one constant I can’t look at without everything else unraveling.
I press my fingers around my mug, drawing warmth that doesn’t quite reach my chest. Through the window, the snow keeps falling in soft, lazy spirals, like the world is reminding me that some things can land gently even after a long drop.
There’s a bridge at the edge of Sweetheart Springs that locals say was built by fate itself. If two people kiss there, their souls are meant to find each other again, no matter how lost they get.
I kissed Holden on that bridge once. Not for a crowd or a photo or a story. Just because I believed it.
And maybe that’s what scares me now. Because I still do.
I just don’t know how to turn belief into a happily ever after.
Outside, a couple walks hand in hand through the falling snow, their laughter echoing faintly through the windowpane. It looks exactly like something out of one of my videos, a perfect moment framed in lights and magic.
Only this time, I’m not the storyteller.
I’m the one standing behind the glass, trying to remember what it felt like to be in the picture.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab my coat, toss a tip on the table, and step back into the cold. My feet move before my brain can catch up—past the cute little downtown area, past the bridge that still feels like a promise I can’t quite keep.
I need to talk to someone who’s been through the messy part of love and made it out the other side. I could talk to Luke and Ella, but they haven’t quite weathered it all yet. But there’s one couple that has.
By the time I make it to Dreamy Pines Farm, dusk is settling over the mountains. The air smells like cinnamon and pine, and the lights strung between the trees glow like tiny stars. Warm light flickers in the bakery windows, and for the first time all day, I let myself breathe.
Miles meets me at the door, a dish towel shoved in his pocket, eyebrows raised.
“Em, we’ve got a stray,” he calls, ushering me inside.
“There’s a pan of gingerbread coming out of the oven right now,” she answers back. “Tell Laila I’ll be out with them soon.”
He just grins at me as I blink.
“How?”
“Henry texted.” He shrugs. “Said you looked like you needed proof that hope exists.”
I don’t say anything as I cross the bakery and tuck myself into the corner of the furthest booth. Without hesitation, I grab a blanket that’s in the seat and pull it tight around myself, and glance out the window. Rows of trees. Golden light. And for a moment, the noise in my head finally quiets.
I see what Henry means now about feeling like home without expectations.
“That’s always Emma’s favorite place to sit when she needs to think,” he says, sliding into the booth across from me once we’re settled inside. “She says it reminds her of her mom. This was her favorite place, too. We’ve had a lot of important discussions in this booth.”
My eyes find his, and I’m a little surprised at the empathy waiting there.
“Can you add one more to the list?” I whisper.
He nods. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, Laila, but you sound like you could use someone who’s sort of done the whole martyr thing for love.”
I sigh, tracing the outer edge of the wooden tabletop. “I know I shouldn’t let her have that much power. Anyone really.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But I’m happy to listen.”
I chew on the inside of my lip. “My mom overstepped some serious boundaries—she manipulated my sisters and me, she made a really shady deal with someone, and she just… isn’t who I thought she was.
I think our relationship is irreparable—I can’t trust her.
And since she can’t see what she did wrong, I think I have to cut her off completely. ”
A weight lifts as the words come out, so I let them flow.
“I took some time and space to figure out some things. Where I’d live, what to do for work—it’s all very complicated. I know where I want to be, but I’m scared to try. It feels like I’ve already lost everything.”
“I sent Emma divorce papers,” he says. “I let her leave on a train we planned to board together, to start our lives in New York. And I couldn’t ever tell her why.”
I swallow. “But I assume you had a good reason. Look at you now.”
His head bobs. “I thought I was protecting her.”
His words land heavily between us. It’s too familiar.
“Was it worth it?” I ask.
Miles leans on his elbows, thoughtful. “I think the difference here is that Emma’s dad was overprotective. He crossed a line, but he admitted he was wrong. He apologized. And we’ve all worked hard to rebuild what he broke.”
“I’d like to get back what we had,” I say softly. “I know that’s not possible with my mom, but I hope Holden and I still have a chance.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “There’s always a chance, Laila.”
I consider his answer. The bakery hums around us—the faint sound of Emma singing in the next room, the faint jingle of bells from somewhere out in the trees.
It feels like remembering what peace sounds like. It gives me hope that I can find that with Holden again, too.
“So what did you do?” I ask finally. “When everything felt impossible?”
Miles exhales, running a hand through his hair. “I stopped trying to make sense of it. Love isn’t a business deal. It’s messy. Illogical. Sometimes unfair. But if you keep waiting for it to make perfect sense…” He shrugs. “You’ll miss it.”
Emma appears then, carrying a plate piled high with several cookies and a warm smile in place. “What he means is that he leapt before he looked, spent a decade watching over my family, and cooked all the time to compensate.”
Miles grins. “Yeah, that too.”
She slides into the seat beside him and turns to me. “Whatever you’re running from, Laila, it’s not going to stay behind you. And maybe that’s a good thing.”
My throat tightens. “You think?”
“I know.” She nudges my mug closer. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person who hides from happy endings. You just need a new way to start yours.”
Miles groans, running a hand down his face. “Speaking of happy endings—you really need to get out of Sweetheart Springs before tomorrow.”
“Why?” I straighten in my seat. “What happens tomorrow?”
Emma laughs. “Tomorrow evening, they’ll announce the pairings for the Sweetheart Games. We didn’t sign up for round two, but apparently, ‘not signing up’ just means ‘you’ve been selected as honorary contestants.’”
“Voluntold,” Miles mutters. “That’s the official term.”
I can’t help but laugh, warmth threading through the chill that’s been clinging to me for weeks. “Sounds like fate has a habit of penciling you two in.”
Emma’s smile softens. “That’s the thing about this town, it’s stubborn about second chances.”
“Seriously, though,” Miles adds. “Since you’re here without Holden, you’ll have the vultures—um, Matchmakers—circling and finding you a new partner to spend the holidays with. You don’t want to deal with that mess, too.”
Snow crunches under my boots as I head for my car.
Tomorrow, I’ll finalize my plans and take a few days to get back to Enchanted Hollow.
I don’t know what waits for me there, just that it’s time to stop running and see if the bridge still keeps its promise.
That some love stories circle back, no matter how far they drift.