Chapter 24 - Maren #2
Heads snapped up. Even through bundled layers of coats and scarves, the crowd shifted, craning and jostling for a better view.
Adrian moved instinctively, scooping Sadie onto Miles’s shoulders so she could see above the tangle of taller onlookers.
Her tiny hands clutched his hair for balance, heels tapping lightly against his chest. She squeaked, pointing at the tree with wide eyes, and I could feel her excitement spreading through our small circle.
A hush began to ripple through the crowd, the collective anticipation pressing against my ribs. Someone behind me started counting down, muffled at first but catching on quickly.
“Three…”
I caught Ethan glancing at me, a small smile tugging at his lips. Even his casual warmth carried a kind of steadiness I’d been craving.
“Two…”
The kids’ voices rose over the crowd, a jagged chorus of squeals and shouted numbers. Emma was hopping on the balls of her feet, hands clenched over her mouth, eyes bright and unblinking. Will’s voice was loud and clear, a little offbeat but perfectly earnest.
“One…”
The tree erupted in a cascade of colors that felt almost alive, twinkling and flickering faster than my eyes could track. Gasps rolled through the crowd, washing over me in a tide of delight. Sadie clapped her hands and ruffled my hair from above.
“I’m so happy you’re here with us, Maren,” she said.
Warmth pooled in my chest and I laughed, tipping my head to meet Miles’s gaze. He was smiling, sure, but it wasn’t the joking, teasing smile from earlier. There was weight there, an acknowledgment of the same awe I felt but had been trying to hide behind sarcasm and small talk.
“Me too,” he said, voice carrying just enough sincerity to make me pause. “I’m really happy you’re here.”
The words landed in the spaces between the music, the children’s laughter, the hissing of cocoa steam, and the soft crunch of boots on the gravel.
I blinked at him, caught between wanting to say something clever and wanting to simply exist in the space we’d carved out together among the bundled, eager crowd.
The kids turned back to the tree, and I could only watch Miles watch me, warm light reflecting off his features, grounding me even as my chest still felt like it might explode at the tiniest touch.
It wasn’t words of apology, or confessions, or any of the messy stuff; it was simple, steady, sincere.
My fingers tightened around the mug without thinking. The lights of the tree glittered over the crowd, reflecting off the wet pavement and catching in the steam from cocoa and breath alike.
Around us, the city carried on. The Common felt vast and intimate at once, and for the first time since I’d stepped back into this world, I could breathe without the weight of “what if” pressing me sideways.
Sadie wiggled on Miles’s shoulders, her little boots tapping against his chest like she was urging a horse.
“The train! The train!” It had stopped a few feet ahead, the carriages hissing gently as kids clambered aboard. “Please can we go?”
“I’m sitting up front,” Will declared, practically pulling Emma toward the tiny engine.
“No fair. I want the front,” she protested, but laughed as he tugged her along.
Miles sighed, giving in to Sadie’s urging. “Easy, easy, you’ll fall off my shoulders before we even start.”
I was about to follow when gloved fingers wrapped around my wrist. I froze mid-step, and turned to find Ethan.
His gaze held mine with that quiet intensity that always managed to make me melt.
“Got a second?” he asked.
I nodded, heart in my throat, and let him lead me away from the bustling crowd.
“We haven’t had a chance to really talk,” he said, not looking at me.
I gave a hollow laugh. “You meant it when you said the holidays are crazy for you.”
The glow from the giant tree reflected off patches of wet cobblestone, splintering into sharp, glittering fragments under our feet.
Holiday tents lined the edges of the Common, their canvas sides fluttering slightly in the cold wind.
Somewhere a bell jingled through the air with a rhythm that felt both urgent and hesitant.
The chatter of the crowd stretched behind us, diffused, distant, like a pulse you could feel in your chest rather than hear.
Somehow it made me feel like my nerves were mirrored everywhere.
Fractured, bright, and impossible to ignore.
Ethan’s eyes flicked up to mine, then away again, like he was weighing each syllable before letting it escape. There were things I hadn’t said to him, too, things that had been weighing on me since I got back.
We slowed, instinctively, and turned to face each other. Words tumbled out of us at the same time, overlapping, stopping mid-sentence when we realized it. The silence that followed was almost tangible, a shared pause that made me laugh softly, and then he did too.
“You first,” I said.
His shoulders sagged as he exhaled slowly. “I was going to say… You can’t know how sorry I am for the way I talked to you. I was a dick,” he added, almost mumbling, “as Miles continues to remind me.”
“Yeah. You kind of were.”
He blinked at me, surprise flashing in his eyes, and I felt my own lips twitch into a grin. Then he gave a low, easy laugh, the kind that let some of the tension escape. When I joined him, it was enough to thaw the crisp in the air between us.
We started walking again, shoulders brushing in that subtle way, the world rocking back into focus. “What about you?” he asked.
“Me?”
He nodded. “What were you gonna say?”
A kid splashed through a puddle somewhere behind us, water skimming across wet pavement, scattering reflections like shards of glass. My pulse kicked up. My stomach twisted into a mix of anticipation and fear.
“When you came to get me at Liv’s…” I swallowed, words suddenly stuck in my throat. “…you asked me to come home. What did you mean by that?”
We stopped. I could feel the chill creep through my gloves, but it didn’t matter. His gaze locked with mine, steady and unflinching. My heart thudded against my ribs in that slow, urgent rhythm, and my mouth went dry.
What if I’d misread everything? What if I’d overstepped, opening a door I wasn’t ready to walk through? Maybe I shouldn’t have said it. Maybe I should have kept things simple, light, let the holiday magic or whatever semblance of it we’d clawed together carry me instead of risking everything.
I could already feel my brain racing through every possible outcome, spiraling between hope and panic. What if he didn’t mean what I wanted him to mean? What if the distance I’d felt wasn’t just about missing this life but missing him, specifically? All of them?
Specifically.
But it was too late to take it back, and all I could do was hope.
Ethan’s fingers curled through mine, firm and insistent, and without another word he tugged me toward a line of evergreens dusted in snow.
My boots scuffed against the slushy paths, but the world narrowed to the space between us, the murmur of the Common fading to a hush behind the twinkle of fairy lights overhead.
Before I had time to process anything, he pressed me against a tree, the bark rough through my coat, and his mouth met mine.
I didn’t stall, didn’t question; the cold prickled on my cheeks, but heat radiated everywhere else as his hands anchored me to the moment.
The press of his body, the curve of his jaw under my fingertips, the brush of his beard against my skin.
A shiver that wasn’t from the winter air coursed through me as his tongue dipped into my mouth.
Every nerve in me sang, heightened, a symphony of anticipation and release.
His mouth moved over mine with an urgent rhythm, claiming and yielding in perfect tension.
I responded wholeheartedly, tilting my head and parting my lips, letting my hands trace the planes of his shoulders and the nape of his neck.
The cold bit at our cheeks, but it barely registered; all I could feel was him, the roll of his tongue, the heat of our breaths colliding.
His fingers threaded through my hair, and I clung to him, deepening the kiss, matching his intensity as I drank in the faint tang of winter on his lips.
Each motion pulled me further from everything else until the world had shrunk to the curve of his mouth against mine and the pulse of him beneath my palms.
Then, like magic, snow began to fall. Soft crystals swirled around us like suspended light.
One landed on his lips and melted almost instantly, a fleeting jewel that vanished the moment we parted.
I caught my breath and tried to steady myself against the electric pull to claim his mouth again.
Snowflakes caught in his lashes, the faint sheen of moisture on his skin from the cold.
I was dizzy, suspended in this impossible, perfect axis of him.
And just when I thought he’d kiss me again, he leaned in close and said:
“What do you think I meant?”