Chapter Twenty-Two
Seth
W HEN I CAME TO THE next morning, Jorja was still resting her head on my shoulder, beneath the blanket, her hand on my chest and her breath rising and falling slowly as she slept.
I stared down at her for a moment, unable to keep the smile off of my face. We had spent our first night together. And, yes, it might have been a little unconventional in the grand scheme of things, but I felt as though we had finally been able to open up to each other the way we had needed to all along. I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it.
Well, maybe apart from the cold. The heaters had an automatic function where they turned off after being on for a couple of hours, and the store was far chillier than it had been when we had gone to sleep. Sensing my wakefulness, Jorja lifted her head and looked around blearily.
“Oh, I almost forgot where we were,” she groaned, as she sat up and rubbed her face. “Wow, it’s so cold in here.”
“I know,” I agreed. “But it’s Christmas. It’s got to be cold so it can be cozy, right?”
“Oh, right!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, her face lighting up with excitement. “You know, I almost forgot. With everything that happened.”
I pulled her in close, and planted a kiss against her cheek.
“Merry Christmas,” I murmured to her.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered back, biting her lip as she gazed at me. And then, she pulled away, and glanced to the state of the weather outside.
“It looks like it’s stopped snowing,” she remarked. “Do you think we should risk heading back to my place? To check on Mia?”
“Yeah, she’s probably ready to eat the tree by now.” I chuckled. Jorja had told me how demanding her cat was when it came to food, and it was Christmas, after all. I was pretty sure Mia deserved a Christmas feast as much as any human did.
“Oh, she’s going to be so mad when I get back.” She laughed. “She hates having to wait for breakfast.”
“Then we should probably get going,” I suggested. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she replied on a sigh. “I know it’s going to be crazy out there.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere that’s had a white Christmas before,” I remarked, as I got to my feet and stretched.
She turned to me, confusion on her face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve never lived anywhere that’s gotten a lot of snow,” I admitted. “I always thought it would be fun, but I just... never got around to it.”
“Then we have to make this the most Christmassy Christmas ever,” she told me, making her way over to me and wrapping her arms around me. She seemed so much more comfortable with me now, now that she knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I was so glad it seemed to have gotten through to her, and I intended to back up my words every moment I could. I wanted to show her, not just tell her, how serious I was about all of this—about staying here, with her, while I felt like I belonged.
We trekked through the snow back toward her house. Luckily, someone had salted the sidewalks this morning, so they weren’t too drenched in ice. She skidded a few times, but the two of us were holding hands the whole way home, and I made sure to keep her steady.
When we got back, Mia was mewling loudly and pawing at the door. She let out an affronted chirrup when we opened it up, and Jorja giggled and dropped to her knees to give her a cuddle.
“Merry Christmas to you, too, little demanding lady,” she cooed to her, before she headed through to the kitchen to top up her food bowl. The tree was sparkling beneath the light pouring in through the window beside it. It looked like something out of a Christmas card.
And, in that moment, it hit me—I hadn’t gotten her anything for Christmas. Crap! Was it too late to run out to a store and pick something up? If this was going to be our first Christmas together, then I wanted to make certain I made it one to remember.
When she noticed the look on my face, she frowned.
“You okay?” she asked me.
“I just realized, I didn’t get you a present,” I told her, shaking my head.
She raised her eyebrows at me, then laughed. “You don’t need to get me a present, after everything you’ve done for me,” she assured me. “Honestly, I’m fine.”
But I wanted to. I started racking my brain as she made us a coffee, and we planned the perfect Christmas day.
“The church service still hasn’t happened yet,” she mused, tapping her finger against her bottom lip. “It was put off because of the storm last night. Do you feel like checking it out? The kids doing carols are always super-cute.”
“Sounds perfect,” I agreed. “As long as we can get something to eat afterward. That ramen is only going to hold me so long.”
“Sure thing,” she replied. “I think the diner is open on Christmas day.”
“Yes, I need a strong coffee and a big breakfast,” I replied, and I slipped my hand into hers. “So, where are we headed?”
The sidewalks had been cleared on the way up to the church, making it easy for us to attend the carols. The church, though tiny, was packed with people, all of them bundled up in the cold weather gear to fight off the chill. The snow sparkled in the windows, the light picking out glimmering details on the large tree next to the aisle. When the children sang, their voices filled the air, like the music was enveloping us completely.
She slipped her hand into mine, our fingers interlocking, as they sang, and I glanced down at her hands together. They seemed to fit into each other as though they had been made like that, made especially to match. I couldn’t get over it, how much sense we seemed to make together, and I knew this was the start of something I would never forget.
We were about to head out to the diner, when someone caught Jorja’s shoulder.
“Excuse me, Jorja?”
We both turned, to find an older woman standing before us, her cheeks pink from the cold outside.
“Oh, Mrs. Braithewaite,” she replied. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, dear, it’s fine,” she assured her. “I just wanted you to know that I heard about everything Wharton was trying to do to your grandmother’s store, and I think you’ve done the right thing, choosing not to sell to him. He put in an offer on my place, too, but I just turned it down this morning.”
“That’s amazing news,” Jorja gushed.
Mrs. Braithewaite nodded. “Well, when I heard that he was going to knock down a few of the stores on our street to build a big superstore, I knew I had to put my foot down,” she explained. “We couldn’t have him turning Mastin Falls into just any other town, could we?”
“Agreed,” I cut in, squeezing Jorja’s hand.
“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we all have your back,” she added.
“All of you?” Jorja replied, a little confused.
“Yes, of course,” she replied, gesturing to the rest of the people in the church, who had started filing out into the snow once more. “Wharton was trying to get almost everyone on the street to sell up. But we all dug our heels in, and now he’s not going to have any reason to stay here. I hope he’ll be gone by the new year.”
Jorja beamed. “I’m so glad,” she murmured. “I just... I’m so glad we’re not going to lose anything that makes this place special.”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Braithewaite agreed, and she gave Jorja’s shoulder a squeeze. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Merry Christmas!”
We echoed her words, and Jorja turned to me, eyebrows raised.
“Wow,” she murmured. “I didn’t expect that.”
“You didn’t?” I replied. “You’re inspiring people, Jorja. You’re showing them that they don’t have to take whatever Wharton offers them. That’s amazing.”
“Thank you,” she replied, lowering her gaze slightly, her cheeks flushing. It was rare for her to actually take a compliment without trying to find some reason why it didn’t actually apply to her. She was starting to trust me when I told her that I really meant what I said, and that felt good. Really good.
“Come on, I’m starving,” I told her, tugging her toward the door.
“Me too,” she agreed with a sigh.
“And this is going to be my Christmas gift to you,” I added.
“I told you, you didn’t need to get me a gift.”
“No, but I want to,” I replied. “All the diner food you can eat. On me.”
“Oh, that’s a dangerous proposition,” she warned me. “I can put away a lot of food, you know.”
“Then it’ll be the best Christmas gift I could have gotten you,” I tossed back at her.
She laughed. “You have no idea what you’re in for,” she warned me. “You’re going to have to do a whole new round of photographs and signings just to be able to afford it.”
“I can handle that,” I promised her, and the two of us headed down to the diner. I was surprised to see it was open on Christmas day, but it seemed like we weren’t the only ones who’d had the idea to come down here and make this our Christmas dinner spot. A few townsfolk were scattered around the booths, eating waffles and drinking coffee, while cheesy carols played through the slightly-tinny radio. It was perfect.
But, honestly, everything seemed perfect when I was with her. There was something about sharing her company like this that imbued everything with a sense of magic I wasn’t sure I had ever felt before. I’d had plenty of Christmases over the course of my life, obviously, but none of them had ever felt like this. The snow, the carols, the small town, it felt like I had stepped straight into a storybook.
But most of all, what made me feel that way was her. It was her presence, her company, knowing that she wouldn’t have rather been anywhere other than with me. I had spent so long running across the country, exploring new places, finding new starts wherever I could dig them up, but this was the first time I had truly felt as though it was worth slowing down and putting down some roots for a change.
“That was so good.” She sighed, as she leaned back from the table, a smile on her face.
“Not the most conventional Christmas dinner,” I remarked. “But it’s something.”
“Oh, I don’t think I could do an old-fashioned Christmas dinner,” she replied, shaking her head. “I’m a terrible cook.”
“So am I,” I admitted. “But maybe I could learn for next year. Cook us a real Christmas dinner.”
She beamed at me.
“And if it goes wrong, at least we know we have the diner to fall back on,” I added.
She laughed. “Yeah, exactly,” she agreed. “I guess we could give it a try.”
We walked home after lunch, hand-in-hand, admiring the Christmas lights that had been strung up around the town’s main street; they were drooping under the weight of all the snow, but they were just about holding up. Even though it was Christmas, and I had expected most people to be at home with their families, plenty of people were out in the street, enjoying the snow—making angels, throwing snowballs, kids passing by with sleds tucked under their arms.
We looped back around to her place, where Mia was waiting for us. The tree sparkled in the window as we approached, and she smiled as she eyed it.
“I still don’t know how I feel about cleaning it up,” she told me, as we stepped inside, dusting some of the light snowfall from our shoulders. “But I’ve got to admit, it looks really pretty.”
“Agreed,” I replied. “And I told you, I’ll be here when you need help picking up the pine needles. You’ve got my word on that.”
She turned to me, looping her arms around my shoulders and pulling in close to me. My hands rested on her hips, right where they belonged. Touching her was becoming more and more comfortable to me, as though this was what both of us had been waiting for, both of us, holding back on what we knew we needed, for fear of messing it up. But now we had come clean about the way we felt, about what we wanted, there was no reason for us to hide it any longer. No, we could finally be honest, and the weight off my shoulders as I looked into her eyes was everything to me.
“This has been the most amazing Christmas, Seth,” she murmured to me. “Thank you.”
“Same time next year?” I suggested, as I leaned down to plant a kiss against her smiling lips.