Chapter 9
NINE
Blair
It’s the night of the Winter Festival, and the whole town looks like it’s been dipped in sugar.
Snow dusts the rooftops and the pine boughs strung between lampposts.
White twinkle lights crisscross the square, and music from the gazebo drifts over the chatter of neighbors wrapped up in scarves and cheer.
It smells like cinnamon and woodsmoke and something fried.
It feels like the inside of a snow globe, all soft and sparkly and contained.
“Girl, if that table were any straighter, it would be a ruler,” Larsen teases, hip-checking me as she sets another roll of tickets in the basket.
I pretend to scowl, but inside, I’m grinning. “I think it turned out good. It’s festive. And orderly.”
“You’re festive. Look at your cheeks.” She taps one with a mitten. “That’s not from the cold. That’s a post-coital glow if I ever saw one.”
“Larsen!” I hiss, heat racing to my hairline. “We’re at a family event.”
“Relax!” She sighs. “Come on. Let’s get a hot chocolate before everyone arrives.”
“People have already arrived,” I point out.
“We’ll be quick. I need something to warm me up.”
She grabs my hand, tugging me after her toward the food booths. We wait in line, and I take in the street lined with people and various stalls and stations. I smile. It seems like everyone in town is here.
I’ve never experienced anything like this before. This event would’ve been beneath my parents and siblings. They would’ve made fun of me for wanting to go to something so basic.
“Everything all right?” Larsen asks, passing me a hot chocolate.
“Yeah. I’m good,” I say, but she’s not listening to me.
She’s staring down the block at something.
“Speaking of, your cowboy is causing a traffic jam.”
I turn, following her gaze until I spot Cole over by our booth.
My breath stalls in my lungs.
“Whoa,” I breathe.
Cole’s wearing a navy beanie tugged over his dark hair and a flannel under his jacket, sleeves shoved to his forearms, while he kneels to show three tiny bundled-up kids how to toss the beanbags.
He laughs at something one of them says, that low rumble I can feel in my ribs even across the booth.
When the smallest gets shy, he crouches a little lower, eyes kind and patient as he shows her how to line up her feet and kiss the corner of the board with her throw.
When her bag skitters short, he claps like she just landed a triple axel.
My heart does a weird somersault that feels suspiciously like falling.
“He’s good with them,” Larsen says softly, like she’s stepped inside the feeling with me.
“Yeah.” My voice is small but full. “He is.”
Another family wanders over, drawn by the lights we strung up on the arbor and the faux igloo entrance we built out of curved plywood. A little boy squeals as he toddles through the “ice tunnel,” while his dad looks at our sign about safe deposit boxes that reads, “Keep your memories safe with us.”
“We should get back,” I say.
We hurry over to our booth and slip behind the tables. Then we get to work.
I hand out candy canes and brochures, answer questions about rates, explain that, yes, you can keep documents and keepsakes and grandma’s pearls in a box, and no, we don’t allow explosives. That one gets a laugh every time.
Larsen handles the prize tickets when someone lands a bag, and I stamp our little snowflake logo on kids’ hands because apparently that’s now a thing and they’re obsessed.
Each time I look up, I find Cole’s eyes on me.
A smile that’s just for me crooks at the corner of his mouth.
My insides tangle and flutter. I still have the impulse to look behind me to see who he’s really staring at.
Then he winks, and it’s all over; I’m a puddle in snow boots.
“You two are disgusting,” Larsen mutters, but I can hear the affection beneath her exasperation. “How serious are we talking? On a scale from ‘I made him a playlist’ to ‘we picked out baby names’?”
“Larsen.” I laugh, but it hiccups into something a little breathless. “It’s… good. He’s good. I—” Admitting this out loud feels like stepping onto a frozen pond, the first crack loud in your ears. “I think I’m in trouble.”
“Good trouble,” she decides. “The best kind.” Her expression softens. “You look like you. But lighter.”
I swallow hard and nod.
“I feel like me. But… warmer.”
We fall into an easy rhythm. She stamps hands, I pass out flyers, we both cheer when someone hits the board. People I recognize from the bank stop to chat. A couple of older ladies tell me how much they love the lights and ask if I’ve tried the cider at the stall by the tree.
It’s crowded in that small-town festival way where you can’t go two feet without being hugged, handed a baked good, or introduced to someone’s cousin.
Crowds make my edges go fuzzy, the words on signs blurring into wavy lines, noise pressing on my skull, but tonight, I ride the surface of it like I’m learning how to swim.
“We’re out of flyers,” I tell Larsen and Cole. “I’m going to run over to the bank and grab the other box.”
“I can go,” Cole says, but I wave him off.
“I need the break,” I admit. “Be right back.”
I dart out from behind the table and weave my way through the crowd.
Roger is outside the bank with his wife, and he smiles at me as I approach him. “Hey! We were just headed your way! How are things going?”
“Merry Christmas!” his wife says, pulling me in for a hug.
“Merry Christmas! I was just coming to grab some more brochures for the table. We ran out.”
“Oh, I’ll grab them,” Roger says. “You head back to the table, and I’ll drop them off in a minute.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, we’ll be right there.”
“Thanks,” I say with a smile, then turn and head back to the booth.
I don’t make it far before I see him and freeze.
“Well, if it isn’t Blair Benson.”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid. It’s been years since anyone called me by my last name. Years and miles and a whole new life away from lockers and hallways and a girl who always felt like she’d shown up to a game everyone else had memorized the rules for.
“Wow,” the voice goes on, footsteps closing in. “Didn’t think it was you at first. The hair threw me. You finally stopped hiding behind it?”
I turn slowly. He’s exactly the kind of handsome I learned to distrust early: slick. The same too-white teeth and letterman jacket posture, despite being too old for either. Time has either been too kind or just hasn’t gotten around to him yet. The recognition hits, and my stomach pitches.
“Robert,” I manage.
I hate that my voice comes out small.
“Thought so.” He glances down, then up, blatant and mean in a way only practice can make perfect. “Still… you know”—he gestures vaguely at my body—“bold of you to squeeze into leggings in public, Benson.”
The world doubles again, but not because of the crowd this time. It’s the old doubling. Me now and me then, the lines between them blurring until I don’t know where to put my hands.
“Gonna tell me you’re married?” he asks, smirking when I don’t answer fast enough. “No? Not surprised. Guys don’t usually sign up for damaged goods. I mean, you couldn’t even read a menu. Remember that? Spaz city.”
Heat crawls up my neck, settling hot behind my eyes. It’s reflex, the way my body prepares for humiliation. I blink hard, furious with myself for giving him even that.
It would be so easy to fold. To shrink back into the old shape and let his ugly words pour over my head like paint you can’t scrub off.
Except… I have a different life now.
And a warm hand that slid a hot chocolate into my grip ten minutes ago because he noticed I needed one without me asking.
I have someone who looks at me like I’m his sun.
A shadow falls over us, big enough to make Robert step back. An arm slides around my waist, firm and sure, pulling me into a chest I know by feel. I breathe in wind and pine and Cole.
“Everything okay here?” he asks mildly.
Robert’s smirk wavers a bit. He takes in Cole’s height like it’s a problem to solve, then glances at his square jaw and unsmiling blue eyes.
“We were just catching up.”
“Sounded more like you were being rude to my girlfriend.” Cole’s tone stays even, a low rumble with steel in it.
I swear I can feel the exact moment Tanner decides to be a jerk anyway. “Oh, your girlfriend.” He lets out a laugh that’s meant to be cutting. “Congrats, man. That’s… charitable of you. I mean, no one wants her. Not even her own family.”
His words sting, and I can feel myself shrinking.
What will Cole think? Are Robert’s words making him doubt me? Doubt our relationship?
Cole’s arm tightens around my shoulders, but I’m too afraid to look up at him, worried about what I’ll see on his face.
“Try that sentence again,” Cole growls.
Robert snorts. “Listen, whatever floats your boat. I’ve never been a chubby chaser, but if that’s what you want. I’m sure she’s desperate for the attention. Hell, I bet it didn’t even take that long to get her into bed, huh? Blair here is so stupid that—”
Robert doesn’t finish that sentence before Cole punches him in the face.
I gasp, stumbling back a step, and watch as Cole grabs Robert’s coat lapels, stopping him from falling into the crowd.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” Cole snarls, his voice low and deadly.
Robert holds his ground for a second longer than he should, while I hold my breath, wondering what he’ll do. He isn’t brave. He never was. He’s mean, which is different. Mean requires cover to thrive. Here, now, with the music and the lights and Cole’s body angled between us, mean slinks.
“Fuck you,” Robert spits at us, his eyes filled with venom. “Enjoy the pity date, Benson.”
With those final words, he pivots and disappears into the crowd. I watch him go, my whole body numb. That all too familiar fight-or-flight response is raging inside me, and I feel like that lonely little kid all over again. I don’t breathe until he’s gone.
“Thank you,” I whisper to Cole.
My body trembles, and I know it’s not from the cold. I struggle to hold back the memories from school, to take a deep breath and stay in the present, but it’s hard.
I stare around at all the happy families and couples and wonder if I’ll ever have that.
What must Cole think of me now? Surely he’ll think I’m damaged goods, just like everyone else, just like my classmates and my family.
I can’t focus on that right now. I have a job to do. Just focus on the bank, focus on the numbers.
I take a deep breath and make my way back to the booth in silence. It takes a moment, but I hear Cole’s soft steps behind me as we take our places behind the table.