Chapter 6
NOEL
Overpriced tchotchkes were everywhere, reminding me that I’d messed up the best thing that’d ever happened to me.
I wandered the Pleasure Valley Christmas Market, passing booths advertising fudge and glass blown figurines and Christmas T-shirts. The place was bustling with activity and not a single sign of Hope Haynes.
I was the world’s biggest fuck-up.
Three days had passed since she walked away from me at the cookie exchange.
Three days of staring at my sterile penthouse, trying to work, and realizing that nothing felt right anymore.
The watch sat on my wrist—the one that started everything—and every time I checked it, I thought of her mortified face at my door.
I’d called. Texted. She hadn’t responded. So here I was at the holiday fair I’d called a waste of time, holding a cup of overpriced hot chocolate that actually tasted pretty damn good, and searching for a woman who probably never wanted to see me again.
“Noel?”
I spun around.
Hope stood five feet away, wrapped in a puffy coat and a knitted scarf, her eyes wide with surprise. She wasn’t alone—her roommate Mollie was beside her, arms full of shopping bags.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Looking for you.” My heart was hammering. “Can we talk?”
Mollie’s eyes went saucer-wide. “I’m just going to…go look at those candles over there. Very far over there.” She disappeared into the crowd.
She crossed her arms. “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.”
“There’s everything to talk about. Please. Just five minutes.”
She hesitated, then nodded toward a quieter corner near the skating rink. We walked in silence, the sound of Christmas music and laughter surrounding us.
When we stopped, I didn’t know where to start. So I just started.
“I’ve been an asshole.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“And I’m sorry. For everything I said at the party. For making you feel like what happened between us didn’t matter. For calling what you love background noise.”
She looked at me, waiting.
“The truth is, you were right. About all of it. I’ve spent the last fifteen years building walls so high, I forgot what it meant to care. And then you showed up at my door with my package, wearing that ridiculous Christmas sweater, and something cracked.”
Her expression softened slightly. “Noel—”
“I went to see my mom’s grave yesterday. First time in a while.” My voice cracked. “I brought her flowers. Told her about you. About how I met this woman who believes in magic and hope, and how I was too scared to let myself believe in it too.”
Hope’s eyes glistened.
“I can’t promise I’m going to suddenly love Christmas the way you do. I can’t promise I won’t mess this up a hundred more times. But I want to try. With you.” I took a step closer. “You make me want to feel again. And that terrifies me. But losing you terrifies me more.”
“I don’t want to change you,” she said quietly. “I just want you to let me in.”
“I know. And I will. I am.” I pulled something from my coat pocket—a small wrapped box. “I got you something.”
She looked at it suspiciously. “What is it?”
“Open it.”
She unwrapped it carefully, revealing a hand-painted ornament—a rose gold pine cone with her name written on it in delicate script.
“It’s from that booth over there,” I said, pointing. “The artist charges forty dollars for painted pine cones. And she’s worth every penny.”
She laughed—actually laughed—and wiped at her eyes. “You bought me a tchotchke.”
“I bought you the most beautiful tchotchke I could find.” I touched her face, tilting it up to mine.
“I don’t know how to do this, Hope. I don’t know how to be the guy who goes to Christmas markets and bakes cookies and doesn’t see everything as a transaction.
But I want to learn. If you’ll teach me. ”
“You really went to your mom’s grave?”
“I did. And you know what I realized? Christmas isn’t what took her from me. It was just trying to give us light in the darkness. Like you said.” I brushed my thumb across her cheek. “You’re my light, Hope. And I’ve been living in the dark for too long.”
She was crying now, and I was probably about to cry too, and we were standing in the middle of a Christmas market like something out of a cheesy holiday movie.
And I didn’t care.
“I’m still going to be bad at this,” I warned. “I’m probably going to complain about Christmas music and make cynical comments about consumer spending—”
“I don’t need you to be perfect,” she interrupted. “I just need you to try.”
“Then I’m trying. Starting now.” I leaned down and kissed her—soft and slow and full of everything I’d been too afraid to say.
When we broke apart, she was smiling through her tears. “So, does this mean you’ll actually go ice skating with me?”
I looked over at the rink, where people were wobbling around on skates, falling, laughing. Everything I usually avoided.
“Yes,” I said. “But I’m warning you—I’m going to fall on my ass.”
“Good.” She grabbed my hand. “I’ll catch you.”