Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lettie didn’t realize how long they’d been talking until her laptop dimmed itself into sleep. Across the cabin, Carlos’s had already gone dark, half-forgotten on the arm of his chair.
She should’ve gotten up. Shut the conversation down.
Stoked the fire and curled into the comfort of solitude like she always did.
Instead, she stayed where she was. Legs curled under her, heart strangely unarmored, listening to the sounds of Carlos Nowell humming off-key as he poured water into the coffeemaker to brew… hot chocolate.
“I’m telling you,” he said with the solemnity of a man confessing a federal crime, “the key is using the hot setting, then adding the mix after. Keeps it creamy.”
“Creamy,” she repeated, dry as salt.
He glanced over his shoulder with that boyish grin that had probably sold a thousand subscriptions to the magazine just by accident. “Trust me. I’m something of a cocoa scientist.”
Lettie rolled her eyes, but it lacked heat. Somehow, they’d gone from an icy standoff to swapping childhood stories like something out of a vintage holiday radio show.
She didn’t do nostalgia. It made her soft. And soft never survived the fall.
But when Carlos handed her a steaming mug—complete with a lone, half-melted marshmallow—and returned to his seat, she didn’t retreat. She leaned back, sipped, and let the silence stretch.
“My mom used to sew ornaments,” she said eventually, the words slipping out like a cough she hadn’t meant to let loose. “One for each of us every year. Felt and thread. Crooked stitching. Hideous, honestly.”
Carlos cradled his mug like it was spun glass. “Bet they looked perfect on your tree.”
“They looked homemade,” she said, then paused. “Which is what made them perfect.”
He didn’t smile or nod or launch into a matching anecdote like most people did when faced with something vulnerable. He just held her gaze. A few moments later, he said quietly, “We were carolers. Not good ones. My dad insisted on going door to door, anyway. Claimed it built character.”
“Did it?”
“Oh no. It built embarrassment. I still flinch when I hear Feliz Navidad. But... the neighbors always came out. No one slammed a door.”
Lettie stared at the fire as she offered up another confession. “Christmas used to feel... Safe. Like we were a closed loop. A world apart from everything else. Now it feels like a showroom for performance art and capitalism.”
Carlos didn’t argue. He just nodded like he understood. And maybe he did. That was somehow worse.
“I’m trying to rebuild that feeling with the magazine,” he said. “Not the spectacle. The feeling. Even if it’s just one person at a time.”
Lettie sipped her cocoa again. He set his aside, shifting his weight in the chair like he was gathering courage.
“What’s something you secretly love but pretend to hate?” he asked, the corners of his mouth twitching.
She narrowed her eyes. “Is this a trap?”
“Only if your answer is fruitcake.”
“Ugly Christmas sweaters.”
Carlos lit up like a tree.
“They’re ridiculous,” she added quickly. “And itchy. And I keep buying them, anyway.”
“I knew it,” he said, pointing. “You’re the reason the thrift store downtown always has empty racks in December.”
“Confidential sources, Nowell.”
He laughed—loud, real, and completely unguarded. It filled the room. Filled her.
“And yours?” she asked, needing the spotlight off her before she did something wildly unprofessional, like smile.
Carlos looked down at his lap, sheepish. “Hallmark movies.”
She choked on her cocoa.
“I swear, it started as research,” he insisted. “But now I can’t stop. They’re like emotional comfort food. There’s always a bakery in peril. A Christmas contest. A grumpy man who learns to believe again.”
She stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You just described me.”
He blinked. Then, slowly, “Guess that makes me the overly festive love interest in the flannel shirt.”
Lettie’s heart did something uncomfortable in her chest. It reached for something it shouldn’t have.
“Okay, Hallmark,” she said. “Favorite gift?”
Carlos leaned back, a fondness softening his expression. “Wooden train set. My abuelito carved it by hand. The thing barely stayed on the tracks, but I thought it was magic. Yours?”
Lettie hesitated. “I didn’t ask for anything that year. Just… didn’t feel like it. But on Christmas morning, my parents gave me this little red leather notebook. No lines. Just blank pages. I’d just started writing then.”
Carlos didn’t smile. But he looked thoughtful, as though she was giving him a hint to solving a difficult puzzle.
“They knew me so well,” she said, so quietly she barely heard it herself. “Or they realized I wanted to be just like them and tell other people's stories.”
More silence. But this time it felt… close. Not awkward. Not forced.
Carlos moved first, rising to throw another log on the fire. She watched him, watched the firelight dance along his features. He wasn’t her type. He was too good. Too earnest.
So why couldn’t she look away?
He returned not to his chair but to the bearskin rug in front of the hearth. Sat down and stretched out a hand to the cocoa still clutched between her palms.
“You coming?” he asked.
Lettie set her mug aside and lowered herself beside him, the heat of the fire curling around her spine. The rug was plush. The air crackled. And Carlos… Carlos was closer than she’d meant for him to be.
His thigh brushed hers. She didn’t move.
She was acutely aware of how long it had been since she’d sat like this with someone. Since she’d let herself.
His mouth curved as he watched the flames, his profile relaxed. A bit of cocoa lingered at the corner of his lips.
Lettie’s gaze snagged on it. Stayed.
She hadn’t been kissed in a long time. She hadn’t wanted to be kissed in a long time.
Now… she couldn’t stop looking at his mouth.