Chapter 7
SEVEN
CELIA
I don’t breathe for a full three seconds.
Elsie’s tiny, proud declaration hangs in the air like a Christmas bell that refuses to stop ringing.
My face goes hot enough to melt the snow under our feet.
Parents turn. Neighbors stare. Someone coughs. Someone else whispers.
And Wells… Oh God. Wells looks like a reindeer caught in headlights.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t laugh it off. Doesn’t even attempt to diffuse the moment. His jaw locks tight, shoulders stiff, eyes wide in horror.
Henry Dahl’s eyebrows shoot nearly to his fake wig line under the Santa hat.
“Well now,” he wheezes. “That’s… something.”
“Elsie,” I whisper, stepping forward. “Sweetie, that’s not—”
Wells grabs her hand, voice tight. “We need to go.”
The words punch me straight in the chest.
We. Need. To go.
Not Hey, this is a misunderstanding.
Not Let’s talk about this.
He doesn’t even spare me a glance.
I swallow hard as he pulls Elsie away from the booth, murmuring something to her I can’t hear, his movements quick and strained.
A couple of parents glance at me. One of the moms from school raises her brows, concerned. The principal from school gives me a sharp, questioning look across the crowd. I see judgment there.
And pity.
My stomach drops.
This was a mistake. All of it.
Wells glances back at me once, quickly, his expression tight with fear or embarrassment or… regret.
It hurts more than I expect.
Too much.
I wrap my arms around myself and turn away, blinking hard as snowflakes cling to my eyelashes.
I can’t do this. Not in front of everyone. Not when it’s clear he doesn’t want to be seen with me.
I slip out of the crowd and start down a side street, boots crunching the fresh snow. The air is sharp and cold, cutting right through me, but not as much as the ache expanding inside my chest.
I just need a minute. I need somewhere to breathe.
I duck behind the town’s old gazebo — the one they decorate every December with twinkling white lights — and lean against its rail.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I was the one who said just until Christmas. I was the one who said we shouldn’t think about the future.
So why does it feel like something just cracked open inside me?
The wind shifts, carrying faint music and laughter from the square. I sink onto one of the gazebo benches, head in my hands.
“You look like someone stole the star off of your Christmas tree.”
I freeze.
A man sits at the other end of the bench. I didn’t hear him approach. Didn’t see him. He’s wearing a Santa suit — not Henry’s cheap mall version, but a heavier, richer one, the kind that looks handcrafted and warm and impossibly well-kept.
He has kind eyes. Deep laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. And a beard that could either be real or the best fake I’ve ever seen.
For a moment — just one moment — he looks exactly like every storybook illustration I grew up with.
But that’s ridiculous.
I clear my throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… cry.”
“You’re not crying,” he says gently. “You’re thinking. Very hard.”
I laugh weakly. “It’s that obvious?”
“To someone who’s done a lot of thinking in his time,” he replies.
I glance at him. “Do you know Wells?”
His eyes crinkle. “Know of him. Good man. Strong back, soft heart.”
A lump rises in my throat. “He didn’t look like he wanted me anywhere near him tonight.”
“Is that what you saw?” Santa asks softly. “Or what you were afraid of seeing?”
I blink. “He grabbed Elsie and bolted.”
“He grabbed his daughter,” the man corrects gently. “A single father whose whole world suddenly got told he’s marrying the woman he’s terrified to lose.”
I swallow.
“I don’t… I don’t want to hurt him. Or Elsie. Or myself.”
“Then talk to him,” the man says simply. “You’d be surprised how much can be fixed with a little Christmas courage.”
A soft wind blows snow across the gazebo. I blink — and when I look back at the bench, he’s gone.
I stand quickly, looking left, right — but no footprints trail away from where he sat.
Just perfectly smooth snow.
My heart beats a little faster.
Probably nothing.
Probably just my imagination.
Probably—
But still.
His words sit heavy and warm in my chest.
Talk to him.
I tug my hat down over my ears and leave the gazebo, heading back toward town square.
The music gets louder. People mill around, laughing again. And then—
“Celia!”
I turn.
Wells breaks through the crowd, breathless, face flushed from the cold — or from panic. Elsie is at his side, holding his hand, eyes wide and worried.
His gaze locks on mine, and something in his expression unravels completely.
“Celia,” he says again, softer this time. “Please don’t leave.”
My breath catches. “I thought you didn’t want—”
“I panicked,” he says immediately. “I was shocked. Embarrassed for Elsie. Worried about what people would think. But I wasn’t embarrassed about you. I swear.”
My eyes sting. “It seemed like you wanted to disappear.”
“I did,” he admits. “But not from you. Never from you.”
He steps closer. The crowd hushes. Snowflakes swirl around us like confetti.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice breaking a little. “I should’ve stayed with you. Talked to you. Held your hand. I should’ve—” He swallows. “I should’ve been braver.”
My throat tightens. “Wells…”
He drops to one knee.
My breath leaves me.
Elsie squeals softly.
Gasps ripple through the crowd.
“I’m not proposing,” he says quickly, almost laughing as nerves make him ramble. “I mean, not yet — unless you wanted me to, in which case I’d do it right here — but what I am saying is…”
He reaches for my hand.
“I want you,” he says, voice steady for the first time since this whole mess began. “Not just until Christmas. Not just while the storm passes. Not just behind closed doors. I want you in real life, out here, with everyone knowing. If you’ll give me a chance.”
The world narrows to him.
His eyes.
His warmth.
Elsie’s hopeful little face beside him.
“Yes,” I whisper.
His shoulders sag with relief. He stands, pulls me into his arms, and kisses me — deeply, fully — right there in the middle of the square as cheers rise around us.
Elsie jumps up and down. “I told you! I told you you were in love!”
Her classmates gather around her, joining hands, and begin singing the song they rehearsed at school, voices rising bright and sweet into the snowy air.
Wells cups my face between his hands, foreheads touching, breath warm against my lips.
“Merry Christmas, Celia.”
“Merry Christmas,” I whisper back.
And then he kisses me again, slow and certain and full of promise, as the lights of the town shimmer around us.
Everything finally feels exactly, perfectly right.