Chapter 20
The next morning was a study in forced cheerfulness, at least on my part.
I made coffee. He stared out the window.
I fed Jingle, who wisely chose to sit on the far side of the room.
I put on a bright red sweater with sequined reindeer and he didn’t comment.
I hummed “Jingle Bell Rock” and he didn’t tell me to stop.
The silence between us was a physical presence, heavy and cold, despite the functioning heater.
“Right,” I said, grabbing my purse. “I’m off to the market. Try not to unmake yourself while I’m gone.”
He didn’t smile. He just inclined his head, a gesture that felt more formal than friendly. “I will observe. As is my function.”
“Right. Your function.” I stood at the door, my hand on the knob, feeling like I was leaving behind something precious and irreplaceable. “Will you… will you be okay here alone?”
“I have existed for millennia in isolation. A few hours in your festive apartment will not break me.”
But the way he said it made me think that maybe, just maybe, it could.
I walked to the town square where the market had been set up.
Every stop I took away from the shop, from him, felt like walking through knee-deep mud.
The blizzard had left the town looking magically blanketed, but the magic was already fading.
The drifts were grimy with exhaust fumes, and the bright sun revealed the sad state of the pre-Christmas decorations.
The Holiday Market was in full swing, however, crammed into the square around the sad-looking gazebo.
Rows of wooden stalls had been set up, selling everything from kettle corn to handmade scarves. A portable speaker played an endless loop of pop Christmas carols, the cheerfulness of which was starting to feel forced. The air smelled of roasted nuts and wet wool and desperation.
I found my assigned stall, a small, rickety structure near the back. Jenna had agreed to help me and she was already there, setting up displays of my merchandise with her usual efficiency.
“There you are!” she called, waving a candy cane like a wand. “I was about to send out a search party. Did you get snowed in with your ridiculously handsome and scary consultant?”
“Something like that,” I said, forcing a brightness I didn’t feel. “The power went out.”
“Ooh. Romantic.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Was there snuggling for warmth?”
My face heated, the memory of Bastian’s arms around me, the solid warmth of him, the unexpected intimacy of it all, flooding back. “Strictly practical,” I said, which wasn’t entirely a lie.
“Right. ‘Practical.’” Jenna’s tone was skeptical. “Well, whatever you were doing, it worked. The town is buzzing. We’ve already had three people ask if ‘the tall guy’ will be here today.”
“Bastian is… observing the shop.”
“Too bad. A hot, glowering Krampus would definitely increase sales.” She arranged a display of glittery snowmen with an artist’s eye. “Speaking of sales, we need to move a lot of stock today, honey. That bank appointment is getting awfully close.”
The deadline. The blizzard. Grinchly. It all felt like a heavy cloak I couldn’t shrug off. “I know.”
“So,” Jenna said, her tone shifting to something more serious. “What’s the deal with you two? For real.”
I busied myself with arranging gift tags, my fingers fumbling with the thin cardboard. “There is no ‘me and two.’ He’s here to… assist.”
“You’ve got ‘assist’ written all over your face.” She put a hand on her hip, her expression softening. “Look, I know you. You wear your heart on your ridiculously festive sleeves. You like him. A lot.”
Of course she saw it. Jenna had been my best friend since we’d both gotten detention for putting tinsel on the anatomically correct skeleton in biology class. She knew all my tells.
“He’s complicated,” I finally settled on, the word feeling inadequate.
“They always are.” She sighed. “Just be careful, Noelle. He’s not exactly… from around here.”
“Tell me about it.” I pasted on a bright smile and turned to greet the first customers of the day, a family with three small children who immediately descended on the felt reindeer ornaments like a pack of wolves.
The market was a whirlwind. A steady stream of people flowed past our little stall. I smiled until my cheeks ached. I recommended ornaments for every taste and budget. I wrapped purchases with surgical precision, my hands moving on autopilot while my mind kept drifting back to my quiet shop.
To Bastian.
Was he okay? Was he still standing by the window, a lonely, imposing figure?
Or had he retreated to the stockroom, to the ordered sanctuary he’d created for himself?
The thought of him alone in that silent shop, with nothing but my grandmother’s ghost and a bunch of sparkly reindeer for company, made my chest ache.
“Hey.” Jenna’s gentle voice pulled me back. “You’ve been staring at that snow globe for five minutes. Everything okay?”
“Just… thinking.”
“About a certain dark and furry consultant?” she guessed correctly.
“We had a fight,” I admitted quietly, keeping my smile fixed for the customers browsing nearby. “A big one.”
“Oh, honey. What happened?”
“He…” I lowered my voice further. “He said what’s happening between us is just an… accident. A byproduct of being in close proximity.”
Jenna’s jaw dropped. “He did not.”
“He did.”
“Well, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not, though,” I sighed, adjusting a line of candy cane-striped ribbon. “He’s… not human, Jen. There are rules. Consequences.” I couldn’t bring myself to explain about being “unmade.” The words felt too heavy, too final for the bright, noisy marketplace.
“So he’s scared,” she stated, and the simple accuracy of it struck me. “All that big, scary talk, and he’s just scared.”
“I think so, yes.”
“Then you have two choices,” she said, her tone taking on that practical, no-nonsense quality I loved. “You can either back off and let him stew in his own grumpy, self-sabotaging misery, or you can show him that some ‘byproducts’ are worth the risk.”
“That’s… a lot of pressure.”
“Noelle, you run a shop dedicated to the most hopeful, optimistic, occasionally illogical holiday of the entire year. You believe in miracles and happy endings and the power of a well-placed bow. Are you really going to let a seven-foot-tall horned creature tell you that what you’re feeling isn’t real? ”
She had a point. A very good, very Jenna point.
The afternoon wore on, a blur of transactions and forced cheer. But my conversation with Jenna had planted a seed. A dangerous, hopeful little seed that refused to be stomped out. Every ornament I sold, every smile I forced, I found my thoughts straying to him.
“Okay, here’s a plan,” Jenna announced as we packed up the last of our inventory.
The sun was beginning to set, painting the grey clouds in streaks of pink and orange.
“We are going to close this stall, go get some of that disgusting fried dough you love, and then we are going to figure out how to make a Krampus realize he’s being an idiot. ”
“I don’t think fried dough is the solution to this particular problem,” I said, though my stomach rumbled at the thought.
“It’s the solution to most problems.” She snapped the last latch on a display case. “Besides, we earned it. We sold almost everything.”
We had. The market had been a surprising success. The cash box was heavy, and for the first time in months, the looming deadline on the shop’s loan felt… manageable. Not solved, but manageable.
As we turned the corner towards the food stalls, a familiar figure caught my eye.
Mr. Peterson, the hardware store owner, was talking animatedly with Mrs. Carmichael in front of the town’s sad, unlit Christmas tree.
As we got closer, I realized they weren’t just talking; they were stringing lights.
A small strand of multi-colored bulbs that they’d clearly salvaged from somewhere.
“What are you two doing?” I asked, a warmth spreading through my chest.
Mr. Peterson grunted, wrestling with a particularly stubborn bulb. “Tired of looking at this dark thing. A town without a lit tree is just… sad.”
“A town without hope is sadder,” Mrs. Carmichael added, patting his arm. “We figured a few lights were a start.”
It was more than a start. It was the exact kind of small, defiant act of joy Bastian had been talking about. My throat felt tight.
“Here,” I said, kneeling down and digging through the market leftovers in my basket. I pulled out a box of my favorite LED candle ornaments—the kind that flicker with a warm, realistic glow. “These might help. They’re battery operated.”
Mrs. Carmichael’s eyes lit up. “Oh, honey, they’re perfect.”
Jenna, bless her, didn’t say a word. She just took the other box of candles from my hands and started hanging them on the lowest branches.
We worked together in the fading light, our breath fogging in the cold.
We weren’t fixing the whole town. We weren’t even lighting the whole tree.
But we were lighting a small corner of it.
A handful of defiant, sparkling candles against the growing dark.
“I’ve got an idea,” Jenna said suddenly, her face alight. “We should start an ornament donation. Everyone brings one special ornament from home. Something meaningful. We hang it on the tree. A community tree. A tree of memories.”
It was brilliant. Simple, beautiful, and exactly the kind of thing that could bring people together.
“I love that,” I said.
“Then we do it,” Mrs. Carmichael said firmly. “I’ll announce it at the church social tomorrow.”
A small crowd had gathered to watch us, drawn by the flicker of light in the gloom. People started pulling out their phones, the little screens glowing like captured stars. Someone found a portable speaker and started playing a quiet instrumental version of “Silent Night.”
It wasn’t a big, dramatic transformation.
It was small and quiet and fragile. But it was real.
And as I stood back and looked at the handful of lights on the great dark tree, I felt that little seed inside me begin to sprout.
The one Jenna had planted. The one that refused to believe in byproducts and accidents.
I needed to go home.
“I have to go,” I said to Jenna, my heart starting to beat a frantic, hopeful rhythm.
“Go,” she said, shooing me away. “I’ll help Mr. Peterson with this mess. Go be… not byproducty.”
I hugged her tight, then grabbed my basket and started walking, not even bothering to wait for the fried dough.
Every step felt lighter, faster. I was practically running by the time I reached Main Street.
The lights of my shop glowed from within, a beacon in the twilight, and I could see a silhouette through the window.
Bastian.
I fumbled with my keys, my fingers clumsy with anticipation. The bells jingled as I pushed the door open.
The shop was immaculate. The ornaments were perfectly aligned. The garlands were symmetrical. The floor was clean enough to eat off of. It was a testament to his discipline, to his focus, to everything he claimed he was losing because of me.
He was standing by the main Christmas tree, adjusting a glittering silver star so it hung at precisely the right angle. He didn’t turn around, but he knew I was there. I could feel the shift in the air, the way the tension in his shoulders changed.
“I heard the bells,” he said, his voice a low, controlled rumble. “The market was successful?”
“I sold almost everything,” I said, my breath coming a little fast. “The whole town was there. And after it closed, we lit a few candles on the town tree. Just a handful. Mr. Peterson and Mrs. Carmichael started it, and then a crowd gathered. And Jenna had this idea, this wonderful idea, that everyone should donate an ornament, something with meaning, and we’d make it a community tree. ”
I was babbling, I knew. Words tumbling out in a frantic rush, trying to explain the fragile, hopeful thing I’d witnessed. I set my basket down on the counter with a thud.
“It was small,” I continued, moving towards him. “Just a few lights. But it was real. People weren’t just watching; they were participating. They were smiling. You should have seen it, Bastian. They were fighting back the dark.”
I stopped in front of him, so close I could see my reflection in his wide, serious eyes.
“Jenna told me something today,” I said, my voice dropping to a near whisper. “She said that you’re scared.”
He finally turned to face me fully. The defensiveness was still there, a hard shell around him, but there was something else too. A flicker of vulnerability in the depths of those ancient, amber eyes.
“Fear is irrelevant.”
“No, it’s not.” I reached up, not for his horns, not for the forbidden places, but for the solid warmth of his chest. My palm rested flat against him, over his heart, feeling the steady, reassuring beat.
A beat that belonged to him, not to some abstract entity of winter.
“It’s everything. You’re terrified that what you’re feeling, what we’re feeling, is going to destroy you. ”
His breath hitched. A barely perceptible reaction, but I felt it under my hand.
“It will,” he said, the word a rough, ragged confession.
“Then maybe being unmade is worth it,” I said softly, and a full-body tremor ran through him. His hands came up to cover mine, holding it against his chest like it was something precious, something fragile.
“Do not say that.”
“It’s the truth. You came here to judge me, to save my shop, and instead you found a community worth fighting for.
You found something more than just cold and punishment.
You found light.” I lifted my other hand, tracing the line of his jaw, the rough texture of his stubble a stark contrast to the soft fur on his cheeks.
“I’m not a distraction, Bastian. I’m a choice. ”
“A choice I cannot make.”
“Because you’re scared of the consequences.”
“Because the consequences are absolute.”
I leaned in, closing the last few inches between us, until my forehead rested against his. Our breath mingled in the space between our lips, warm and real.
“Then we’ll find a loophole,” I whispered. “There’s always a loophole. A forgotten clause. A Christmas miracle.”
His response was a low, pained sound, half-groan, half-laugh. “You are relentless.”
“I’m hopeful,” I corrected. “And right now, I’m hopeful that you’re going to kiss me again. Properly this time. Not because of the binding or because we’re trapped in a blizzard or because you’re angry at some businessman. Just because.”
His amber eyes searched mine, and I saw the war being waged in their depths. The centuries of duty versus the days he’d spent with me. The cold, hard facts versus the messy, complicated reality of what we’d become.
“Noelle,” he breathed, and my name on his lips was a surrender.