Chapter Six
THE WINTER FESTIVAL happens every February in Jackson Hole.
Ice sculptures line the main street—swans and elk and abstract shapes that look impressive until they start melting around noon.
Local vendors set up booths selling hot cider, roasted nuts, and handmade scarves.
The whole town shows up, bundled in parkas and ski gear, taking pictures and pretending the cold doesn't hurt.
This year, Gail volunteers our café to run the main beverage station, which leaves me standing behind a folding table at two in the afternoon, serving hot cider to tourists and locals and trying very hard not to think about the fact that tomorrow is day five. Day five of
whatever this is with Santino. Day five of him coming in at seven-twenty-three. Day five of me still not knowing which version of him is real.
The professional one who answered that phone call.
Or the one who held my hand across a table and told me about go-karts.
"Two ciders, please."
I look up. Smile. Pour. Take payment. Make change. Everyone’s so busy with the festivities that I’ve become invisible, and I’m glad it’s so. I like serving, but I like it even more when I don’t have to make small talk while I’m serving. So this right now?
It’s pure bliss, just being the girl behind the counter who serves drinks and doesn't make eye contact and counts cups (forty-seven served so far) to keep herself calm.
"Thea!"
Jolie appears at the table, face pink from cold, Wuthering Heights somehow tucked into her coat pocket. "You need a break?"
"I'm fine."
"You've been standing here for three hours."
"I'm fine," I say again, pouring another cider.
She studies me with those too-perceptive eyes. "He's here."
My hand stills on the ladle. "What?"
"Santino. He's here. I saw him by the ice sculptures near the park." She pauses. "With Kimberly."
“Oh.”
“I just wanted you to be prepared in case you see them.”
“Thank you.” I go back to pouring cider. “I appreciate it.” Forty-eight cups. Forty-nine. Thank goodness there’s something to count.
Jolie looks like she wants to say something else, but then someone calls her name from
across the street, and she squeezes my shoulder once before disappearing
into the crowd.
My thoughts start to wander even as I continue serving and pouring cup after cup after cup.
I know You’re more than enough, God.
But it still hurts.
If he’s not for me, please give me a sign.
And as soon as I finish praying, that’s when I see them.
Santino’s walking down the main street with Kimberly glued to his side. Literally glued—her hand is wrapped around his arm, her fingers pressed into the dark fabric of his jacket, her body angled toward him like she's claiming territory. She's wearing white again. White coat,
white hat, white everything, coordinated and perfect and expensive-looking in that way that makes me feel like I showed up to a black-tie event in jeans.
And she's talking. Animated. Gesturing with her free hand while the other stays locked on his arm.
Introducing him to people they pass—I can see her doing it, see the way she touches his arm possessively every single time like she's proving a point, see the way she laughs at something someone says.
That laugh. Bright and perfect and the kind that
makes men look twice.
He's not laughing, though.
The look on his face...isn’t beautiful or brooding.
It’s just...blank.
It’s the same expression he had on the phone last night. All warmth gone, replaced by a mask that reveals nothing at all.
They're getting closer to my table, and I urge myself to look away and focus on something else. There’s still the next customer in line, another cup to pour, another person to serve.
So why do I keep stealing looks at our direction?
Why can’t I stop torturing myself with little peeks that only make my heart hurt every time I see Kimberly touch his arm like he’s already hers?
I wish I could stop counting about this, but I can’t. That’s the seventeenth time in three minutes that she’s touched his arm. Seventeenth!
They're twenty feet away now.
Fifteen.
Kimberly is talking to someone I recognize from the bank—a woman in her fifties who's nodding with interest at whatever Kimberly is saying. And Kimberly keeps touching his arm. Keeps laughing. Keeps standing so close to him that there's no space between them at all.
No gap to measure.
No inches to count.
Just Kimberly and Santino and the word ‘we’ that I can somehow hear even though she hasn't said it yet.
Ten feet away.
Kimberly sees me first, and her smile turns...
No.
Don’t think that.
Sara was pretty adamant about this in one of our Bible studies. Philippians 4:8 protects our minds from spiraling. So if it’s not noble, not right, not lovely or worthy of praise and so forth—
Just don’t think of it.
So I don’t.
I keep my thoughts blank even as I watch the other girl lean closer to Santino, her lips nearly brushing against his ear as she touches his arm for the 21st time.
He suddenly looks up at that moment, and my chest tightens when our gazes meet. There’s something in his eyes. Just something that almost makes me want to ask for an explanation. Because surely...
Surely he has one.
Right?
I force myself to look away. Refocus on the job at hand. It’s cup 55 now, but this time, my hands are shaking so bad that it takes more effort than usual to carefully pour cider into a cup.
Just don’t spill, just don’t spill, please don’t let anything spill, God.
Because I’m pretty sure Kimberly would know I’ve let her get under my skin if she sees me messing up.
I can feel him watching me even as Kimberly stares at him (I’m sure of this for some reason), and I just don’t get it. And him. I don’t get him at all. One moment, he makes me feel like I’m his world. The next moment, it’s as if I’m also invisible to his gaze.
Could it be that this is all a game to him?
That I’m so blinded by how beautiful he is that I don’t realize that maybe, just maybe...he’s not as nice as I think, and it’s exactly like Kimberly says? That he’s slumming it with me while he tries to figure out what’s the next goal for a hotshot racer like him?
My heart is aching so bad by the time they come close enough for me to hear what Kimberly’s saying. They’re not exactly next to my table, but Kimberly’s voice is just so...bright that it easily carries over the crowd.
"We've been spending a lot of time together," she's saying, and that sentence is performing Olympic-level gymnastics. "He's been showing me around. Teaching me about racing. It's been—" She laughs. Touches his arm for the 22nd time. "It's been wonderful."
The woman from the bank looks between them with interest. "Oh, how lovely! And will you be staying in Jackson Hole long, Mr. Aleotti?"
“It hasn’t been decided yet.”
Kimberly’s the one who says this, and the fact that he’s letting her answer on his behalf...
I just don’t understand what’s happening, God.
Please.
Please help me understand.
The woman from the bank smiles at Santino. "I hope you’ve been enjoying our little town while you’re here.”
“Oh, he is.” And for some reason, Kimberly looks at me while she says this. “I’m making sure of it.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I see him again.
He's walking back toward my table. Alone this time. No Kimberly attached to his arm. Just him in that dark jacket with snow starting to fall again, dusting his shoulders.
He's coming straight toward me.
No, no, no.
He reaches the table. Stops. Doesn't say anything at first. Just looks at me with an expression I can't read.
"Hot cider?" I ask, because apparently when faced with emotional complexity, my brain defaults to customer service.
"No. Thank you." His voice is quiet. Formal. "I would like to speak with you."
"I'm—”
“No, actually, forget that.”
Okaaaay.
“What I’d like instead is for you to dance with me.”
Uh...what?
"Dance with me, Thea.”
I square my shoulders, intending to turn him down, but Jolie suddenly shows up—
This is bad.
“I’ll take over,” my friend offers with a beam. “Go ahead and have fun.”
Why is she siding with him all the time? Like, seriously. Can’t she see how much I’m hurting?
I still intend to put my foot down...but it’s no use. These two are unstoppable as a team, and the next thing I know, Jolie already has my apron in her hand while Santino is taking my hand and...it’s suddenly so, so hard to breathe, with his warm fingers closing around mine.
I can feel people watching—and Kimberly has to be one of them since I can also feel someone shooting visual daggers at my back—as Santino’s other hand finds my waist. I should probably pull away or worry about all the attention we’re attracting.
But...here’s the thing.
I’m not just breathless now. I’m also mindless. It’s simply impossible to think when there’s no longer any space between our bodies, no longer any inches to count or distance to measure.
There’s just him, just us, and the music playing something slow and soft while the snow falling around us like we're inside one of those globes you shake.
“I’m sorry, Thea.”
Was he really?
“I know my actions may not show it, but this is one of those times I need you to believe in my words. I need you to believe in me when I say that there’s nothing going on between Kimberley and me.”
Then why were they together?
Why was he letting her touch him like he was hers?
And why was I such a coward...that I couldn’t make myself ask any of these out loud?
“I need you to believe me, Thea.” His hand tightens slightly on my waist, and I can
feel each finger individually, can feel the pressure and the warmth and the way he's holding me like I might disappear if he lets go. "There’s a reason behind it. But I’m worried you’ll misunderstand the truth, and that’s why...I just need you to believe me.”
I want to believe him so, so bad. But should I?
“Please.”