Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
CARTER
At three minutes to seven, I hustle down the stairs to meet Ashley at the front door.
I was surprised when she invited me to the dance tonight. Is it possible that she’s forgiven me fully?
As expected, Ashley is already waiting for me, coat and scarf on, fuzzy red earmuffs over her ears. She takes one look at my sweater and bursts into laughter.
God, the sound of it makes me want to puff out my chest as if I’m some superhero because I made her laugh.
One thing I’ve realized about Ashley is that she never laughs to be polite.
If she laughs, it means you’ve done something to earn it.
And for whatever reason, that makes me feel pretty damn special.
“Nice sweater.” Her grin makes her eyes sparkle.
I look at my chest where there’s a big Santa head, and underneath, it says Where My Hos At?
“Thanks. What are you wearing under all that?” The words come out weighted with innuendo, something I didn’t intend, at least not on a conscious level. She’s made it really clear that I blew my chance at having anything with her six months ago.
“You’ll see soon enough. It might blow your mind actually.” And she turns toward the door to leave.
Images of her in red lace and garters fill my mind. Which I’m sure isn’t what’s under her coat.
I follow her out to her truck and climb inside. The night air is crisp, and snowflakes float down to the ground, swirling up around the tires of the vehicle in front of us. It’s a quick drive to the community hall.
We follow the car in front of us into the parking lot, and Ashley finds a spot even though the lot is almost full.
I insist on paying for the tickets when we go inside, something Ashley tries to argue with me about, but I don’t back down.
Eventually, she says a reluctant “thank you” and stops arguing with me about it.
When we walk through the double doors, the first thing I notice is the large Christmas tree in the far corner, decorated with lights and what looks like paper decorations.
Loud music pumps out through speakers set up in every corner.
I don’t recognize the song, but it’s upbeat, and there’s a smattering of people on the dance floor.
This must be an adults-only dance, because there are no kids running around.
Food and drink are set up along one wall, and round tables are on the opposite side of the room—some full, some with only a person or two sitting at them. There’s a small stage about three feet up from the floor on the far end as well.
“C’mon, let’s hang our jackets up,” Ashley says. She nods toward our right and leads me to a rolling coat rack.
I grab a hanger and motion for her to remove her jacket.
“I can hang it up myself.” Her forehead wrinkles.
“Despite what every woman on a dating app might tell you, chivalry is not, in fact, dead.” I hold out my hand, waiting for her to give me her coat.
She rolls her eyes and unbuttons her coat, then slides it off her arms. As soon as her sweater is revealed, I bark out a laugh, unable to stop myself.
Ashley is wearing the women’s version of my sweater with pink sleeves rather than red. It too has a picture of Santa with the caption Where My Hos At? underneath.
“What are the chances?” There are tears in my eyes, I’m laughing so hard.
“As much as I hate to admit it, great minds think alike, I guess.” She hands me her coat, and I hang it up.
“Apparently, we have more in common than we thought.”
She says nothing, and as I hang up my own coat, I wonder if I overstepped.
When I turn back around, the two of us stand there awkwardly for a beat.
It’s a reminder that this isn’t a date. Because if this were a date, I’d tell her how pretty she looks tonight.
How I like the way she’s left her hair down and styled it in waves.
How her sweater hugs all her curves and makes it hard to tear my eyes off her.
How I wish I could drag her over to the mistletoe I spotted in the center of the room the minute we walked in and kiss her again.
But I don’t say any of that because I can’t.
Can’t take the chance that I’ll once again fuck this up.
What if I’m attracted to her only to discover that I can’t get her lookalike and my best friend Steph out of my head as soon as things turn hot and heavy?
It’s not a chance I can take, and I’ll never know the answer unless I put myself out there, so I’m at an impasse.
“Want to grab a drink?” I motion toward the food and drink table.
“Good idea.”
Ashley goes straight for the eggnog.
“You like eggnog?”
“I love eggnog.”
Yet another thing we have in common. “Same. I don’t understand people who hate it.”
“Me neither. It’s the best, and you only get to enjoy it for such a short time during the year. You have to take full advantage while you can.”
“Agreed.”
She picks up a large red paper cup decorated with green and red poinsettias. “Do you want the spiked version or unspiked?”
I think back to my very recent thoughts about how different I’d be acting if this were a date and say, “Unspiked please.” No need for a buzz to ruin the fact that we can now be civil to one another.
She nods and fills the cup, then grabs herself a cup of unspiked eggnog too.
“Cheers.” I hold up my cup, and we clink them together, then hold each other’s gaze as we tip back our glasses.
“Delicious.” She licks the corner of her mouth to remove a little of the eggnog.
I track the movement of her tongue, and it feels nearly impossible to strip my gaze away. When my eyes meet hers, it feels as though something shifts between us.
I quickly look away. “Do you come to this dance every year?”
She nods and sips her drink. “Yeah. It’s nice because it’s mostly just the people who live in town. A lot of the tourists leave after Santa Fest has wrapped up. Lets you catch up with neighbors you might not see during the long, cold winter.”
“You really enjoy small-town life, huh?” I take a healthy sip of my drink. God, this stuff is even better than I remember.
“I do. I grew up in Jacksonville, which you likely know because of Steph. It was pretty much the opposite of here—hot and highly populated. It wasn’t like I hated it or anything, but I never quite felt like I fit, never really was comfortable.”
Her words resonate with how I feel about my job.
“You found your happy place when you moved here.”
She smiles. “I did.”
The more time I spend with Ashley, the more I realize that she’s nothing like Steph.
Not just her laugh, but she has a small scar on the edge of her hairline too.
Steph dyed her hair blonde for her role on the TV show, but even before she did, I swear that Ashley’s red hair glints with more gold than Steph’s ever did.
But it’s not just the physical stuff. It’s who she is at her core.
She’s quieter and doesn’t seem to enjoy attention.
I love Steph, but Ashley is gentler, more sensitive, and more in tune with people and their feelings.
She seems to prefer a quieter life than her sister and takes pleasure in the little things.
I take another big gulp of my eggnog, unsure what’s going on with me.
“I’m an Oregon kid, so I’ve never spent Christmas anywhere warm. Always thought it would be weird, that without snow, it’d feel less like Christmas. What was it like in Florida? Did you have a palm tree as your Christmas tree?”
She gives me a bored, unimpressed look, but there’s a hint of a smile to suggest she likes me flirting with her. I’m way too old for those to be butterflies I’m feeling in my stomach.
“Very original there.” There’s her full smile again. “Florida has a different vibe, definitely. Sucking on candy canes when it was warm or needing sunblock while we watched for Santa at the Winterfest parade didn’t feel weird. But I didn’t realize how much I prefer this until I moved here.”
“Was Christmas a big deal in your house?” I’m not sure why Ashley seems so willing to open up to me at the moment, but I’m going to use it to my advantage.
She shrugs. “We celebrated Christmas, but it was never a huge deal around our house, you know? I always wished we had made it more of a focus. Maybe that’s part of why I fell in love with this town.” She sips her eggnog, and my eyes fixate on her mouth over the rim.
Get it together, man, she’s drinking eggnog, not sucking your dick.
“Then you’d be in shock with my family.” I finish my glass of eggnog.
“Oh yeah?”
“Last year, my parents booked a resort for my entire family. We have this competition every year where we play to win our picture as the star on the tree. I won the year before last.” Her eyebrows raise. “Yeah, admitting that out loud is kind of embarrassing.”
I love spending every Christmas with my family. It’s the one time of year everyone is in the same spot for an extended period of time. Now that Tre and Tessa have Ryah and Maisie, it’s even more critical. I don’t want to be the uncle my nieces don’t know.
The only thing that makes my smile falter is that Faith is a part of last year’s memory. Not because I’m sad she’s no longer in my life, but because I wish I’d already met the right person, my person, so I can share my family’s crazy traditions with them.
I push a hand through my hair. Jesus, since when do the holidays make me so sentimental and introspective? “I’m going to get a refill. You want some?”
Ashley shakes her head and holds up her cup. “Still working on mine.”
I return shortly with a fresh cup of eggnog. We chat for a while longer, while some of Ashley’s friends and neighbors stop by to say hello. Everyone seems really nice, but more than that, they seem to really adore Ashley. I understand why because I’m starting to adore her too.
“We need to fill out ornaments on the tree.” She hastily finishes her eggnog.
“I’m assuming that’s why there are paper ornaments all over the tree?”
“Yeah, it’s a Mistletoe Falls tradition. They say that every year, one person who puts a wish on the tree has their wish come true.”
I chuckle, but she doesn’t, so I clear my throat. “Is that so?”
“I’m serious.” She takes my hand, dragging me toward the Christmas tree in the far corner.
I’m too stunned to say anything, stuck on the softness of her palm in mine. Maybe it’s just her good mood. I have noticed that as the night has gone on, she’s coming out of her shell.
So I don’t spill it, I down the rest of my eggnog and toss the empty cup in the garbage as we pass by.
When we reach the tree, she points at a small round table beside it.
There are bell-shaped pieces of paper and markers scattered over it.
“You write down the wish of your heart. The one thing you truly want the most. And if you do, and you put it on the tree, yours might be the one that comes true.”
My eyebrows raise. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not. Mrs. Wilkinson wrote down that she wanted her cat to make a miraculous recovery, and he did. The vet told her the day before that he only had less than a week to live. Explain that.” She crosses her arms in the cute way she gets all defensive when she’s trying to prove me wrong.
“Easy. The vet was looking at another cat’s chart? The cat found the will to live?”
She rolls her eyes and grabs a piece of paper and a marker, shoving both into my chest. “Whether you believe it or not, write down your wish. You’ve got nothing to lose, right?”
She has a point, so I take the paper and marker, walking to the other side of the table to write down my wish. Nothing comes to me.
I lean over the table, one palm pressed to it, the other holding the marker, considering what my wish really is. If I could make a wish and know it would come true, what would I wish for? To start a successful business? Sure, that’s important to me.
Across from me, Ashley scribbles something on her piece of paper. I’m so tempted to peek and see what she’s written.
The wish of my heart…
What does that even mean?
I quiet my thoughts and close my eyes, telling myself to picture what I would want if I could have anything. Slowly, an image forms. It’s blurry at first with no defined edges, then it slowly comes into focus.
The marker slips from my grasp, rolling along the table.
“What’s wrong?” Ashley asks, eyebrows knit with concern.
I’m not telling her of all people.
The picture I just saw in my head was Ashley smiling at me from across a room I’ve never been in, which wouldn’t be a huge deal if she weren’t also wearing a wedding dress.