3. Milo

THREE

MILO

I dimmed the lights and locked the front door. As I did, my fingers trembled slightly, so I slowed down, and a smile pulled on the corners of my mouth. Christian.

I resisted the urge to call him my Christian , although that had always been the way I thought of him in the privacy of my own head. He hadn’t been mine. There had never been time for him to become mine. And even if there had been, Christian had just discovered girls the summer I left Christmas Falls, so I never needed to witness us growing in different directions and my heart beating for someone who could never feel the same way about me.

Even so, my heart did speed up as I turned around and tucked the keys into the front pocket of my jeans. He was standing in a pool of light, as achingly beautiful as he was darkly broody. His dark hair was nearly black, his lips impossibly red, and his eyelashes long like a girl’s. He had a couple of inches on me, reaching just over six feet tall, no doubt, and he had a much more athletic build. I imagined that the big city life had treated him well, although Ms. Fairchild had hinted at some trouble. Christian’s mile-long gaze gave her words the truth.

“So,” Christian said, his voice crackling and husky. I wasn’t sure what sort of quality I had expected his voice to have—and imagining him in all the different ways had been the only thing I’d done in the last twenty-four hours—but this warm voice fit him perfectly. “Chocolate,” he added after a suspenseful pause, with just a hint of a question.

“Are you surprised?” I asked, joining him on the sidewalk in the light and slowly stretching one leg to start our easy walk to the Festival Museum.

“I’m not sure what I am,” Christian said. “But yes, maybe I’m surprised.”

I shrugged. “I was never gonna grow up to be a cowboy.”

We shared a laugh. “No, that was me,” he agreed. “It didn’t play out exactly as we imagined.”

When he smiled, it was like the chilly air warmed up. It was like he made the night less dark and lonely. There was a twinkle in his eyes that I remembered from school, from way before we’d ever been friends. Christian was the kind of guy everyone wanted to be around. He was the kind of guy you never expected would offer you his friendship, and when he did, it made you feel like you were the most special person in the entire school. I’d never dreamed of approaching him. He was a year above me—not an unbridgeable age gap unless you were nine and his age was in two digits already—and he’d noticed me looking at him from across the cafeteria.

Building a friendship with Christian had been the easiest thing in my life. My awkwardness didn’t bother him, and his forwardness and zest for mischief had pulled me out of my cocoon.

Few things had been so effortless in all the years I’d been in this world. And few things were so hard to lose as that. In the four years we’d spent together, we’d been inseparable. I remembered us running wild through long summer days while Tony Eggert visited Christian’s mother, using her old, unused piano to practice playing. We’d played every game imaginable and invented countless new ones, the games only we understood, and when the boyish life began to involve the talk of girls, it felt like a new frontier for us. It felt like something we were about to discover together. After playing cowboys, settlers, and pirates for years, we were embarking on a whole new adventure. Except, it wasn’t long before I realized no girl Christian mentioned sparked my curiosity the way she did Christian’s. No girl made me want to be alone with her after watching a movie downtown. The idea of kissing one terrified me. Did I really have to? Couldn’t things just be as they’d always been? Couldn’t it just be us?

But I’d hidden my jealousy. Christian was my best friend, so I never let him know how it pained me to hear he’d made plans to have ice cream with Anne or go on a walk with Ruby. It wouldn’t have been fair to tell him, especially when I didn’t understand it myself. Not for a while, at least. And once I did, I understood the cruel twist of fate that had put us on the opposite sides of a vast river with no way to bridge it.

“Milo?” Christian said, his tone worried.

“Huh?” I lifted my gaze to meet his beautiful face and discovered those cocoa eyes focused on me.

Christian gave a soft laugh. “You were worlds away.”

“Galaxies,” I said. “What did you ask me?”

“Why chocolate? How did you get into it?” he asked.

I let a small smile touch my lips. “Wouldn’t it be great if I could tell you how éclair had always left me wanting in our childhood, so I spent my youth chasing a fuller flavor that left me satisfied?”

“Yeah, that’d be pretty great,” Christian said.

I shrugged. “The truth is, I struggled to fit in after we’d moved, so I looked for things I could do by myself. I tried building models of ships, but then I had glue on my fingers for weeks. And a really crucial difference between glue and chocolate—and pay attention, this flies over most people’s heads—is that you can lick the chocolate off your fingers when you’ve finished.”

“But what about glue?” Christian asked seriously, playing along.

“I believe I remember a story that should have taught you what happens when you eat glue,” I said, referencing something he’d done in kindergarten that his parents would periodically bring up.

Christian reddened and shook his head. “Anyway…we were talking about you.”

“Right. So, ships didn’t work out too well. I’d made a very rudimentary model of the infamous Bounty , where the crew had mutinied against the captain if you know the story. But I hadn’t applied enough glue to hold it together once it all dried, so my hard labor started falling apart after a week. And it’s a running theme, really. I tried this and that, but clay is so damn hard to clean from under your fingernails, and after I mastered calligraphy, I saw no use for it. Making chocolate was pretty much an accident. I was making a chocolate glazing for a cake, went overboard, had a lot to throw away, and decided to make little bars that turned out pretty good, so I got interested in learning more about it.”

We took a few steps in silence, Christian deep in thought about my hobbies, and then he looked at me with those inexplicably sad eyes. “I didn’t realize you’d be lonely.”

It made no sense. I didn’t know why his words hurt, so I pretended they didn’t. “What about you? What did you do in high school?”

Christian was quiet for a moment, following my direction in the conversation. “It was weird when you left. I had friends, but it wasn’t the same. I wasn’t so close with anyone, so I kind of got busy studying and trying to score dates.”

I forced a hearty laugh. “With success?”

“In dating, yeah,” he said. “For some reason, all the boys my age were still too scared to ask the girls out. It never scared me. But the school suffered because of that. And when we discovered parties, it only went downhill. But those four years flew by way too quickly, and I was off to college like none of it happened. Now, that’s a whole different story. Girls in college were experienced in flirting, and they were pickier, so I had to learn a whole new thing.”

My smile remained on my face. I couldn’t possibly be jealous. It had been fifteen years. Just because he was geographically near me at the moment, my stupid heart had no reason to sink at those words.

“But college parties offered even more distractions, so I can’t say I passed all my classes with passing colors,” Christian said. “It took a while, but I wised up after graduating, moved to New York, and worked in advertising and public relations in various places. They tell you it’s a cutthroat place, but you can’t believe it until it cuts your throat.”

I winced. “That bad?”

Christian waved his hand off. “Ignore me. Life hasn’t turned out the way I thought.”

“You’re twenty-eight,” I said.

Christian glanced at me. “Right. Too young to have established connections and experience, but too old to excite a big deal CEO looking for fresh ideas.”

“It can’t be all that bad,” I mused.

Christian shrugged. “Seriously. Ignore me. I just got off that boat. I need to see where I stand.”

I nodded. “And are you dating?”

That was the wrong question. If he had been dating, he wouldn’t have returned to Christmas Falls. And Christian’s look was just as dark and hollow when he heard the question. He just shook his head.

The boy I once knew would have told me all about it. He would have invited me into his bedroom, offered me Joan’s homemade chocolate chip cookies, invited me into his sleigh-shaped bed, and told me about everything he’d done in the hours we’d been apart.

It was silly to expect it from a man I didn’t know at all. Yet the absence of that openness made my heart clench. And I decided, once again, to just give it time. The questions that burned in me had to wait. We had to get to know each other. We had to see if we were even capable of reconnecting, if we were interested in it. I had no reason to dig through the past the way my heart desired. Didn’t you get my card? Why haven’t you called? What happened to all the promises we’d made to one another? And why did it really take you a week to find me?

Part of me hoped I could get away with never asking him. I didn’t need my suspicions confirmed. I didn’t need to hear the blunt words informing me we had never been as close as I’d imagined. That, I thought, was the scariest answer of all.

“Here we are,” Christian said with something like a smile in his voice.

The Arts and Crafts Fair was a busy event. It lasted a while, but as November trickled into December and people flocked to Christmas Falls for their festive overload, the fair only became busier. Familiar faces were behind all the stalls, but I searched for Marigold and Nicholas as Christian and I slowly moved through the crowd. And in a prominent spot, with a table they shared, I spotted the wonders they had made with their own hands.

“Marigold told me that neither of them participated in a while,” I chatted with Christian. “But Nicholas has a lot of help in the shop, so he can take the time to just enjoy himself and socialize.”

“He’s hired people?” Christan asked.

“Sort of,” I said. “He hired Ezra, a newcomer from Chicago, but James returned last year, and he’s here for good. They’re together, and they run the whole business.”

Christian squinted, remembering James, who had been a child when he lost his parents one Christmas long ago. Nicholas had brought him up, but James had never been a happy child again.

“There they are,” Marigold declared as Christian and I walked up to their stall. The clutter on display was delightful. From toys piled upon toys to Marigold’s trinkets, the table displayed an array of crafts. “Look at these handsome boys, Nick.”

Nicholas Willoughby was as close to the real Santa as this town had to offer, although there were always at least a few Santas mingling with the crowds. Nicholas himself didn’t wear the red suit, but he did maintain a neat white beard, and he was impervious to cold, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and knee-length shorts while shoveling the snow in front of his store. He was also a skilled toymaker on a mission to bring joy.

“Let’s see,” Nicholas said, pushing his delicate glasses higher up his nose. “Christian Underwood, the top of the naughty list of oh-five, isn’t that right? What was the offense?” There was a jolly undertone to his booming voice that was infectious.

Christian’s shoulders shook with laughter. “Forgive, but never forget, eh?” He shook his head. “I atoned myself, didn’t I? I joined the carol singers for two weeks, lending them my angelic voice.”

“Hmm,” Nicholas said, considering. “You made a big mess in the ER, didn’t you?”

Christian blushed. “Nobody can consume that much raw cookie dough and keep it inside. But I think that’s enough embarrassing memories unless someone else wants a turn.”

Nicholas pushed himself out of his chair and made a slow way around the stall to put his arms around Christian. “It’s good to see you where you belong, Christian.”

“I said so just yesterday, didn’t I?” Marigold Fairchild chimed in. “Our young ones are coming home. More every year. And we have newcomers, too.”

“It does feel like the right place to be,” I mused quietly with Marigold while Nicholas questioned Christan about his family. I looked around. “Everyone’s so…cheerful.”

Conspiratorially, Marigold leaned toward me. “I overheard Scott and Anna, dear, and it really is none of my business, but can you imagine? Hank’s house is still completely dark. He hasn’t put a single Christmas light, and we’re already in December.”

“Why not?” I asked.

Marigold shook her head. “Busy, I suppose. And alone.”

My heart clenched. “Alone?”

Marigold shrugged. “That’s how I heard it. He’s all alone in there with his three dogs. Of course, dogs can be such a wonderful company, but they couldn’t care less if the house is dark or alight.”

That wouldn’t do. It just wouldn’t do. I filed that piece of information for later, but my brain was already turning. The solution was simple enough, so long as I had a partner in crime.

My gaze went to Christian. He was nodding attentively at whatever Nicholas was saying. My ears were drowned with the sound of my own heartbeat as I wondered if there was still enough of us in there to pull this off. Christian’s family was well-off, and they were a bit obsessed with festive decorations, even according to Christmas Falls standards. The Christian I once knew wouldn’t mind being my unassuming accomplice. Maybe this was as good an opportunity as any to find out if he was still the same person.

“And the sweet Remy,” Marigold said. “His father broke a leg, did you hear? He’s recovering just fine, but it’s such sad timing. He can barely move. Of course, Remy doesn’t expect his father to hop around, pulling all their cherished memories from boxes and hanging them on that wonderful arch, but this will be the first year they don’t do it, and it just breaks my heart. Remy’s late mother began that tradition, you know.” Marigold Fairchild chattered on, but my heart gave another clench, and I bit my lip.

I remembered Remy’s arch and the memorabilia that adorned it. “How sad,” I said, earning an agreeable nod from Marigold. I wondered if I should just show up at Remy’s place with a box of things, but I hadn’t even brought any memorabilia with me. Besides, it was a family tradition. Barging in on something like that felt intrusive.

This required some thinking. I remembered little Remy from around the town, although I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years. I probably wouldn’t recognize him if he stood right in front of me. Whoever he was today, after so long, it hurt to think of him being disappointed on Christmas. It hurt even more to think of him hiding that disappointment behind a brave face for the sake of his hurt dad.

I balled my fists. It was time to take things up a notch. I’d already shoveled snow off people’s driveways in the dead of night when sleep wouldn’t come and worry over the future of my shop kept me restless. Why should I meddle a little more? Someone had to.

Again, my gaze returned to Christian. The size of joy that filled me at the fact he was here was impossible to imagine. It was something so monumental that I felt like the universe was smiling down on me. Even if this were the extent of it, I wouldn’t be disappointed. Christian Underwood was in the town, and we had a whole new chance to be friends again.

I ignored the sad lurch of my heart when I drew the line there. Friends, but that was all. And it was enough, I kept telling myself. It was absolutely enough.

If only I could make myself believe that.