5. Milo

FIVE

MILO

Ezra’s smile was infectious after he’d tripped over my doorstep and exclaimed, “Chocolate-dipped fiddlesticks.” He never swore.

“Hullo,” I said with a wave as Ezra straightened his back and walked over. He was a cheerful guy around my age. I had no doubt we would have been excellent friends twenty years ago had he lived in Christmas Falls. Ezra was becoming a good friend now.

“You’ve summoned me,” he declared, and we shared a laugh. Nearly a head shorter than me, Ezra looked up to meet my gaze from the other side of the counter.

“I have a favor to ask,” I said directly. “I’m happy to pay in chocolate treats.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal, my man,” he said, leaning in.

“Do you know where Hank Beaufort lives? The guy with three dogs,” I asked.

Ezra nodded. “Sure. He’s Scott Jersey’s guy.”

The familiar pang of something passed through me. Everyone was happily taken in this town. Everyone but me. I didn’t know how I felt about it deep down; I didn’t even know what to name this little glimmer of joy followed by disappointment every time I remembered just how happy all the couples were around here. “Yes. So, I was going to ask you to drop this off at his door when you get a chance. Just drop it there and run.”

Ezra ogled me. “Are we…are we blowing up Hank?”

I snort-chuckled and shook my head. “We are most certainly not blowing up Hank. He’s apparently too busy to be bothered to decorate his place, and, you know, living in a place called Christmas Falls makes it illegal to have no lights for Christmas.”

“That is factually correct,” Ezra agreed, nodding sagely. He peeked into the box. “And you figured to buy decorations for Hank?”

“Oh no,” I said. “I can barely afford my own. I’m just relaying the box from a Good Samaritan.”

“Got it,” Ezra said, narrowing his eyes in thought. “And I assume the Good Samaritan wants to remain anonymous.”

“Preferably,” I said. I wasn’t sure who to pin the blame on anyway. Christian was the provider of decoration, but Marigold put the wheels in motion, and Scott was the one talking about it like it needed to be fixed.

Widening his grin, Ezra looked at me. “There was talk of payment.”

I could barely hold back a laugh. Sliding a box of chocolates across the counter with Ezra and James’ names written on the label with little hearts flying around, I paid my dues for the favor. I had been meaning to give them a little gift for days. James was my most regular customer, after all.

Ezra melted at the sight of the gift and blushed. “I was kidding. You didn’t have to.”

I assured him it had always been part of the plan. “Enjoy them with your man.”

“This might even make him smile,” Ezra said cheekily, picking up the decorations and my gift to them.

“Oh, and one more thing,” I said before he turned away. “If you see Marigold before I do, could you tell her that I’ve been asking around? People are getting together to leave some trinkets on Remy’s arch. Nothing fancy, but some personal items, memorabilia, decorations, whatever they can think of that’s meaningful. Mable and Ruth were talking about it, too.” They weren’t, but they would be by the time I was finished with this. If someone wanted something broadcast in this town, all they had to do was ask Mable and Ruth to tell no one. “I’m still racking my brain to think of what to hang on it.”

“Why are we doing that again?” Ezra asked. It was typical for him to join the cause even when he didn’t know the details. I liked it.

“Marigold can tell it better, but Remy’s mom used to do that, and his dad continued since her passing. But he broke his leg, so he can’t, and the people feel bad for Remy, so they’re banding together.”

“This town…” Ezra was lost in his thoughts for a heartbeat or two. “It never stops surprising.”

I smiled at that before Ezra left.

Once I was alone, I got in touch with Mable, telling her that I’d heard it from Marigold. With Mable not liking Marigold very much—“What can I say, darling? You can never tell her anything in confidence.”—it was unlikely the two would cross paths and trace the rumor back to me.

The last thing I needed was for everyone to think I was cooking up some plot to promote myself and the shop the way they did in éclair. Every few years, they would pick up a cause and put their logo on every supposedly nice thing they did. It didn’t matter that their parent company was a massive polluter and that they sourced their chocolate from the most inhumane contractors, so long as they washed it all with a few charity runs.

This wasn’t about me or Jingle Bites. This was simply about doing what was right. And the truth was, it wasn’t even me who did it. I just mentioned it to people, and they did it all by themselves. If they think everyone else is doing it, they want to be involved , I thought. People—all people, but especially our townies—had an infinite capacity for good deeds. All it needed was a little nudge, a little tending to it, and it would blossom.

As I went around the shop after a day of work, I decided to make a batch of cookies before cleaning the oven. As boys, Christian and I used to make these instant cookies from the bottom shelf in the supermarket. They tasted like wet tissues with a lot of sugar, their chocolate chips a travesty, but they were also some of my favorite memories from childhood.

I slipped into the kitchen in the back and made the dough with nothing but the mixture from the bag, some eggs, and milk. When I had my cookies laid out for baking, I opened the oven and discovered that it was cold.

For a moment, I thought I must have gone crazy. I could have sworn I had turned it on to preheat. Then I looked, and sure enough, the oven was on.

Swallowing a pained whimper, I stared at the last thing I needed in my life: an unexpected expense.

I paced back and forth, wondering what to do. A professional was out of my budget, and the only person that came to mind was Christian. He’d always been handy. He’d always been curious about everything.

Moving my pride aside, I called him and explained what had happened. He said he had a good idea of what could have caused it and promised to be here quickly. It took him thirty minutes, but when the bell rang above the door, I leaped off my little stool in the kitchen and hurried to greet him.

“Thanks so much,” I said, exhaling a pent-up breath of air and anxiety. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

Christian’s face glimmered with mischief. “An electrician, I’d imagine.” He lifted a box that had a brand-new heating element depicted on the outside. “But I’m pretty sure I can fix it.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t think I would survive paying an electrician on moment’s notice.”

Christian walked after me into the kitchen, concern creasing his face when I looked at him over my shoulder. “Is it really that slow around here?”

I shrugged. He wasn’t somebody I needed to lie to about it. “I’ve got customers. Mostly individuals, you know. I break even most days, but…” I hesitated to speak the harsh truth. “It’s not sustainable. And I can’t deal with nasty surprises like this.”

Christian set the box down and examined the oven. It was a large appliance and one of the most important ones in my shop. So when Christian ran a hand through his dark hair, took off his coat, and rolled up the sleeves of his knitted sweater, I was already on the tips of my toes with worry. He began dismantling my oven, and I wrung my hands, feeling the pain that the oven itself couldn’t.

I watched Christian bend and kneel and get in there, his broad shoulders stretching the sweater tightly over his upper back, fingers greased as he reached for his tools, and the little grunts coming from his throat as he yanked the old heating element out of the oven.

Very deliberately, I didn’t look at his denim jeans or the way the sweater lifted and revealed a strip of flesh on the small of his back. I simply ignored his round butt even when he wiggled his hips and pulled himself out of the oven. I had to look away, or I would die.

Fifteen years hadn’t been enough to erase the old feelings. What I’d always told myself had been a boyish infatuation still roared loudly within me at this very moment, making my fingers tremble and my heart skip beats.

When Christian dusted his dirty hands with a satisfied smile, it pulled me back to the present. “Wanna try it out?”

“I’ve got our old cookies on the tray already,” I said, practically dancing across the kitchen to turn on the oven. By the time Christian washed his hands with hot water and soap, the oven was heated and ready. “I was going to invite you for cookies and The Nightmare Before Christmas .”

He dried his hands on the kitchen towel and crossed his arms, a smile going nowhere from his face. “Really?”

“Like we used to,” I said.

Christian nodded. He didn’t need me to remind him.

“But I guess fate had other plans,” I went on, looking at the oven. “Thank you. And I’ll give you the money for the heating element when…”

“Don’t think about it, Milo,” Christian said. He must have seen protest rising to my face because he added hurriedly, “Consider it an early Christmas present.”

I sealed my lips and took a moment to accept this. There wasn’t much pride left in me, to be honest, but I had hoped to spare Christian the burden. And here I was, accepting gifts from him.

Once they were ready, I pulled the tray of cookies from the oven and led the way to my studio. Just entering it with Christian, standing near my bed, was enough to make the heat rise through my body.

“You still like these, right?” I asked, gesturing to the cookies.

He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “I haven’t had these in years. But yeah, of course.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, facing the TV.

I sat down beside him on the bed, my knee brushing his. There was an awkward beat before I grabbed the remote and queued up The Nightmare Before Christmas . We used to watch this every fall as kids, back when everything was simple. Back when I didn’t overanalyze every glance, every touch.

The movie started, and we sat in silence for a while, both of us too focused on our thoughts to pay much attention to the screen. Christian leaned back, stretching his long legs out, but there was still that tightness in his expression. Our backs leaned on the pillows piled up against the wall, and the tray lay between us.

Christian was biting his lip, eyes glimmering with something like sadness.

“Hey,” I said softly. “You’re doing okay, right?”

He didn’t answer right away, his gaze fixed on the flickering TV. Finally, he sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know, Milo. Some days, I feel like I’m just…drifting. Like nothing I do is ever enough.”

I nodded, letting his words sink in.

“You’re here, though,” I said quietly. “That counts for something. And, for what it’s worth, you’ve always been enough to me.” I hadn’t thought it through. I hadn’t realized how heavily those words would make my face heat up.

Christian’s gaze flicked to my eyes, and there was something vulnerable in how he looked at me. I offered him a small smile and pushed the plate of cookies toward him, hoping the gesture would ease some of the heaviness between us. “That does make me feel a little better.” He picked up the cookie and ate it, careful not to leave crumbs all over the bed. “I guess I just miss the simpler times.”

“I think I do, too,” I admitted. “Especially…” I hesitated, but Christian waited patiently for me to go on. “Especially since you returned. I finally see how much it all changed since then.”

He formed a smile on his face that was almost real and not just something he did for my benefit. “You’ve made it, though,” he said in a reassuring voice. “All grown up.”

I barked a startled laugh. “I’m not sure about that. I’m not sure at all.”

“No?” he asked.

I shook my head and thought about it. Christian had leaned on one elbow, facing me instead of watching TV. I mirrored him without realizing what I was doing. When I looked into his eyes, we were much closer than we’d been at the start of the movie. “When we were kids,” I said softly, “I thought twenty-seven was ripe old age. I thought I’d be married, have a house, and probably even have kids by that time.”

“Really?” Christian asked. “Because I only thought I’d get to eat sweets before dinner. And not even that played out how I’d hoped.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed without restraint, and Christian’s face relaxed into a genuine smile. “Come over tomorrow before dinner. I’ll fix you up.”

“And just like that, all my childhood dreams have come true,” Christian said lightly.

The smile that tugged the corners of his lips beamed brightly and revealed his pearly teeth. He’d always had naturally white teeth. The image of his big, immovable smile and those brilliant teeth when he looked over his shoulder in a school hallway, and his gaze landed on my face was etched so deeply in my mind that it would never fade. It was the very first image my brain conjured up whenever I thought of Christian. He’d been a skinny kid with a long, slender face and high cheekbones, and the man who lay next to me was everything I had once imagined he would be. When I’d first fallen in love with him, he was what I thought I would have at the age of twenty-seven.

Our home.

Our furry babies.

Our life in Christmas Falls.

My face must have betrayed some of my feelings as I revisited this old, familiar fantasy of mine. I had imagined that the hope it sparked in me would be long gone by now. But then, I had never predicted seeing Christian again, returning to Christmas Falls, and being around him like before.

“What are you thinking about?” Christian asked.

I’m thinking about the fact that you had once been the love of my life. I’m thinking about the moment when you grinned at me, and I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I was nothing like other boys. I’m thinking about the single instant in time when everything changed. But I shook my head and said none of those things.

Perhaps I would have told him about it tonight. Maybe I would have opened up tonight and told him that he had been my first crush—maybe I wouldn’t have mentioned that I had never had another—if it weren’t for Christian’s little shake of the head as he looked at the screen. “Laura never wanted to watch this with me.”

He was straight, and I was not. What was the point in telling him about our ancient history? So I caught those stirring feelings, held them tightly, and pushed them down. They wanted to leap out of me, but I didn’t want to ruin a nice evening. I didn’t want to open that particular bottle of nostalgia. Especially not when I couldn’t swear that I was over it.

“She has no idea what she’s missing, then,” I said and thrust the plate of cookies to Christian, turning my attention to the screen.

This was good. When I never expected any of it, I didn’t need the whole cookie; I was fine with crumbs. So we kicked back and watched the final thirty minutes of our favorite holiday movie. I didn’t have a bright and brilliant future waiting for me at my doorstep like so many guys in Christmas Falls did, but I had my friend back. That had to be worth something.