“I guess so.” He shrugs. “But I like Double D better.”
I laugh, turning my gaze back to the parade. Everything about Caleb and this night is unexpected.
“Hey!” The woman on the float in front of us points at me, shouting over the noise, “Did you grow up here?”
My brows lower in confusion. I don’t recognize her or know why she’s talking to me. “Yeah, did you?” If I had an angel sitting on my shoulder, maybe she could’ve stopped me from sounding so rude and indifferent with my reply, but when I answered, I didn’t have that luxury, so my words came out clipped with arrogance.
“I wasn’t talking to you.” She repositions her finger so she’s pointing at Caleb. “I was talking to him.”
My entire family breaks into laughter over what a presumptuous idiot I am, but the woman in her ski-bunny snow outfit—that somehow still manages to be sexy—keeps the conversation going as she moves farther down the street.
“You’re the YouTuber, right? Caleb Davidson.” She even cups her hand around her mouth so that her shouts can reach us as she floats away. “I love you! Call me!”
Caleb laughs, dropping his head with a modest charm that’s annoyingly cute.
“Oh my gosh, Summer.” Erin leans across her girls to make fun of me. “You were so put out and cocky with your answer, and she wasn’t even talking to you.”
“I was not put out or cocky,” I defend. “I just didn’t recognize her.”
Jeff laughs behind us. “Yeah, because she wasn’t talking to you. She was flirting with your boyfriend.”
“Not even her boyfriend.” Juliet looks back at Jeff and Anna. “She was flirting with her boyfriend’s twin.” I stiffen, worried that somehow Juliet figured out that Caleb isn’t the real Justin, but she looks directly at him and asks, “Is your twin brother a YouTuber?”
“Yeah, he does daredevil stunts and tricks in different places around the world.”
“He must be pretty famous if a woman can recognize him while standing on a float in the middle of a parade,” my dad says.
Caleb shrugs with more of that modest charm I’m trying not to notice.
“How many followers does he have?” Tommy asks.
“Um…” His blue eyes flash to me. “I don’t really know. A few.”
“What’s his account? I’ll look it up.” Tommy has his phone out, ready to investigate.
“His channel is down!” I blurt. “So you can’t look it up.”
I don’t know what Caleb’s account looks like, but I can’t risk someone from my family finding it and noticing that Caleb looks a lot like the version of Justin they know. I mean, yes, they’re identical, so they’re going to be similar, but we don’t need anyone drawing any comparisons between the two of them, because the more time I spend with Caleb, the more I see exactly how different they are from each other.
Tommy frowns. His fingers hover above his phone like he might try to Google him anyway just to fact-check me, so I use the art of distraction to put out this fire. “Look!” I point down the street. “Santa’s coming!”
The kids bounce and squeal with delight while all the parents get their phones ready to record. Crisis averted.
I glance over my shoulder to Caleb, just checking in to see where he’s at with the events of the last two minutes. But he’s already watching me, and the swaggering sparkle in his eyes starts a new crisis, but this time in my heart.
fifteen
CALEB
“We’re never gettingout of this traffic.” I look back and forth at the gridlock of headlights stopped along Main Street.
“That’s why my family parks just outside of town.” Summer shrugs, but you can barely see the action under the massive All-Weather Blanket parka draped over her.
“Yeah, well, you guys know the secrets of Telluride better than us outsiders.” I open the back door of my Bronco and put her camp chair inside, slamming it shut again. “What do you say we walk around town and look at the lights while we wait for traffic to clear out?”
I’m not sure she’ll say yes. I think the only reason Summer agreed to ride home with me instead of Juliet was because it would look bad in front of her family if she didn’t.
“Yeah, okay.” Her face brightens. “I love the downtown area at Christmastime.”
