I fixed the bow. I put the twine through the tag. I hung the wreath where it would make strangers smile. And I let the snow do its gentle, relentless work of covering sharp edges, at least for now.
For Callum and Lydia’s sake, I could be amicable. For my own sake, I could be honest later. Maybe not today. Maybe not until the heat behind my eyes cooled to something I could hold without burning.
Tonight I would stay at Lydia’s. I would not cry in a bar. I would eat famous hashbrowns and pretend they were armor.
And tomorrow—well. Tomorrow, I’d decide whether I was the woman who ran because someone existed before her, or the woman who stayed because she existed now.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Drew
Hurt made me quiet in all the wrong places. My head roared and my mouth forgot how to speak.
I stacked glasses that didn’t need stacking and wiped the bar until it shone like a confession. The stone was already clean. Didn’t matter. My hands needed a task, and my brain needed a muzzle. Every time I blinked, I saw Melanie’s mouth go tight…polite, brittle, the kind of smile people use when they’re trying not to bleed in public.
If I hadn’t treated this place like a revolving door once upon a time, maybe none of this would’ve happened. That was the loop: my greatest hits of idiocy. Years of flirting for sport, mistaking kindness for connection, intimacy for timing. I never lied, not really—but you can still leave wreckage without meaning to.
Then Melanie happened, and everything in me that used to reach by reflex just… stopped. I didn’t want the game anymore. I wanted the one person who made sarcasm sound like hope.
And then Janey walked in like the ghost of my bad reputation. Timing like a cruel joke. My past laminated, framed, and asking for hashbrowns right in front of the woman who made me want to grow up.
I told Melanie the truth. I didn’t flirt. I didn’t invite it. But truth doesn’t matter when the picture lies better than you can explain.
A gust rattled the windows. The snow outside thickened, erasing the edges of town. The Stag sat in that lull between the afternoon rush and whatever came next. Callum’s subtle warning—one loud clang of a pan that meantI’m here if you want to talk, but I won’t make you.
My phone chimed with a weather alert.
BLIZZARD WARNING. Roads closing by evening. Power outages likely.
Good. Something to do. Work was the only thing that didn’t argue.
I texted Lydia.
You setting up the center?
She wrote back.
Already here. Cots, blankets, batteries, cocoa. Bring muscle.
I smiled and texted.
On my way.
She answered with three hearts, a flexing arm, and a Santa hauling a generator. Classic Lydia.
Callum popped his head out from the kitchen. “That the bat signal?”
“Community center needs help.” I grabbed my coat from the peg. “You good to hold down here?”
“Yeah. Take the space heater and the cords. And Drew?”
I paused at the back door.
“I saw what you didn’t do,” he said simply. “For what it’s worth.”
My throat tightened. “Mel didn’t.”
“She will,” he said, no hesitation. “She’s mad at your past and herself. Give her a little time.”
