“You got that tattoo for real?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Yeah,” he said, watching me closely. “But don’t get any ideas. You’re not the only one with walls.”
“I didn’t ask you to have walls.”
“Didn’t have to,” he said. “You built mine for me.”
I should’ve been angry.
Instead, I was dizzy. The sound of the griddle, the chatter of the room, even the smell of cinnamon, all of it blurred into background noise.
We stood there, inches apart, staring at each other like the rest of the world had gone quiet. His eyes dropped to my mouth for the briefest moment, and my pulse tripped over itself.
“Drew,” I warned.
“Melanie,” he murmured.
“Don’t.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He grinned again, infuriatingly, beautiful, and went back to flipping a pancake as if my heart wasn’t doing gymnastics.
I exhaled shakily, grabbing the plate he slid toward me a minute later. “You’re infuriating.”
“I’m gifted.”
I muttered something unprintable and turned away, but his laughter followed me all the way back to the booth.
Lydia looked up from her stack of nametags, grinning like she’d just watched her favorite show. “Well,” she said. “The snow survived, but barely.”
I plunked my plate down. “I hate you.”
“No,” she said cheerfully. “You just hate that you don’t hate him.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but my stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. Lydia smirked, and I stabbed my pancake with a fork.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Maybe he makes good pancakes.”
“And maybe,” she said, leaning back, “he makes you a little crazy.”
“Crazy’s an understatement,” I said, but the corner of my mouth betrayed me, curling upward, just enough for her to see.
Outside, snow drifted past the windows, and Drew laughed at something one of the locals said, sleeves still rolled, tattoo catching the light.
Bah. Humbug.
I had the sinking, hopeless feeling that I was in way more trouble than I wanted to admit.
The second Lydia and I stepped outside The Rusty Stag, it hit me.
The town had somehow turned into a holiday movie set overnight. Strings of lights crisscrossed Main Street, glittering against the pale morning sky. Red ribbons looped around lampposts. Kids in puffy coats were rolling giant snowballs in the middle of the road for the snowman contest, even though more snow had been trucked in from somewhere else in case Mother Nature didn’t provide enough.
Lydia took a deep breath, her eyes shining. “Isn’t it perfect?”
“Perfect?” I echoed, scanning the chaos. “It’s like Santa’s workshop mated with a state fair.”
She grinned. “Exactly!”
