Ben releases my hand and sits back in his seat. “How long are we going to be stuck here, Mimi?”
“That depends on you.”
“Depends on me, you mean.” My hand feels empty without Ben’s in it. Here we are, just getting started together, and I already feel like I’m failing him.
“Yes,” Mimi confirms.
“I realize that the way I’ve gone about things might be a little unorthodox, but you know what?” I scoot my chair closer to Ben’s. “I don’t do this whole love business, okay? I go on occasional dates. I hook up when the mood strikes. But I don’t open myself up to people. I don’t let anyone in. And Ben did that for me. He cracked me open like afreaking walnut in a Christmas nutcracker, which is maybe not the best metaphor but whatever, you get the point. And now you’re telling me we can’t go home until I what, build my own fucking bakery? Spend my whole life doing community service? Why should he be stuck here because of me? This is bullshit.” I finish my tirade like I’m finishing closing arguments, waiting for some kind of similarly rousing response.
Instead, Ben is full on fucking beaming and Mimi looks proud, despite my harsh words aimed directly at her.
“That was beautiful, Cam.” She pushes back her chair, coming around to our side of the table and hugging us both, the motion squishing our faces together. “I’m so happy for you guys, really, and I promise all hope is not lost. You can still find your way home.”
I gently tug out of her embrace so I can, you know, breathe again. “Thanks, Meem. We appreciate your support.”
“Yeah, we appreciate you,” Ben says, standing and taking my hand back in his, yanking me out of my seat. He pulls me along, the two of us practically running down the street toward our houses.
“Dude, where’s the fire?” I can barely get the words out.
Ben throws open his door, shutting it behind us just as quickly. “No fire, I just really needed to do this.”
And with that, my back hits the door as his lips crash down onmine.
24
Days pass, and there’s no other word to describe them aside from blissful. The snow eventually falls, blanketing Heart Springs in fluffy whiteness, the kind of snow that sticks but doesn’t slush, the kind that’s perfect for snowball fights and building snowmen but doesn’t get all gray and dirty.
Lights are strung up throughout the town, a ginormous tree erected in the town square, right next to the equally large menorah that gets lit in a nightly ceremony for the eight days of Hanukah. Each morning Emma slides holiday-themed treats onto the trays in the display case and by the time we’re ready to close up shop each day, all of them have sold.
A couple of days after Ben and I met with Mimi, Emma asks me to accompany her on an errand after closing. I agree, of course, because there’s not much I wouldn’t do for her.
She locks the front door of the bakery and turns to link her arm with mine. “So we only have a few-minute walk,but I need to know everything about you and Ben. What happened and how’s it all going?” We’ve been so busy lately, we’ve barely had time to breathe, let alone gossip.
I swear, all anyone has to do lately is say the name Ben and I’m grinning like an idiot, and today is no exception. “I don’t really know how it all happened, other than the two of us became friends and then it became clear that it was really something more.”
Emma sighs wistfully. “Ugh, just the way your voice changes when you speak about him is so freaking romantic.”
I nudge her with my elbow. “Well, pretty soon, that’s going to be you. Isn’t your date with Ethan this weekend?”
She grins and nods. “It is. I’m so excited, but also like super nervous. I never thought he would ask me out, but it’s finally happening.”
I don’t kill her buzz by reminding her he didn’t actually ask her out; I basically forced him into making the date. “It’s going to be fine. The two of you are perfect for each other.” I don’t really know enough about Ethan to be making such a claim, but Emma is amazing, and the little time I did spend with Ethan made me believe he’ll be just as amazing as she is.
“Have you and Ben…you know, taken things to the next level yet?” She waggles her eyebrows up and down, and I can’t help but laugh.
“No, we have not taken things to the next level yet.” Not that I haven’t wanted to. Not that he hasn’t wanted to, either. We’ve spent every evening together since our chat with Mimi, but we’ve been holding back before going all the way.
I think a large part of our hesitation stems from theunknown. What happens if we sleep together and wake up the next morning back in the real world? What happens if we don’t? If we do find our way back home, how do we know we’ll remember our time here in Heart Springs? What if opening myself up to love, opening myself up to Ben, somehow also leads to the greatest heartbreak I can imagine—losing him.
So yeah. For now, there will be no sexy times happening. Luckily, we have fingers and hands and mouths, and exploring the ways we can make each other come without going all the way has been a challenge we’re more than happy to face head on. I realize the whole thing is an extremely heteronormative way of looking at sex, in line with a lot of the other outdated rules about dating present in Heart Springs, but it’s allowed us to have the time to explore each other in a way I’ve never done with any other partner.
Just thinking about it sends a little shiver down my spine.
And then I see where Emma is taking us, and that shiver goes from hot and horny to cold and dready.
I pull Emma to a stop outside of Noah’s office, willing to stand in the freezing snow rather than make our way to the warmth inside. “Really, Em?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She bites her lip with worry. “I wanted to tell you, but I figured if I did, you wouldn’t come with me.”
