Page 103 of Pining for You

“Listen, I’m going to have a gift for you guys too, but I need a little time.”

“Well, we’ve got time,” Izaac says. “We’re happy to wait.”

I can already imagine a screening at my house. “But in the meantime, I wondered if you guys were free to come over tomorrow night? Naomi said she is going to bake biscuits.”

“Don’t toy with me, Bosley,” Cash says, more serious than I’ve ever seen him.

“I never joke about biscuits. And maybe we can even strategize for your next steps?”

“Actually, I have an update,” Cash says.

“Oh?” I look to Diya. She shrugs, as if to say that this is news to her as well.

“I got the apartment,” he says. I search his face, trying to determine how I should react. Do I congratulate him or cry? I can’t stand the idea that Cash will be leaving us so soon. But I’m not going to make the same mistake as this morning. It isn’t my place to tell him not to go, if this is what will make him happiest.

And he does look genuinely happy. Excited, even. So I clap my hands together and say, “Wow! I guess we know where we’re spending spring break then, huh? What’s the weather like in the city in April, O wise one?” I direct the last part to Diya.

“Actually, that reminds me I have a development too,” she says, and takes a dramatic sip of cider.

We wait as she swallows and clears her throat.

“Well, yesterday made me think about a lot of things. It may not have gone exactly as you hoped, Bosley, but you taking that risk, going after what you believed in… it inspired me.”

Izaac and Cash look like they are about to say something, but Diya stops them.

“So even though it scares me, I’m going to tell Seichi how I feel.”

“Ah!” Izaac gasps and claps his hands together, and Cash bounces in his bejeweled boots.

“Uh, love this news!” he squeals, then throws an arm around her in a signature Cash side squeeze.

“So, so proud of you,” I say, and drape an arm around Diya’s shoulder on the other side. “And… I may not have written the script myself, but I’m pretty damn sure you’re going to get your HEA with this one.”

Diya puts her head on my shoulder.

“Well then,” Izaac says, nodding to my camera. “You’d better get rolling. I want those fireworks immortalized on film.”

“I still can’t believe you guys did this,” I say, lifting the camera, shocked to have it in my hands. This isn’t Naomi’s camera, and I’m sad to have lost that one. But this one is mine, the start of a new story, and I’m choosing to be excited about that.

“Don’t worry, it was totally selfish,” Izaac says. “If I’m going to launch my own PR firm, I’m going to need a reliable videographer.”

I raise an eyebrow. “PR?”

Izaac shrugs. “Just exploring my options. The world is full of dreams you didn’t know you’d have,” he says. “Or at least, that’s something Audra showed me yesterday.”

I nod, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about since yesterday too.

“Now I suggest we try to hit the buffet,” Cash says, before I can get too deep into that thought. I put it on the shelf where his birthday once was for now.

I say yes, absolutely, because this lovefest distracted me from the fact that I am actually starving, but Izaac puts his hand out the way a driver throws an arm in front of a passenger at a sharp stop.

“Wait, you guys, is that…”

I follow his shocked expression to the door of the barn. What could possibly be so major?

And there it is. Softly falling, sparkling in the triangles cast by the parking lot lights. Unmistakable.

Snow. On Christmas Eve.