Page 88 of Pining for You

I kept waiting for everyone else to go to sleep so Eve and I could live in our own reality just for a little while. So I could quietly look into her eyes in the flickering light.

But by the time yawns started replacing yarns, my eyelids were drooping too. I fought sleep, the way I did when I waited up for Santa, the way I’ve done so many times for the moon. But before I knew it, I was on the couch, no memory of how I got there.

“You warm enough, Strudel?” The question was no more than a whisper against my ear as I felt a blanket wrap around me.

But then there was another whisper, this one from behind her. Carlos. “Hugo’s looking for you to tuck him in, Eve.”

“Be right there,” she whispered back, but she paused one more moment. “Rest easy, Strudel,” I remember her saying as I was on the edge of consciousness. “Two more sleeps…”

I lay there trying to hold on to the moment, to the smell of cinnamon that lingered after she left, until it all faded to black.

Now, after replaying this memory more than once, I want so badly for her to wake up so I can see that flicker of a smile on her face again. But I also know that once everyone is up, it’s only a matter of time until we have to go. We’re only a few hours away from the Bazaar, the party, the day and the traditions I’ve awaited for so long. Yet somehow, when I really search my feelings for what I want right now, rather than going back to what I’ve always said I wanted, those don’t feel at the top of the list. In this moment, I want to be right here, and I don’t want to wish a single second of this adventure away.

Maybe Eve has an internal clock calibrated to bakery hours too, though, because it isn’t more than fifteen minutes before I see her come down the stairs and make her way into the kitchen.

I wait a beat, trying to get up some courage and wrangle my hair, which I am one thousand percent certain is an unholy mess. Then very carefully, I lift myself off the couch, trying not to disturb Diya.

“Morning,” I whisper once I make it to the kitchen. I want to talk to Eve, be as close to her as last night, but I’m also hyperaware that I probably have some heinous morning breath. So I keep a safe distance.

“Oh, hey,” she says, as if it is totally normal for us to be meeting in her family’s Brooklyn kitchen before six a.m. “Merry Christmas.”

“Oh my god, yes! Merry Christmas Eve!” I whisper-shout, because there is never a way for me to be even remotely chill when it comes to those words. Then I pause. “I mean Merry Christmas, comma Eve. But also Merry Christmas no comma Eve? That’s confusing.”

“Let’s leave the grammar aside for now, shall we?” Eve says with a Get a grip expression that I can’t look away from. “Either way, we can officially say, one more sleep, right?”

“Dude, are you seriously quoting Kermit to me before coffee?” I ask.

Eve laughs through her nose, and wowwww, how is anyone that cute before they’re fully caffeinated?

“Speaking of which, does everyone drink coffee?” She’s looking at me with those melted chocolate eyes, and suddenly I’m a puddle. When I say nothing, she nods toward the living room and holds up the coffee bag.

“Um,” I say finally. “One hundred thousand percent. Those three without coffee would be like Santa without Christmas spirit. They’d cease to exist.”

“Great,” she says. “I just got this new one from my roaster in the neighborhood. It’s their Christmas blend, whatever that means.”

Eve begins the process of measuring out the grounds, but then she pauses to look out the window where the results of the Polar Quasar are on full display. There’s easily ten inches of fresh powder out there. I can’t remember the last time I saw that much in one storm. I want to run out there and build snowmen and make snow angels and go sledding all at once.

“The MTA already posted that there are gonna be serious delays, probably most of the day, so you guys definitely made the right move.”

I cautiously sidle up next to her. “Hard to believe it’s such a transportation menace when it’s so pretty,” I say.

“Yeah, I love it when it’s like this. All quiet and fresh,” she adds.

I want to keep looking at the scenery, but it’s so hard for me to take my eyes off her—her nose, her ears, her curls, her mouth.

“So… peaceful,” I say.

I don’t feel anything like peace, though. Because all I can feel is the heat from her body and everything in me is screaming that this could be my last chance to make a move. I shift my weight and lean closer, but I have no idea how to do this.

Eve takes a deep breath. I’m pretty sure she’s feeling what I’m feeling, because she turns her body, ever so slowly, in my direction, until there’s barely more than a breath between us and—

“The sun is shining and the roads are clear!” Tía calls out from the stairs. I’m not sure if this was meant to be a gentle wake-up call to the gang to get out of her house already, or a subtle heads-up to Eve and me that we’re about to have company, but either way we break apart.

“And most importantly, the electricity is back, which means the coffee can go on,” says Carlos, stepping into the kitchen.

Carlos looks awfully put together for six a.m., freshly showered and smelling of cologne and leather, which surely has nothing to do with the fact that Audra spent the night too, in the spare room. Tía insisted it was too late for her to go home alone and reminded her that she couldn’t be sure her own apartment had power or that the trains could get her there.

Diya appears in the doorway, flattening her curls with her hands as Cash and Izaac fold up the blankets they used on the couch. When they make their way into the kitchen, Audra is coming down the stairs, looking like she’s also had the benefit of a few minutes to herself for a rapid-fire morning glow-up. She and Carlos smile at each other, and the part of my brain that is trained to see love and romance everywhere lights up once more at the sight of those two.