Page 11 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

I smile and roll my eyes. “Cute.”

“Isn’t he?” Cherry says. “Espresso today, Jake?”

“Please,” he says. He’s responding to Cherry, but he’s looking right at me. “I’ll go along. If she’s asking.”

Quinn approaches with a blocky old Polaroid camera, pausing to meet my gaze just before raising it to press the shutter button. “Here. For the photo wall.”

Something unspoken passes between us in that brief moment. Like Cherry taking my number, this is Quinn’s contribution to helping me feel safer here. An acknowledgment and a record that I exist in this time and place with them. If it makes Jake feel weird to be documented like this, he doesn’t show it. In fact, he leans closer so we’ll both fit in the frame.

Quinn snaps the photo, Cherry hands Jake a freshly pulled espresso, and then we’re left alone at the bar. Jake raises a knee to slide onto the stool beside me.

“I assumed you usually sat at the window table,” I say.

“Mm. What makes you think that?”

“Because it’s the best spot in the whole place.”

He chuckles. “You’re not wrong. But today, this is where you are.”

I groan and lean back, laughing. “Does this effortless British charm usually work for you?”

Jake looks thoughtful for a moment. “To be fair, here we’d simply call it ‘charm.’”

“Wow.” I close my eyes and shake my head.

“But yes, I suppose it does.” The warm color cast from his sweater makes his eyes look more golden than green today. “And I appreciate you calling it effortless. I’m actually trying very hard here.”

“Oh my god, you’re exhausting,” I laugh.

“You have no idea,” he drawls. Then he nods at my open book. “Not much that’s better than a good book and a good cup of coffee. Are you enjoying it?”

“You could say that.” I close the book and drift a finger over the cover. It’s a worn-out paperback edition of my favorite book of all time, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. “I’ve probably read it a hundred times.”

He sips his espresso. The tiny cup makes his hands look even more impressive. “That good, hm?”

“The best. I used to read it a few times a year, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to. I figured I’d get some free time on this trip to fit in a reread. Do you know it?”

Jake’s knees are angled towards mine. If I twisted on my stool an inch or two, we’d be touching. “I’m familiar with the title. Never read it though.”

“It might be a bit lost on you. It’s a coming-of-age story about a seventeen-year-old girl and her dysfunctional family in a crumbling castle in the English countryside.”

“Sounds bleak.”

“It’s probably more relatable for someone who was also a seventeen-year-old girl with a dysfunctional family at some point in her life.” I’m surprised at how easily this slips loose.

He knuckles his chin. “I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book more than once.”

That makes me swing around on the stool to face him, and my knee glances along his. “Are you serious?”

“Too many books out there to repeat the same one.” He traces a tiny star carved into the wood of the bar. “Do you know—if someone reads an average of ten books a year, that’s fewer than a thousand books in a lifetime?”

“How dare you,” I gasp.

Jake laughs. “It’s true. Do the maths.”

“Let me live under the delusion that I have time to read everything I’ll ever want.”

Again, he laughs. Then his expression sobers. “Why would someone reread the same book?”