Page 9 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

“What, pull out?”

Maddie gives me a bland glare. “Crevice. Worst word ever.”

I tuck the cold stuff into the fridge. “You’d love it here. It’s gorgeous. I just don’t know how fun this will be on my own.”

Maddie’s expression softens. “You can do this, Ev.”

Can I, though?

I’m not automatically confident and daring just because I live in New York City. I’ve cultivated an intentionally small and mostly anonymous life in a place that happens to be huge. I’ve lived with Maddie in the same apartment for almost four years now, and our elderly neighbor still thinks my name is Stevie. I could go to my local bodega wearing a wizard robe and a luchador mask, and nobody would glance at me sideways.

Impulsively, I say, “I met a guy.” It’s like I need to mention Jake Frost out loud, so he doesn’t only exist inside my head.

“Shut up.” Maddie melodramatically bites a knuckle. “You met a guy? Like, intimately?”

“You know I don’t do hookups, babe.”

“Yet. The best men are like good coffee, Ev. Hot, strong, gone before nine a.m.”

I can imagine Maddie’s reaction if we’d arrived here together and she saw how little privacy there is. We’d have both been unwilling auditory participants in whatever sexual shenanigans the other got up to. These walls are thin, and the tiny bedroom upstairs doesn’t even have a door. There’s just a heavy damask curtain that couldn’t hide the noise of a moderate fart.

I’m done stowing the groceries, so I move to the loveseat and pull one of the pillows into my lap. “It’s weird that I can’t stop thinking about a complete stranger.”

“A stranger? I’m sorry, are we ten years old? Do you need an adult?”

“You’re kind of a bitch.”

Maddie grins. “How did you meet him?”

“I ran into him on the plane, then later at Heathrow, and then again at the coffee shop down the street from Paperwhite.”

“Sounds a bit stalker-adjacent.”

“Thank you. That’s what I said.”

“To who?”

“To him. And the people at the coffee shop. Quinn and Cherry, they’re lovely.”

“Aww, making friends already. What’s his name?”

“Jake Frost.”

“Shut up. Any relation to the prince of winter himself, Jack Frost?”

“Again, thank you. I made that same joke, but he didn’t think it was funny. I tried to look him up online. Couldn’t find anything. There’s a bunch of Jake Frosts. None are him.”

“Maybe his name is Jacob?” Maddie says.

“Tried that. It doesn’t matter, though. This man is way too hot and too well-dressed to not already have someone.” I lean forward on my elbows. “He even smells incredible. And the size of his hands, my god—”

“If you see him again, it’s a sign. It’s time for your mess era. This isn’t Hallmark. It’s the opening montage of a Hoemark story, and you’re the star, baby.” Maddie’s smile is diabolical.

Since Calvin and I ended, Maddie’s been recommending a palate cleanser of hedonistic hookups. But that’s her thing, not mine. She loves people, and she loves loving people. She’s mastered the art of what she calls “gratitude through impermanence.” She’s like the human manifestation of don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened, but make it horny.

Me? I’m at a point in my life where I’d rather set fire to everything to keep myself from getting burned. I know this is a sign of emotional immaturity. But that’s another one of the beautiful things about being alone. I don’t have to burden someone else with my flaws while I’m figuring out how to fix them.

“Get to know him,’ Maddie says. “It would make me feel less bad for abandoning you.”