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“What if I’ve already seen snow this year?”

What do you mean “What if I’ve already seen snow this year?” The answer, good sir, is NO, YOU CRAZY LADY, I’M GETTING OUT OF HERE.

My smile pinches. “You’ve never seen snow in Maple Hills.”

He grunts. Grunts. The way men do when they go outside and find their lawn mower isn’t working right. The kind of grunt that says, I’m not walking away from this project, but I’m certainly not happy about what I’m seeing right now.

“What’s the song?”

He’s kidding.

He’s. Got. To. Be. Kidding.

“‘Jingle Bells,’” I throw out.

“‘Jingle Bells,’” he repeats. Repeats!

“Yup.”

We stare at each other for one infinitely long moment.

“I’m not a singer,” he says.

“Neither am I,” I return.

This can’t be happening.

“And the dance is . . .”

We’re asking about the motions of the dance now?!

“Just a general show of festive erratic movement,” I say, and throw out a tiny jazz hand at my side. I wiggle my fingers.

He watches my wiggling fingers disdainfully.

“All right,” he says at last, though his expression screams that he is dead set against this plan.

Seriously.

All right?

“Great,” I say, brows furrowed in a mirror of his. “Ready?”

There’s another long pause. And then at the same time, we both say, “Go.”

Chapter 2

I’ve imagined myself in a lot of bizarre scenarios in my life, but never once did it occur to me that one day I’d be standing in a snow globe–swirling parking lot, with a man I just met, eyeing each other suspiciously as we sing “Jingle Bells.”

Our elbows half-heartedly jut out and jiggle at random beats. James’s knees bend on cue every other word. I throw in a little jazz-hand spin every now and again. And we sing on.

Silently daring each other to be the first to stop.

Neither of us is quite smiling. Sure, there are technically smiles on our lips, but the concerning, quite serious look of judgment in our eyes as we wonder how on earth we are both doing this is evident.

I mean, yes, I asked a crazy question, but he was supposed to say NO.

I know what’s going on in my frazzled brain. But what about his?