Page 21 of The Christmas Yes List

I force a smile. “I guess so.”

He’s won. Shockingly, the man has beat me yet again at my own game.

Okay.

That’s it.

Surely I should get at least half points for the full attempt at receiving a true rejection. I’m changing the rules of game. I for sure get a half point for this.

I give James a dozen opportunities to change his mind. “I’m slowing down,” I say as I move to a crawling five miles an hour to snag the perfect parking spot, then wait for him to speak up.

He nods. Grim and resolute.

“I’m stopping here,” I say, pulling up in front of Daniel’s Drugstore & Pharmacy. “Here I go.”

Nothing. The man’s gone back into stealth mode and is looking out the window like he’s alone in his own snow globe.

Finally, with the little red glow of the clock announcing that it’s 4:46 p.m., I turn the ignition off and, with some effort, open the car door with a loud craaaank.

I can play his game too, I guess.

I can do the silent thing.

Maybe that’ll scare him.

The sound of crunching from both of our shoes hitting snow—his noticeably the kind that probably should not be getting wet right now—fills the silence while we walk through the wide park median in the center of town. In the distance my ears pick up just the slightest drift of song, and I look to see the glowing coffee shop bustling with activity. It seems the whole world can fight and argue about everything except the belief that coffee is a core piece of life, and worth being stranded in a blizzard for.

The general sound of merrymaking comes in waves from said coffee shop, drifting on the snowflake breeze, and I turn my attention from the only visible bustle in town to the flapping of wings overhead. A cardinal flits from its perch on top of the currently fountainless fountain, a brilliant red streak across the otherwise gray sky. For a moment, it’s the only thing of color in a black-and-white world; then it lands on the giant town tree and pulls my gaze back down to my surroundings.

“It smells good,” James says, and I nod, catching first a whiff of coffee roasting, then the scent of succulent meat from the barbecue restaurant that seems to have replaced Foxglove Antiques.

Only a few open stores left in an otherwise shuttered town.

Snowflakes dart toward my lashes, and I draw my parka tighter around me and trudge on, hands pushed deeply into my pockets. The snow is sneaking into my ankle boots now and melting with a cold shiver down to the heel of my foot. The temperature nips at my nose and I sniff at an impending drip.

James doesn’t look like he’s faring much better. He shakes his foot every few steps, as though there’s any real chance of getting the shovel’s worth of snow out from his socks. Give up, dude. You wore loafers.

“Are we . . .” James asks hesitantly, “getting close?”

I nod. Thirty feet later, I stop at the tree.

He stops too.

I check my watch. It’s now 4:50 p.m.

“Okay,” I say simply.

He glances around, as though halfway expecting a chorus of carolers to jump out. He’s frowning, a deep etch of a line straight like an arrow between his brows, looking out of place. For a man who seems to live typically in control of every minute in his day, this must be a first.

I turn my attention to the tree.

His gaze follows mine.

Then I just wait.

For the record, ten minutes of silent staring in a snowstorm is actually the equivalent of five hours when it’s done with a practical stranger. Did you know that? Whole physics departments would do well to study the anomaly of time expanding in direly awkward circumstances, because after ten minutes of that with him, I’m pretty certain I’ve aged visibly.

I feel like we’ve lived a lifetime together. We may as well be a married couple.