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He doesn’t listen. He shouts something.

“Cami!”

My entire body freezes, and if I could look away from the man for a second, I would check to make sure my family members saw him too. Make sure he’s real and not just a hopeful figment of my imagination.

But I can’t look away, and he is real because other ladies are scolding him, and more pedestrians are ducking out of the way as he races down the sidewalk toward us, looking like a madman.

“Cami!” he shouts again, and this time he’s close enough for me to know, without a doubt, that it’s really him.

My Hallmark movie moment.

Patrick.

He’s here, in Colorado, in my hometown, at the light show that I told him about once, in passing, when he was overwhelmed by shopping and—I thought—not listening to me at all.

Patrick is here.

“Cami,” he says again, but this time his voice is quieter, because he’s come to a stop right in front of me, breathing hard, his face flushed, his hands reaching out for me but stopping short of touching me. Then, in a very un-Patrick-like fashion, he says, simply, “Hi.”

“Hi.” I’m bewildered, still not quite sure this is real. Maybe I took a bad fall on the ice and bumped my head, and now I’m imagining things.

Around us, my family has formed a circle, all watching with wide eyes and excited expressions. All of them have seen enough Hallmark movies to know what this is.

I can’t believe this is really happening.

And then, all at once, my vision begins to blur and the entire world peters out into black, with just the hint of a Christmas song crackling from the radio in the back of my mind.

CHAPTER 31

PATRICK

On the plane ride to Colorado, I pictured many things that might happen the moment I saw Cami again. I thought she might tell me to go home, might dump a thermos of half-warm hot cocoa over my head.

What I did not imagine was Cami’s eyes fluttering, her body swaying, and her falling forward into my arms, her body like a rag doll.

“Oh my God, Cami!” one of the women in the circle cries out at the same time an older man, who must be her father, steps forward.

“Hold on, it’s okay. She’s just a little overexcited.”

I lower Cami slowly, and her father lays out his coat on the sidewalk so I can put her down. My heart pounds in my chest as I look at her and as her mother kneels next to her.

“Cami, honey…”

Cami starts to blink, turning her head a bit, squinting against the bright Christmas lights above and around us.

“Patrick?” Cami rasps, looking at me like she can hardly believe I’m here.

I can’t believe I’m here. This is something a hero does—flying across the country to get her back. Coming here and finding her with her family, all of them watching us.

But if I want my life to look different, I have to act different.

“Cami,” I say, swallowing, eyes roaming over her in my arms. “I…I know this might not exactly be the perfect time to say this, but I’m sorry. For everything.”

Cami blinks hard, then pushes against my chest, like she wants to be let up. My stomach swoops with disappointment, but I stand, help her up, watch as her family crowds back in around us, her sisters—I assume—all talking at a mile a minute and asking her if she’s okay.

“She’s okay,” an older woman I assume to be her mother says, shaking her head and brushing some of the hair back from Cami’s face, straightening her beanie. “Remember, Cami used to faint all the time when she was⁠—”

“Well, I wouldn’t say all the time, Mom,” Cami interrupts weakly, and I look down to find that amidst all the chaos, her hand is still on my arm. Like I’m steadying her.