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Hannah, Age 25
When they opened the Carrigan’s Christmas Festival on November 1, Hannah had already been home for a month, after rage-quitting her assistant events manager job at a hotel in Chicago after the fifth time that month the manager threw her under the bus for something that was absolutely his fault. She had promised Cass she would get five years of experience running hotels out in the world after college before committing to coming back to run this tiny inn, in the middle of nowhere.
She knew Cass had only love for her niece in mind when she talked her into that promise. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t clipping Hannah’s wings, wasn’t forcing her into the family business unless Hannah really wanted it. It was appreciated, since the actual business that the rest of their family ran, Rosenstein’s Bread and Pastries, was full of aunts and uncles constantly trying to get her to join them.
But she’d seen the world. She’d spent her whole childhood seeing it, and she didn’t want to go anywhere.
Every day that she wasn’t at Carrigan’s was painful and getting more so. The panic she felt that something would go wrong without her was increasing with every year. Carrigan’s Christmasland was her harbor, and she was ready to put down anchor for good. So, two years ahead of schedule, here she was, working another Carrigan’s opening day.
Unlike the last few years, when he’d been busy with school or work, Blue was here, too, resentfully spending his birthday helping out his mom. Not resentment at his mom, who he adored, but at the imposition on the life he wanted to be leading, which wasn’t here at Carrigan’s. She’d expected him to be far away as soon as he finished culinary school, off to apprentice with some French chef who was as much of a smug asshole about food as he was, or working in some Michelin-star restaurant he would brag about forever.
She loved Blue, more than almost anyone, far more than she ought to, but even being in unrequited love with someone half your life couldn’t make you oblivious to all their faults. Blue Matthews loved his own talent too much and Carrigan’s too little to still be here. Yet, here he was, working under the bright lights of the kitchen to make sure his mom’s kitschy, old-fashioned appetizers that didn’t properly showcase his culinary genius went out perfectly and on time.
When they finally closed down for the night, she found him alone in the kitchen, wiping down all the counters and cleaning the knives.
She stood in the door and watched him, his long limbs and strong hands moving in a careful, precise dance. He’d learned it while they were apart, each at school, and it fascinated her to watch his body move in ways she’d never seen before. In the month they’d been back, they’d settled into their old friendship like slipping into a cool pond on a summer day, all at once and easy but with each wave, a thrilling little shock to the system.
“Little boy Blue,” she said, “I thought I might find you here.”
He looked up, and the shadows cast by the overhead light in the dark night made his eyes look hot, but Hannah knew better than to trick herself into believing she saw interest in Blue’s face. She’d spent too many years parsing every glance, every word from him to see if there was a crumb, even a scrap of evidence that he felt about her the way she did about him.
He flung his dishtowel over his shoulder and came to lean on the other half of the doorframe, one foot up, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Cass shouldn’t work you so hard,” he said, his face the sullen mask it always was when he talked about her aunt. “She doesn’t pay you enough. She’s taking advantage of how much you need this place.”
She wouldn’t let him dim her glow from a successful opening day. He could be as mad at the world as he wanted to be, but they were twenty-five freaking years old, and she was over his brooding teenager shit ruining her mood.
Actually. He wasn’t twenty-five, not as of this morning. She nudged his black leather boot with a battered Chuck Taylor.
“Hey. Happy birthday, you.”
“You remembered.” He ducked his head, and his hair swooped down into his eyes. She stopped herself from reaching up to brush it back.
“Have I ever forgotten your birthday? It does come on opening day every year.” She raised an eyebrow. This boy. As if she hadn’t spent a thousand hours imagining giving him a birthday kiss.
“The year I turned twelve you didn’t call or send a card, I seem to remember.”
“We were on an island in the Pacific with spotty mail service, and my parents wouldn’t let me use the sat phone to call you and sing to you!” she protested.
“I thought Miriam would be here by now,” he said, scratching at a burn scar on his arm, which he’d gotten trying to fry sufganiyot when they were nine.
“Cass says she’s not coming this year. Something about her dad? She wouldn’t tell me, but it sounded serious.”
He frowned, his brows slashing across his forehead.
“She promised me,” he said, then shook his head like he was trying to shake off the disappointment.
“I’m here?” Hannah offered, wanting him to say that she was just as good, that even though she was always trying to organize their Shenanigans into an itinerary, she was just as much fun as her cousin.
He scowled harder. “I know, that’s why I need Miriam here. She’s supposed to be my buffer.”
Hannah’s heart sank, her brain scrambling for some meaning that wasn’t as cruel as it sounded. He was her person, her best friend, her middle-of-the-night call. He couldn’t mean he needed Miriam around to be able to tolerate her. She couldn’t even begin to restructure her entire understanding of her life in the face of that possibility.
“A buffer for what, Blue?” she asked, angry at herself when her voice came out choked, but proud that she’d raised her eyes and looked at him instead of down at her shoes.
He glanced up, and she followed his eyes to the mistletoe hanging in the door frame above their heads. He pushed his foot off the wall and loomed over her, hooking an arm around her waist and pulling her into him so their bodies were flush.
What was happening?
