I pounded up the stairs after them. I washed my hair in record time and scrunched up my curls so they wouldn’t frizz. I put on a little makeup. Not much. Mascara. Liner. Lipstick. A little blush so I wouldn’t look like a ghost and perfume so I wouldn’t smell like French fries.
I yanked on jeans and black knee-high boots and a red sweater and threw a red and green scarf with dancing reindeer around my neck that I dug out of the back of my closet. I foundmy red ski jacket. I glanced in the mirror. Better. I didn’t look ghastly.
“Bye, Aunt Whiskey,” my cousins said.
“Bye, Whiskey!” Collins said.
“Make sure you get into trouble,” my mom yelled back. “Now’s the time in your life to be naughty! Santa won’t care!”
I turned the heat up in Helena’s car and dried my curls while we sang raunchy Christmas carols we learned from my mother and The Sisters when we were little girls. The moon was straight overhead, the sky clear and dark, the air brisk. As we sped through the night to the tree lighting, something we’d all done since we were babies, I felt it—a tiny, little glimmer of hope.
Helena pulled me close and gave me a kiss-smack on the cheek. “I love you, Bellini. Thanks for coming.”
I hugged her back.
“Give me a kiss, Bellini!” Jaxi yelled over the music. “One kiss! One smackeroo!”
10
Logan
Logan heard Beck and Colt ringing the doorbell to his loft then banging up the stairs.
“You’re going to the tree lighting,” Beck told him.
“You have to walk a hundred yards. That’s it,” Colt said. “Grab a coat.”
“No, I’m not going.”
“Why not?”
“I have to work.” Logan didn’t have to work. He could work, but he would probably read a book. Or play chess online with someone who didn’t want to go see a Christmas tree light up. He used to play with Bellini. She almost always won, but he’d been practicing these last years. He was getting better. Maybe not enough to beat Bellini, but he could try. He hoped. Maybe. Someday.
“You don’t have to work,” Beck said, scoffing. “Come on. Come with us. We go through this every year, and you always say no. Why don’t you say yes this year? One yes. One.”
Logan did not want to go to a tree lighting. He didn’t like Christmas anymore.
“Maybe we can get Colt a date,” Beck joked. “Someone visiting from out of town.”
“Me a date?” Colt exclaimed. “How about you?”
“I don’t need a date.”
“Yeah, man. You do.”
They started arguing about who needed a date most, and then they wondered who was more “undatable” because of various “challenging personal characteristics and major faults.”
“Hey, Logan,” Beck said. “I know that Jaxi and Helena and Collins went to get Bellini. They’re bringing her.”
Logan froze.
“She’s going to the tree lighting,” Colt said. “Got a text.” He held up his phone to prove it.
Silence descended as Colt and Beck waited. They knew Logan and Bellini’s history, but they didn’t know why Bellini had broken up with Logan. Logan didn’t talk about it. Neither did Bellini. They knew how much it had affected Logan, though. They’d known him his whole life, and he’d damn near shut down and out.
Logan turned and stared out the windows at the darkening mountains. He shouldn’t go. He had gone with Bellini for years as kids. And now he was supposed to go and see her there? And remember?
“Logan,” Colt said quietly, slapping him on the back. “Come on, man.”
