I’d ask what had shifted.
And I wouldn’t let the night close without understanding how to bring her back to me.
TWENTY
JESS
Laughter, music, the clink of mug flights, and a hundred conversations threaded the early-evening chill, leaving the square humming. Behind the line of tents, everything was quieter. Dimmer. More like the breath between heartbeats. I’d slipped back here under the pretense of checking on the backup sanitizer, but really, I needed thirty seconds where no one asked me where the ornament twine was or whether the cocoa station needed more marshmallows.
Also, I needed thirty seconds where Powell wasn’t looking at me like he sensed something was broken.
Kelsey had Pour Decisions under control—she’d stepped into the marshmallow-meltdown with cheerful competence and declared herself “temporary cocoa czar”—so I didn’t even have an excuse to hide behind work anymore.
The canvas walls of the booths billowed gently with each breeze, lantern light bleeding through in warm, uneven patches. From here, the Twelve Stops looked magical: the glow of the garlands, the soft gold halo of the gazebo, the long strings of lights twinkling overhead like an improvised Milky Way. Somewhere nearby, Esmerelda brayed, probably demanding snacks from some unsuspecting child. People loved her. It madesense. She had an oversized head and no sense of boundaries; toddlers respected that.
I leaned a shoulder against the back corner of Mrs. Tyrell’s ornament tent, closed my eyes for a moment, and tried to breathe past the ache lodged beneath my ribs.
You’re being ridiculous, I told myself—not for the first time today.They didn’t mean anything by it.
But the old women’s voices had latched onto some deep, raw part of me: Powell would help anybody. He always does. That’s who he is.
I’d spent so long believing he didn’t care about me at all; now I was terrified to think he cared in a way that was different. Specific. About me and who I was to him. Or who he wanted me to be. And perhaps who I wanted to be for him.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of pine and powdered sugar. A faint scuff of boots preceded a familiar voice, low and warm and impossible to ignore. “Jess.”
I opened my eyes. Powell stood a few feet away, hands braced on his hips, chest rising like he’d jogged to get here. The festival lights framed him from behind, a soft glow catching on the edges of his hair. He looked worried in a way that shot straight to the tenderest part of me.
“You keep disappearing,” he said. “And every time I go to check on you, someone pulls me away. I finally told Moose to handle the elf-hat volunteers so I could come find you.”
I tried to muster something light, something that would put a little distance between us. “Sounds like a dereliction of duty.”
“Jess.” His voice softened. “Talk to me.”
I dropped my gaze to the pavement. “I’m fine.”
“Try again.”
I hated that he knew me this well. Three weeks of working side by side and somehow he could hear every lie in my voice like it was broadcast over loudspeaker.
He took a step closer—not cornering, simply closing the space enough to make it harder to run. “You’ve been off since yesterday. And yeah, you said you were tired and that you needed some space to get everything set up at the truck without us getting… distracted.”
A fresh mental video of that kiss on my counter began to play in my head, and heat climbed into my cheeks. “That wasn’t a lie.”
He exhaled. “Maybe not. But I notice things. Especially when it’s you.”
That did it. My throat tightened.
Of course he noticed. He always noticed.
I swallowed hard. “I’m not mad. I don’t want you thinking this is… some fight.”
“I didn’t think that,” he said gently. “I just think something’s hurting you. Tell me what it is.”
For a long moment, I stared at the lantern light flickering against the canvas, trying to gather the courage to say it out loud. Because the truth was embarrassing in a way that made my skin crawl. It was vulnerable. And vulnerability had never been my strong suit.
“It’s stupid,” I finally said.
“I doubt that.”
