Margo sticks her head into my office around four.
“Garland.”
I look up from my laptop. “Yes, boss?”
She’s wearing lipstick that means she’s in a mood. “You’re coming to the finale tonight.”
“I have a deck due tomorrow,” I protest weakly.
“Your deck can wait,” she says. “The sponsor loved our numbers. They want us to capture one last burst of city holiday content for next year’s teaser. Also, you look like you’ve been living in that sweater for three days.”
“I have not,” I lie.
She arches a brow. “Wear the red coat. The one from Chimney Gorge. Meet me downstairs at six.”
My heart stutters. “Why?”
“Because I said so,” she sing-songs. “And because I have a surprise. Trust me, Garland. You’re going to want to see this.”
She disappears before I can argue.
I grumble at my screen, but an hour later I’m shrugging into the red coat anyway. The one from the Jubilee. The one that still smells faintly like cold air and pine if I inhale like a maniac.
I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Same brown eyes. Same curls. Same face that fell for a man on a mountain and tried to pretend it was just altitude.
“Get it together,” I tell my reflection. “You’re a professional. You can attend a lights festival without having a crisis.”
My reflection looks unconvinced, but she follows me downstairs anyway.
The plaza is buzzing.
The big tree in the center is still up, strung with white and gold lights that haven’t been turned on yet. Food trucks line the edges. Kids twirl with battery-operated sparkler wands. The air smells like kettle corn and roasted chestnuts and some kind of maple thing that makes my stomach grumble.
Margo is nowhere to be seen.
I tap out a quick text:Here. Where are you?
Her reply pops up instantly.
MARGO:Front steps. Face the tree. And… don’t hate me.
That’s ominous.
I step off the building’s front stoop and turn toward the tree, scanning for her.
I don’t see her.
I see the sleigh.
It’s not the full setup from Chimney Gorge—that would be insane—but it’s a smaller version, a two-person antique painted the same deep red, sleigh bells looped across the side. It’s parked on a stretch of fake snow laid over the plaza bricks. There are portable spotlights and a camera on a tripod and?—
My heart stops.
Rhett’s standing next to it.
For a second, I’m sure I’ve finally cracked. That I’ve conjured him out of daydreams and leftover trauma and the ghost of bells in my head.
But then he shifts, and the lights catch in his hair, and the breath I suck in hurts because it’s real.
