Tomorrow, Eli would show up at the community center.
I’ll see him again. I want to hear him laugh. And maybe, just maybe, Noah would brush hands with him.
Totally by accident, of course.
If luck was on his side, he’d see that spark in Eli’s eyes again.
Someone tugged at his sleeve, and he glanced down, breaking into a huge smile when he saw Jimmy Melkin’s star-shaped lantern. “Hey, that’s awesome.”
The eight-year-old’s face glowed with pride. “It’s for my mom. I wanna make sure she sees it in the parade.”
“She’ll love it,” Noah assured him. Jimmy’s dad had passed the previous year in a road accident, and the town had pulled together to make sure his widow and little boy lacked for nothing.
“Okay, you can go,” Elsie announced, appearing at his side. “You’ve done your duty.” She smirked. “And you have the glitter in your hair to prove it.”
He groaned. “You’re telling me now?”
Her eyes sparkled. “But you look socute.”
Noah grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, accompanied by a drawn-out chorus of “Bye, Noah,” from several kids. Outside, a fresh layer of snow had fallen, and he trudged home through it, his breath fogging the air, his heart drumming too fast.
What if this time is different?
What if letting someone in doesn’t break me?
What if Eli Winters is the beginning of something, not the end?
Warmth settled in his chest.
Instead of going home, he went to his workshop, turned on one small lamp, and cleaned the workbench for the fourth time that week.
He wanted everything to look good, in case he had a visitor.
The man who’d held his hand in a hardware store like it was nothing—and made Noah feel everything.
Chapter Seven
Snow dustedthe sidewalks as Eli walked toward the Mapleford Community Center Monday morning, his breath clouding in front of him. He’d barely slept last night. He blamed the too-soft mattress. The too-warm room. The pie he’d eaten at 10 p.m.
It had nothing to do with the fact he was about to spend the morning working with Noah Carter, human sunshine, clipboard enthusiast, and—apparently—the older boy he’d once sketched obsessively at age fifteen.
He absolutely didnotblame that.
He pushed open the community center doors—and froze.
Chaos was an understatement.
The center looked as if Santa’s workshop had gotten into a bar fight with a craft store. Garlands lay in heaps, plastic storage bins were open, vomiting ornaments across the floor, and volunteers milled around in various stages of confusion and caffeine. Christmas music blasted from a Bluetooth speaker that had seen better days. The big hall looked as if a tinsel bomb had gone off. And if there was a patron saint of Tangled Christmas Lights, Eli was pretty sure they haunted the Community Center.
“Wow,” he muttered. “Christmas threw up. Or else this is a festive crime scene.”
“Right?” came a voice.
Noah stood by the stage, clipboard in hand. He wore dark jeans and a soft-looking faded green hoodie that made his eyes look more storm-cloud blue than usual. Across the front was printed MAPLEFORD LIGHTS UP DECEMBER. He looked as though he’d been up for hours and somehow still managed to radiate “human golden retriever who can lift heavy things.” More dangerously, he looked exactly like the memory of a seventeen-year-old leaning against the bleachers with a grin that Eli had once tried to capture on paper.
Eli’s pulse did a quiet little uptick, and he willed his own face not to do anything suspicious.
Noah crossed the room to meet him. “You came. I wasn’t sure if— I mean, I hoped you would?—”
