“You mean ladders and emotional turmoil?” Eli said.
“Mapleford,” Noah corrected with a smile. “Being in the middle of it.”
Eli swallowed once more. “Yeah. I guess.”
“So wewillsee you tomorrow?” Noah asked.
His tone was light, but the question was not.
Eli heard everything under it, the layers of hope, uncertainty, and something warm and careful.
The answer was surprisingly easy.
“Yeah,” Eli said. “I’ll be here.”
Noah’s smile broke across his face like sunrise. “Good.”
They stood in the cold for one beat too long, then Noah reached out and brushed a bit of stray pine needle from Eli’s shoulder.
It was nothing.
It was everything.
Eli froze, as did Noah. The touch lasted less than a second, but Eli felt it long after Noah’s hand had dropped.
Noah cleared his throat, his cheeks flushed. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Eli echoed, his voice low.
Noah turned away, walking back across the square, his hands shoved in his pockets, head ducked against the snow.
Eli watched him go. Something tugged deep inside him, the echo of a seventeen-year-old sketch and the pull of a grown man’s smile.
Just for the season, he reminded himself.
But the season wasn’t the problem.
The problem was Noah walking away with snow in his hair, looking back once with a smile that made Eli feel as though the ground had shifted under his feet.
The problem was that it didn’t feel temporary.
Not even a little.
Noah felt every muscle he owned, and a few he was pretty sure belonged to someone else. The last of the volunteers drifted off with goodbyes and promises to bring muffins tomorrow.
Dammit. He’d totally forgotten to buy himself something delicious. There was no way he was going back to the bakery, however. The chances of saying something unintended grew with every minute he spent with Eli.
“Get a grip,” Noah muttered to himself.
The day’s chaos settled around him in the quiet way early evening always did in Mapleford, with soft blue shadows, snow drifting, the tree now towering above the square, waiting for its lighting ceremony.
And speaking of the tree, a strand of lights had worked its way lose.
Noah went over to the lower branch, secured the lights—and a sting shot up his thumb.
Fuck. A splinter.
He examined his palm. Sure enough, a long, thin, very annoying piece of pine had planted itself deep in his skin.
