“Charlie?” I blink, setting the Santa mug down. “What are you…?” My gaze flicks to the garment bags. “Did you rob a bridal shop?”
“Better.” She strides in, kicking the door shut behind her with her boot heel.
She drops the garment bags carefully over the back of one of the few remaining chairs and plonks the champagne bottle onto the counter beside Mrs. Gable’s lasagna and Mr. Henderson’s poinsettia.
“Tonight,” she announces, unwinding her scarf with a flourish, “is the Chicago Blades Annual Charity Snowflake Gala.”
I stare at her. The Blades. Denton’s team.
“Charlie, no. Absolutely not.” I shake my head, turning back to the box of mugs. “I’m not going anywhere near that.”
“Oh, yes you are,” she counters, her voice leaving no room for argument. She shrugs out of her coat, tossing it onto another chair. There’s a determined set to her jaw I know well.
“We have tickets. Courtesy of my cousin, George, who’s good friends with one of the players.”
She gestures grandly at the garment bags. “We are getting gloriously buzzed on champagne first. And you, Holly James, are going to walk into that room wearing something so devastatinglyfabulous that Denton ‘The Wall’ Blake will spontaneously combust with regret the second he lays eyes on you.”
Her words are a deliberate assault on my carefully constructed cocoon of despair. The sheer audacity of this crazy plan leaves me momentarily speechless. I grip the edge of the counter, trying to steady myself.
“Charlie, look around,” I say, my voice low and strained. I gesture at the boxes, the stripped shelves. “My life is in cardboard boxes. My heart feels like someone ran it through the industrial dough sheeter. I just want to crawl upstairs, put on my rattiest pajamas, eat Mrs. Gable’s entire lasagna by myself, and not come out until… until springtime.”
The thought of facing a room full of glittering hockey people, of potentially seeinghim… it makes my stomach churn. “I can’t.”
“Can’t?” Charlie plants her hands on her hips, stepping closer. Her dark eyes lock onto mine, fierce and unwavering. “Or won’t?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. “He doesn’t get to do this to you, Hols. He doesn’t get to break your heart and dictate how you spend your last holiday season in this place.”
She sweeps her arm out, taking in the bakery. “This place thatyoubuilt. This community thatyoubrought together. He walked away from it. Fine. Let him. But you?” She points at me. “You are not crawling away. You are not letting him steal your sparkle.”
Her words hit a nerve. A raw, exposed nerve I’d been trying to bury. The numbness recedes, replaced by a slow, simmering anger.
“My sparkle feels gone, Charlie,” I mutter, looking down at my worn sweater. I haven’t showered, my hair is piled into a greasy disaster. I look like I feel: completely wrecked.
“Then it’s time to reignite it,” Charlie says firmly. She walks over to the garment bags, unzips the first one and pulls out adress. Not just any dress. It’s a cascade of dark emerald green velvet, cut in a simple but elegant silhouette that hints at vintage glamour. The fabric looks luxuriously soft, catching the dim light.
“Emerald for defiance,” Charlie declares, holding it up. “To match your eyes when you’re plotting something deliciously wicked.” She grins, a flash of her usual mischief breaking through the intensity.
“I might have called in amajorfavor with my friend Cassandra who works at Nordstrom. This,” she pats the velvet, “retails for more than my car’s worth. But screw it. We’re going full Cinderella. Minus the pumpkin, plus copious amounts of champagne.”
She unzips the second bag. This one holds a dress of deep, shimmering burgundy, with delicate straps and a subtle sparkle woven into the fabric. It’s undeniably stunning. Charlie holds them both up. “Pick your armor, my lady. Tonight, we storm the castle.”
I stare at the dresses. The rich colors seem impossibly vibrant against the gray backdrop of my half-packed bakery. The velvet looks soft enough to sink into. The burgundy shimmers with a promise of… something. Not hope. But maybe defiance. A refusal to be invisible. A refusal to let him see me broken.
The simmering anger shifts into something else. Charlie’s right. Denton doesn’t get to steal Christmas from me. If this is the end, if Sugar Rush is really gone… then I’m going out strong.
A slow, unfamiliar sensation spreads through my chest. It’s not happiness. It’s not even optimism. It’s pure, unadulteratedscrew you. A spark, tiny but fierce, flickering defiantly inside me.
I look from the emerald velvet to the shimmering burgundy, then back at Charlie’s determined face. The tiniest of smiles touch my lips.
“Fine,” I say, the word coming out clearer, stronger than I expected. I point at the emerald dress. “I’ll go. But only if there’sactuallycopious amounts of champagne involved.”
Charlie’s answering grin is triumphant. “Atta girl.” She pushes the emerald dress towards me.
“Now, upstairs. Shower. Chop chop. We have a gala to crash and a certain hockey player’s night to ruin.” She grabs the bottle of champagne. “And we’re definitely cracking this open for pre-gala fortification.”
As I gather the impossibly soft velvet in my arms, that tiny spark inside me flares a little brighter. Defiance, it turns out, feels a lot better than numbness.
Tonight, I wear the beautiful green dress. Tonight, I drink the champagne. Tonight, I show Denton Blake exactly what he walked away from.
