“Right? I would love to come home for Christmas, but United apparently thinks I’m a millionaire.”
“Okay, yeah, no, that’s rude. That’s highway robbery. That’s… airway robbery.” I snort. “But like… you have to come home,” she says, instantly dramatic. “I literally refuse to do Christmas without you. Who’s going to sit on the counter and make fun of Dad’s sweater? Who’s going to bring the good hot cocoa mix and not that chalky stuff Mom buys? Who is going to purposely sing off-key when your dad inevitably forces us all to join in with his weird neighbors who like to sing carols?”
“Tell your mom to buy the good stuff.”
“She won’t! She thinks it ‘all tastes the same,’ and I’m like, no, Linda, it does not.”
I smile, because God, I miss them. I miss their loud kitchen and the way her mom kisses my cheek like I’m just another Bristol kid, and her dad’s ugly ornaments, and Maddie narrating Christmas movies like she’s doing a director’s cut.
“I miss you,” I say quietly.
“We miss you more,” she fires right back. “So. Solution time. You drive.”
“I was literally just looking at that. It’s fifteen-plus hours, Maddie.”
“You drove twelve once, remember?”
“I had you with me,” I point out. “And we sang ‘All I Want for Christmas’ until we almost crashed.”
“Because you can’t hit that note.”
“No one can hit that note.”
“Mariah can.”
“She’s not human.”
We both laugh, and for a second the ache eases. Then I picture myself in my car, snow blowing sideways across Nebraska or wherever, alone with my thoughts and a very real chance of texting her brother something reckless from a Love’s gas station.
I sigh. “I just don’t want to do it alone.”
“Yeah, that would suck,” she says, and there’s a little pause, like she just remembered something. “Oh my God. I forgot to tell you.”
“What?”
“Cole’s coming home for Christmas. Why didn’t I think of that in the first place!”
My spine snaps straight. “What?”
“Yeah!” She sounds annoyingly casual about it, like she didn’t just drop a live grenade into my living room. “He texted me liketwo days ago and said he’s probably coming. I was gonna tell you earlier but then the ornament thing happened and—whatever, point is, he’s coming. So just ride with him.”
Just ride with him.
Like it’s that simple. Like he hasn’t been so deep inside me while whispering wicked things in my ear as he chokes me.
“Oh,” I say, aiming for indifferent and probably landing somewhere in the vicinity of strangled. “He is?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What made him change his mind?” I try to sound bored, like I’m not waiting with bated breath to hear her sayhe fell in love with someone out here and wants to tell us about her.
“I don’t know,” she says, and I can hear cabinets opening. “He just said he wanted to be with us this year. Honestly, I was shocked. You know how he is about the holidays. I figured he’d do the whole ‘I have jobs lined up’ macho thing. But he said he’s driving home, and he wants to bring this surprise he made for Mom. So he’s definitely driving. You should just come with him.”
I blink rapidly, trying to think up any excuse not to that would make sense. “Yeah…” I drag the word out, twisting the blanket between my fingers. “I mean, that would… save me a ton of money.”
“Seven hundred dollars,” she says, scandalized. “You could buy so many presents with that. Or pay so many bills.”
“Thank you for reminding me I’m poor.”
