“Speaking of invitations to chaos, Angela and Heidi are trying to put together a girls’ night cookie exchange in a few days. They want to know if we’re free.”
“Girls’ night,” I repeat, a flicker of warmth lighting in my chest at the names. “Tell them you’re not. Tell them I might be.”
Molly opens the text and frowns at the screen. “I’m just going to say I’m wiped right now and see if they’ll let me send you as our representative.”
“Glad to be the emissary of sugar and gossip.”
She taps out the message, then drops the phone again. “God, I’m exhausted just from talking.”
“Perfect, because I need your grocery list.”
She groans. “I should come with you.”
“You should not.” I stand and snag the crumpled paper from the table. “You should nap. I will brave the wilds of the holiday grocery rush alone.”
“You don’t know where anything is anymore.”
“I have muscle memory. Also, I have a phone. I can text you if I get lost in the baking aisle.”
Molly sighs, then slumps deeper into the cushions. “Fine. Wake me up if the house catches fire.”
“I’ll consider it.”
I grab my coat, boots, and keys. At the door, I pause and look back. She is already half-asleep, her hand resting on the curve of her stomach in a way that makes my throat tighten again.
For a long time, I thought Molly’s life was the default setting. She stayed, she built the excursion business, she made this town work for her. I was the one who needed to leave, to see if I could be a person somewhere else.
Except “somewhere else” turned out to be a series of apartments in cities that never felt like home and jobs that treated me as replaceable while demanding unbridled loyalty.
Now I am back in the place I swore I’d outgrown, grocery list in hand, about to host a holiday I didn’t plan.
It should feel like I’m back with my tail between my legs.
Instead, oddly enough, it feels like a second chance.
The town grocery store is busier than I remember, carts crowded with people grabbing last-minute boxes of stuffing mix and cranberries. The Christmas playlist piping through the speakers hasn’t changed since we were teenagers. I could probably still sing every harmony line of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” from memory.
I steer a cart through the chaos, checking Molly’s list. Potatoes, green beans, cream, butter, rolls, enough pie ingredients to feed an army. The practical part of my brain starts building a timeline: what needs to be prepped tonight, what can be done tomorrow, how early I’ll need to get up on Christmas Eve. The rest of me drifts.
Past the bakery display, past the stack of pre-made cheese balls. Past the display piled high with peppermint hot cocoa tins.
I am halfway to the refrigerated section when my spine prickles.
No.
The universe cannot be that cruel.
I slow, telling myself it’s nothing, just the cold air from the freezer cases hitting my sweat-damp neck. I turn the cart down the next aisle.
And there he is.
Cyrus.
He stands in front of the refrigerated case, one hand on the handle, wearing a dark beanie and a flannel that has no business molding his chest that well. There is a dusting of snow still melting on his shoulders and a shadow of dark scruff along his jaw.
He’s wearing an expression that says he would rather be anywhere else than in the middle of this store surrounded by holly jolly chaos.
He looks exactly like he did the last night I saw him.
