She drops her head back to my chest. “What if I don’t…what if… It’s only been a few days, Bran. You can’t say shit like that.” She pushes against me like she might get up, but I tighten my arm around her.
“When you know, you know,” I say simply.
She makes a small, distressed sound, and I pat her ass, gentling my tone. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way yet, Tally. Take your time.”
She huffs out a shaky breath, but the fight drains out of her. Inch by inch, her body relaxes, muscles unwinding over mine until her breathing evens out.
Within minutes, she’s out cold, soft weight heavy and trusting on my chest.
I stare at the ceiling, one hand splayed across her back, feeling every rise and fall.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I murmur to the quiet room.
To her. To myself.
To whatever monsters are listening.
TWENTY-NINE
TWIGGY
Floyd’sToyEmporiumhasbeen a staple of Lucy Falls since before I was born. One of the town’s cornerstone businesses, it takes up a prized corner lot on Main Street, all red-and-white striped awning and hand-painted signage that makes the big box stores off the highway look soulless by comparison.
Today the front window is a full-on spectacle: Santa’s workshop in miniature. It’s decorated with wooden workbenches and tiny hammers, elves and stuffed bears just waiting for children’s eyes. There are dozens of boxes wrapped in kraft paper and glossy red ribbon, each one tagged with a different name in looping script. Kids are already pressed to the glass, breath fogging the pane.
I grew up in this place. Not with toys, exactly—my brain preferred puzzles to plastic princesses—but Floyd’s always had the best selection of brain teasers and logic games for a fifty-mile radius.
People change. Algorithms change. The internet changed everything.
Somehow, Floyd’s never did.
I beeline straight for the puzzle aisle and feel something in my chest unclench when I see it: shelves and pegboards full of familiar boxes. Hanayama cast puzzles. Wooden burrs. Those awful impossible metal disentanglement things I love and hate in equal measure.
“I see some things never change,” I say, running my fingers over a battered favorite that’s been reprinted three times since I was a kid.
“Some of us know better than to mess with a good thing.”
I turn and grin as Floyd Junior ambles down the aisle, wiping his hands on his Santa-patterned apron. I give him a tight hug, inahling cardboard and peppermint.
“Place looks great,” I tell him. “And no, some things never will change. Love the window.”
He shrugs, pleased. “Figured it’d be good with having Santa and his elves visiting this year. We went big. Speaking of, your guy’s in the back getting into costume.” His mouth twitches. “He did not look happy.”
The mental image of Bran wrestling himself into a red velvet suit is so good I have to bite my lip.
“That’s just the way he looks,” I say. “Resting murder face.”
“As long as he’s jolly to the kids…” Floyd lifts his chin toward the front. “Community home’s on their way. You ready, Twig?”
Am I ready? To sit in a red dress and striped tights and let kids tug on my braids while my maybe-boyfriend plays mobster Santa?
Nope.
“Yes,” I say. “Totally ready. Let’s do this.”
Thebackroomisfilled with stacks of old cardboard, packing tape, and dust. Bran emerges from it like a pissed-off Yeti, his Santa coat hanging open, belt dangling, fake beard looped around his neck. The red velvet pulls tight across his shoulders, the hat listing to one side.
I snort. “You look like Santa after a bender.”
