“Nope, just rescheduled for the twenty-sixth.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Oh, thank God.”
I understood. Her reaction wasn’t just about the event itself, but rather about what it represented. The opportunity to rebuild what she’d lost, to show the town what she could do. I’d have paid her regardless, but that wasn’t what mattered to her. The work itself was the point.
I sat down on the couch, leaving Holly to her nest. She looked comfortable now, the color fully back in her face, her hair in loose, messy waves. Beautiful.
“Are you warming up?” I asked.
“Getting there. Though I think it’s going to take a while before I stop feeling like a popsicle.”
“Take your time. We’re not going anywhere. Literally.”
She settled deeper into the blankets, turning so she was facing me instead of the fire, her legs crossed in front of her. “This is very cozy.”
“It is.”
“Some might even say romantic.”
My heart kicked against my ribs. “Would they?”
Her eyes glinted with something playful. “The hero braving a deadly ice storm to rescue the damsel in distress. Like one of my romance novels.”
I didn’t know the first thing about romance—real or fictional. My one relationship had been devoid of anything resembling grand gestures or swoony moments. But if Holly thought me driving across town because I couldn’t stand the idea of her being cold was romance, then maybe it was.
I liked the idea of her seeing me in that context. As someone who could be romantic, even if I didn’t fully understand the parameters.
“I think,” I said carefully, “that I’m glad you’re here. Safe and warm.”
“See?” She smiled, that soft expression that made it hard to breathe. “Romantic. Whether you meant it that way or not.”
She shifted, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. The movement made the blanket slip off one shoulder, and she tugged it back up absently.
I found myself leaning forward, settling my elbows on my knees, drawn toward her without consciously deciding to move.
“Speaking of romance,” she said, tilting her head to study me. “The other night, you mentioned you hadn’t been on a date in years that wasn’t a setup.”
I felt my shoulders tense, every instinct telling me to deflect or change the subject. But I stayed still and held her gaze. I knew her story—the canceled wedding, the humiliation that followed, the year that had dismantled her life. She deserved to know mine.
“That’s … true.” Both the fact that I’d said it, and the fact that I hadn’t had a relationship in more than a decade.
“Why is that?” she asked, her tone blatantly curious.
I ran a hand through my hair, gripping it at the roots before letting it go and dropping my hand back down to rest on my thigh. “I’ve never been good with women. Or with people in general, really. Connecting with others has always been hard for me. I can do networking and professional relationships, but anything deeper than that …”
I trailed off, my fingers tapping against my leg as I searched for the words to adequately describe who I fundamentally was as a person without scaring her off.
“Deeper can be daunting,” Holly supplied.
The ease with which she understood—the way she could take all my tangled, complicated feelings and distill them into four simple words—made something loosen in my chest. Most people didn’t get it. Didn’t getme. But Holly did.
“Yes, exactly. Dating requires depth, and vulnerability, and emotional availability, and all these things that don’t come naturally to me.”
“What about outside of those setups? What have your relationships been like?”
My hand went to the back of my neck, gripping it. “Relationship. Singular. I only ever dated one person seriously.”
Holly tilted her head, and I watched something click into place behind her eyes. “It wasn’t good, was it? That relationship.”
