I pushed myself hard on the farm, which was great for my to-do list but not so much the rest of me. By the time darkness claimed the sky, my mood matched the on-repeat jingle: bad.
“Archer?” Mom asked as if she was surprised to see me standing in my own kitchen. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“With that attitude, you’re going to be living in the barn,” she stated, opening the fridge to reach inside. “I thought you’d be onyour way to the bistro by now. Don’t you and Toby have to move the gingerbread over to town square so people can get their bids in?”
“I’m not going.”
The door shut, and she turned, a container of eggnog in her hand. It made me think of this morning when I’d fed Toby the cream puff. What a nice moment that had been… before everything went right into hell.
“Bernadette dropped this off a little while ago when she came into Hodge Podge. Her homemade eggnog is the best in all of Winterbury. I’ve been thinking of a glass all afternoon.”
I made a face.
She smacked me in the arm on the way by. “I didn’t say you had to drink it. Now tell me why you say you aren’t going. Did you two already move it?”
“No,” I replied. Then, “I’m not feeling too well.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. My stomach felt hollow, and my muscles were tired from the way I’d exerted myself all afternoon.
“Oh, I hope you aren’t coming down with something,” Mom fussed, abandoning the jug of nog to come over and reach for my forehead. She was short, so I bent down, making it easier for her. After a moment, she frowned. “You don’t seem to have a fever. Is your throat sore?”
“No.”
“Are you coughing?”
“No.”
Exasperated, she said, “Well, what feels bad?”
My heart.I didn’t say that out loud. I just shrugged. “Just feel rundown.”
“Well, no wonder after all the work you did today.” She tsked. “And you didn’t even eat dinner.”
Guess she saw the untouched plate she’d left for me in the fridge. “Maybe I ate something else.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Did you?”
“No,” I muttered. The last thing I felt like doing was eating. How could I when my stomach felt like it had been through a meat grinder?
She shook her head and went back to the eggnog, pouring herself a glass. “Mm, delicious. Just as I remembered it,” she said after a sip. When I said nothing, she just kept talking. “Bab called me today.”
My eyes darted toward her, but she wasn’t looking at me, instead returning the container to the fridge.
Mom went on, voice conversational and completely oblivious to the turmoil inside me. “She said you boys did an amazing job on the gazebo.”
“Did she, ah, say anything else?” I asked, keeping my tone light.
“Like what?”
That I was about to kiss Toby before she interrupted. Which, by the way, was rude.
What if that first kiss under the mistletoe was also our last?
The intrusive thought made my stomach dip and this odd sense of despair course through me.
“Archer?” Mom questioned.
