“Fuck,” she said, dropping her head into her hands. She just wanted to go home. Maybe she still could. She had a plane ticket. She loved Grand Haven more than any other place in the world. She’d be fine spending Christmas…all alone.
But without her parents, she’d have no buffer. No traditions to fall back on. Every shop and restaurant, every bike path and snow-covered sand dune, every rise and fall of the lake already reminded her of Lola every time she went home, but she always had her parents to distract her. Her mom, only twenty-one years old when she’d had Brighton, was pretty much her best friend, and without her…
Brighton would drown under all the memories. She’d absolutely drown by herself. She knew she would.
Before she could stop them, tears streamed down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but Adele saw them anyway.
“Baby girl,” Adele said, pulling Brighton into her arms, which really set Brighton’s tears loose. Adele patted her back and let her cry, which Brighton took full advantage of. She couldn’t even remember the last time someone had hugged her—probably her mother, back in March, right before her entire life blew up.
Again.
“All right,” Adele said, rubbing Brighton’s cold arms. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.” She pulled back and looked Brighton in the eyes. “You’re coming home with me for Christmas.”
Brighton blinked. Sniffed some snot back up her nose. “What?”
“You heard me,” Adele said. “You’re not going home by yourself, and I know I’m your only fucking friend in the world, so you’re coming to Colorado with me. You can tell all your woes to my mom over a nice cup of cocoa. She’ll love it—my sister and I never tell her anything.”
Brighton prepared herself to refuse, but who the hell was she kidding? Adelewasher only friend, and she was desperate enough right now that the idea of crying into a strange woman’s lap actually sounded pretty nice. She knew Adele’s parents were divorced and her mom owned a bakery and liked to meddle, which Adele and her sister—whose name Brighton couldn’t remember at this very moment—took it all with a grain of salt. Honestly, a little motherly meddling sounded pretty damn great right now.
So she nodded, dried her eyes with her shirt, and then she and Adele went back to work. The next day, she got on her airline’s website and spent all her rent money on the exorbitant fee to change her plane ticket from Grand Rapids to Colorado Springs. She dreaded telling Leah and hoped, at the very least, someone brought homemade peach pie to the next potluck dinner.
Chapter 3
Charlotte stared at the housenestled on the outskirts of Winter River, the frosted Rockies rising up behind it, and knew she was in trouble.
The Berry home was a complete nightmare.
Oh, it was lovely—large and warm and inviting, its exterior all mountain logs and stone, with a wraparound porch and snow-covered roof. Christmas lights were everywhere—a soft golden glow draping from the eaves, lining the huge windows, and curling around banisters. There were wreaths and electric candles and evergreens in the yard coated in lights, luminarias sparkling along the snowy walk.
It was the picture of a perfect mountain Christmas.
Which was going to be a problem.
For the past two weeks, Charlotte had done her level best to avoid catastrophe, mostly staying in her apartment and working on arrangements for their tour, or taking a Lyft to Elle’s place forrehearsal. No subways. No walks down obstacle-laden Manhattan sidewalks. Whenever her colleagues had chatted about their impending trip to Colorado, Charlotte had just smiled and zipped her bow over her strings to get them all back on track. Last night, she’d packed methodically in her largest suitcase, choosing all of her warmest black sweaters and tops, her highest-quality jeans, as well as her concert wear for Europe—all black, of course. She knew where she was going. She knew the trip was occurring over Christmas, and she knew Sloane’s family was very into the holiday.
And yet.
Nothing could’ve quite prepared her for the scene in front of her—a home, complete with a loving mother standing on the porch in welcome, a dog at her side. Charlotte stood frozen with what felt like one of those Christmas wreaths tightening around her throat, the door to their Lyft XL still hanging open behind her.
“Hi, my loves!” Sloane’s mother—Nina—called out from the porch.
Loves.
Like they were all her children. Of course, Charlotte had met Nina and Raymond Berry before. Though divorced, they were still close and had come to New York together several times over the last few years, so Charlotte already knew Nina was a very involved mom who cried at nearly every Rosalind Quartet performance—so did Raymond, for that matter—but this was different than a dinner out after a concert.
This was the Berry house. Ahome. A place Charlotte didn’t belong and didn’t even know how to look at without feeling like she was twelve years old again—fourteen, seventeen, twenty—running over the sandy path from her place to the Fairbrook house, breathing a sigh of relief as soon as she walked through the back door without knocking.
Home.
“Welcome!” Nina said as she started down the snow-cleared steps.
Charlotte shook her head, clearing out the sticky memories, and focused on what was right in front of her. She could do this. She was excellent at focus, at homing in on what really mattered.
The tour.
Music.
Her colleagues.
