“Should I be writing these down?” she cuts me off. “Or do you already have them somewhere? On the fridge, maybe? Is there a copy of the rules on the fridge?”
“I—no,” I say, rubbing my temples. It feels like someone is gouging my brain out with a dull knife. “You don’t need to write them down.”
“How about this,” she says. She’s watching me with a serious expression on her face, her eyes fixed on where I’m massaging my temples. “I will do my best to follow the rules of common courtesy and consideration. You will do the same. If we have any questions or problems, we can talk aboutit calmly. Deal?”
I hesitate for only a moment. “Deal,” I say. I would really prefer to nail down some specifics, but that’s not going to work right now; I need to take some ibuprofen and lie down in a dark room before I can regain functionality.
She nods, her face splitting into a wide grin. “And I’ll just ask you this one last time—you’repositivethis isn’t fate?”
“I’m positive.”
She sighs, a theatrical sound that causes a few pieces of hair to fly out of her face. “All right, then. If you insist. Let me get my food, and then you can give me my key.”
* I adore Aiden Milano. And to this day, he is one of my characters I know best. He walked into my head fully formed, and from day one, I understood him completely. The only other character this has happened with is Juliet Marigold from my book “All’s Well that Friends Well.”
* I cannot describe how hard I laughed writing this. My husband asked if I was okay. It just tickled my weird sense of humor.
3
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
JUNIPER, 17; AIDEN, 23
It is not easy to procure real-life mistletoe at eight in the evening on Christmas Eve.
It’s not easy, but I did it. Because I’m Juniper Bean, and I can do whatever I put my mind to.
Tonight I put my mind to finding mistletoe.
Although it wasn’t actually that hard tofindthe mistletoe. Getting permission to take it was what required finagling. Bonnie’s Blooms is the only flower shop in Autumn Grove, and they close at six, but I figured they’d probably have some. So I stole Bonnie’s number from my mom’s phone when she was passed out, and I gave her a call. She confirmed that she did indeed have a few sprigs left, and that I could come by and pick one up tomorrow.
But I kind of needed it tonight.
Anyway, what followed was a long road full of wheedling and begging until Bonnie gave in and grudgingly told me the pin number for the keypad at the shop. She told me to let myself in, grab a sprig of mistletoe, and then let myself outagainwithout touching anything else, Miss Juniper, or I’ll drag you by the ear straight to your mama and she’ll sort you out.
Bonnie knows as well as I do that my mama isn’t thesort you outtype, but I understood the sentiment. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; I would never steal from Bonnie. And she knows that, too, or she wouldn’t have told me the passcode.
I look over at the little box in the passenger seat of my car, sighing at the iffy wrapping job. Count your blessings, I guess; at least I found some mistletoe, and at least I can deliver it to the dreamiest guy that has ever walked the face of this planet.
When Aiden Milano first started tutoring me for my senior English class, I had mixed feelings. He was gorgeous, and interesting, and he had this dry sense of humor that I loved. But I was worried he’d recognize me.Irecognizedhimstraight away.
But he didn’t, and for the most part, I was glad. I didn’t want his pity or anything like that. Though there was a tiny, itty-bitty part of me that wondered if I just wasn’t very memorable, and that hurt a little, mostly because I’ll remember what he did until the day I die.
It’s okay, though. I don’t need him to remember the past. Maybe we can just make new memories together. I don’t know how he’s going to react when I tell him how I feel—I’d say seven times out of ten, his go-to reaction to me is a confused-looking frown—but I’ve reached the point where I don’t want to hold it in any longer. Every time I see him, my heart feels like it’s going to explode from my chest. It’s not just that he’s good-looking—although like I said, he’s dreamy—it’s that he’s thebest.He’s in college. He’s patient when he’s teaching me. He explains things over and over if I don’t understand them. He believes in me.
And he treats me like my own person, instead of like Nora Bean’s daughter. I like that most of all.
I pull into the parking lot of Aiden’s apartment complex and find a spot, then kill the engine. I’ve never actually beenhere before; I only know this is where he lives because I heard him on the phone one time, complaining to his landlord that the thermostat in unit three of Briarview had been broken for forty-eight hours and maintenance still hadn’t come.
So here I am, at the Briarview apartments in Sunshine Springs, which is right next to Autumn Grove and is where Aiden attends college.
I check my hair in the rearview mirror, tucking a few blonde strands back into my ponytail. Then I grab the little box from the passenger seat and get out. I lock my car—a secondhand yellow VW Beetle named Sunshine that took me four years to save up for—and begin scanning the numbers on the sides of the complex buildings. I find his building easily enough, and it only takes me a minute to reach unit three.
I stare at his front door for a solid two minutes before I work up the courage to approach, and some of that courage only comes because it’s freezing cold out. I’m nervous enough that I might stand here all night otherwise.
I suck in a deep breath of the cold evening air, pushing it back out in a little cloud that dissipates in front of me. I imagine my nerves doing the same thing—disappearing into the darkness, vanishing into the night.
I clear my throat once. Twice. And then I knock. The whole scene plays like I’m in a movie—the heroine rushing to her man, looking dainty but bundled up in her perfect winter outfit, confessing her love and kissing in the falling snow. I am that heroine; she is me.
