“I really need to know when you decided you were the boss, here,” Darcy challenged, folding her arms over her chest.
Blythe was unaffected. “We have an agreement. You make the music choices and I follow your lead. And I make the holiday tradition choices. We both have a specialty.”
“Well, I’m here, so clearly I’ve bought in.” Darcy glanced between them. “I don’t think you’ve officially met, but Blythe, you know Juliet.”
“We haven’t,” Blythe blithely agreed, before she turned her attention to Juliet. “And who doesn’t? Nice toofficiallymeet you.”
Blythe’s smile agreed with her words, but her eyes didn’t. Right away, Juliet could recognize that while Darcy was brash and outwardly fought fire with fire, Blythe would be keen to fight a much quieter battle.
Unintimidated, Juliet returned the smile with a deeply warm – if not genuine – one of her own. “Likewise.”
Juliet, unfortunately, hadn’t really thought about the fact that Blythe’s biggest impression of her was the whole media madness. While she and Darcy had certainly figured out their own path forward, she hadn’t necessarily considered her sister.
Stupid of her. And Juliet hated to be stupid.
But there was always a pivot. She offered Blythe her hand. “I should actually say: I amreallyso sorry, about the first impression you had of me. It was not my best foot forward.”
Blythe’s eyebrows lifted high on her forehead as she glanced at Darcy, then back again. She acquiesced, shaking Juliet’s hand. “Well, if it isn’t country’s sweetheart gracing my doorstep.”
Judging by her tone, she definitely wasn’t going to buy in. All right, so that wouldn’t work to mend a bridge so easily with Blythe. But that was fine; Juliet didn’t need Blythe Kincaid to be her friend.
“Just Juliet is fine.”
Blythe released her hand. “All right, come in. Darcy’s forgiven you enough to be sneaking out to your house every night we spend in L.A., so – bygones. It’s not like you’remynemesis.”
“Whose name is Brenna,” Darcy supplied in a stage-whisper as they walked over the threshold. “Our feud was like a single military strike compared to their Cold War.”
“I admit I’m intrigued by the small-town politics.” Could make for a very interesting song.
Blythe swept by them as they entered the open living area, that looked like Christmas had crawled to life out of all of those classic television movies. “This is a Brenna-free zone today, thank you very much.”
“Hey! Juliet! I’m Colton. Real great to meet you.” A man she recognized as Blythe’s fiancé both from the Country and Folk Awards and social media waved at her from where he stood on a step ladder, adjusting a star on top of a large tree. He was hulkingly broad and tall, but had an incredibly disarming smile.
“Nice to meet you,” she returned, putting on her sweetest smile.
Colton’s grew wider at it; clearly, he was a much easier sell than his fiancée.
“Thanks for taking care of your own intro, Colton,” Darcy intoned, amusement in her voice, before it faded as she said, “Emerson, Juliet. Juliet, Emerson.”
“Nice to officially meet you,” Emerson greeted, glancing up from where she was concentrating on weaving red flowers into a wreath. And – huh.
Juliet had heard her in interviews, but she sounded so incredibly quiet without a mic. She almost felt like she was straining to hear her over the music playing through the room.
“All right – popcorn strings,” Blythe stated, nodding over to a table with, presumably, whatever they needed.
She soon learned that stringing popcorn wasnota quick task. And Juliet found that she did not enjoy it.
What she did enjoy, though, was watching Darcy do it. Her dexterous fingers strung the pieces of popcorn and cranberries and dried pieces of orange into surprisingly festive patterns, and Juliet…
She sighed, shifting slightly in her chair. Shereallyhad a thing for Darcy’s fingers.
“I didn’t know people actually strung popcorn anymore,” she commented, sliding another flake onto her string. “I assumed, if it ever did happen, it was a relic of the past.”
Darcy chuckled, shooting her an amused look. “You’re probably right; I have no idea if anyone does this anymore.” For a few seconds, it seemed like Darcy was weighing if she wanted to say something else, before she softly cleared her throat. “We… uh, it’s something we’ve always done. Mostly because getting the string and popcorn is super cheap, so even when we were kids, we could always get our hands on it. Blythe has, obviously, gotten very into decorating for the holidays as we’ve gotten older, but… we’ve always had this.”
She held up the popcorn in front of her, a small, tight smile on her lips as she shrugged.
“I’m sure you have far more grand décor,” Darcy added, nudging her knee under the table.
