Page 17 of Falling Like Snow

He takes the garland. “I think I can handle that.”

“I’ll help,” Ellis says, predictably. They’ve been inseparable ever since they figured out they were obsessed with each other.

I hand Jake the outdoor lights, some gutter hooks, and a bag of zip ties. “Can you hang these?”

He takes stock of the supplies in my hands. “You’re giving me the cold outdoor job?”

“Pretty please?” I say with my best puppy-dog face. Jake frowns at me. So I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. I’ll do it myself,” I say, knowing he’ll never let me.

“You’re the worst,” he mutters, taking the lights from me.

I smile brightly at him. “The ladder is out front!”

“I’ll help you,” Chloe says, though not enthusiastically. She slides her gray-and-white-striped winter hat back over her hair.

Jake looks at her, skeptical. “Like, voluntarily?”

“It’s not every day that I get the opportunity to push you off a ladder,” she says with a smirk.

Jake passes her the zip ties and shoves the gutter hooks into the front of his red hoodie pocket. “I knew you had ulterior motives.”

“It’s literally my only motive,” she says as they walk out of the living room.

“Are we sure there’s not something going on there?” Preeti asks as soon as they’re out of earshot.

“I’m pretty sure Jake is firmly set on Fern—at least for the moment,” I say.

Cooper continues tacking up the garland. “Yeah, and I think he would have told his best friend if there was anything happening between him and Chloe.”

“His best friend who stole the last girl he mentioned liking? Meh, I have my doubts,” Hannah says.

Cooper turns to the group. “I didn’t steal anyone.”

“Can we not revisit this?” Ellis asks.

“I agree,” I say. “Plus, you guys are always saying the same crap about Asher and me. But sometimes guys and girls are just friends.”

“Look, if or when Jake and Chloe—or Asher and Sloane,” Ellis adds with a cheeky grin, “are ready to tell us something, we’ll be here, ready to support them. Until then, let’s not speculate.”

I glare at my cousin, and she puts her hands up in the universal sign for backing off.

No one gets Asher and me. People can’t seem to wrap their minds around the idea of such a close platonic relationship. Instead, they always assume something more is going on between us. But he and I grew up together, playing in mud puddles and eating fruit snacks in his backyard. For hours, several nights a week, our moms would sit on his back deck, drinking lemonade and discussing the tourism budget and their marriages, while we acted out grand adventures as thieves or royalty or magical creatures. We’d read comics or make friendship bracelets or sing karaoke in his bedroom until the sun went down and Mom would tell me it was time to go home.

Just because he’s nice and funny and, yes, very attractive, doesn’t mean I must be head-over-heels in love with him. We’re just us. It’s easy and perfect and uncomplicated. He’s my best friend, and even if feelings existed (which they don’t), I would never do anything to jeopardize that.

I open the next box of Christmas decorations and pull out three matching stockings. My chest tightens as I run my hand over the soft flannel fabric with DAD embroidered on the front. The warring feelings return—the wanting to remember but not wanting to be sad, the wanting to hold on but also wanting to move on.

I fold it and put it back. I’m hanging the other two from stocking holders on the small bookshelf in our living room when Asher lets himself in.

“I’m here,” he calls from the foyer, where his boots land with a thump, like he tossed them out of people’s way. “Sorry I’m late.”

“We’re in the living room,” I shout back.

Asher walks in wearing a plain white tee and what appear to be new jeans, as Cooper and Ellis finish hanging the garland. He takes one look at me and narrows his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say, rummaging through another box and pulling out a small wreath instead of looking at him. “My brain just has too many tabs open.”

He crosses the room and kneels next to me. “No, when your brain has too many tabs open you get fidgety and wide-eyed. When you get upset”—he presses his thumb to the space between my eyebrows like he’s smoothing it out—“your face gets all scrunched up.”