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“He’s fine,” Grace said. “Really, we shouldn’t say much, but—maybe try again?” The other two looked at her sharply. “What? It’s not meddling, just a suggestion. That’s all I’m going to do, I swear.”

Avery smiled at her friends, and the knot in her chest began to loosen. “I’ll take your suggestion, but if he gets mad, I won’t blame you guys, I promise.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Harper said, but then she smiled, and the knot unfurled a little more.

Chapter Forty

Theo

Theo wasn’t used to having his heart in his throat while running errands for his mom, but he was acutely aware of the fact that he could run into Avery at any second. Her family had a tradition of spending the winter break in Florida, but they wouldn’t leave until Christmas Day, which meant he had to be on high alert for another twenty-four hours.

“What’s next?” Theo asked Jake, doing his best to keep his voice even. Every short woman with blond hair had him whipping his head around, trying to make sure it wasn’t her.

Jake consulted the list. “More wrapping paper, cranberry sauce, powdered sugar, and hot chocolate for Grandma Evie.”

Theo paused in the aisle, thinking. “She likes the fancy stuff, right?”

“Yeah,” Jake confirmed. “And Mom wants to make sure there’s nothing offensive on the wrapping paper.”

“I have never once bought offensive wrapping paper,” Theo protested, but he couldn’t help the grin on his face.

“Grandma Evie didn’t think the Easter egg wrapping paper you got last year was very funny,” Jake pointed out.

“That wasn’t offensive, though. It was just the cheapest.”

Jake giggled. “It was pretty funny,” he agreed. “But Mom made me promise. Christmas wrapping paper only, and it’s okay if it’s not the cheapest-cheapest.”

“Okay, we can do that,” Theo agreed.

Jake glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Theo said, restraining himself from turning all the way around to make sure the woman in the red jacket wasn’t Avery. Avery’s winter jacket was dark blue, as far as he knew, but maybe she’d gotten a new one. The store was packed, which wasn’t unexpected for Christmas Eve morning, but still, the crowd made it difficult for him to concentrate when he kept expecting his heart to shatter any second into eighteen million pieces.

“You don’t seem fine,” Jake said. “You’re jumpy.”

“Am not.”

“Are too,” he argued. “And I bet it’s because of Avery.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Theo said, pretending to suddenly care very much about different brands of powdered sugar. His phone buzzed, and he saw it was from their mom, so he handed it to Jake as a distraction. “See what else she needs.”

Jake read carefully. “Grandma Evie wants us all to go to church with her tonight. And Mom needs baking powder too.”

Theo groaned. “What time is church?”

“Eight. And Mom said you have to wear something nice. No concert shirts or jeans.”

“She didn’t text that.”

“She did,” Jake said, and held Theo’s phone up as proof.

Tiffany had, in fact, texted him that. Theo personally felt that was unnecessary, even if he had tried to wear a shirt with a graveyard on it to the Easter service with Evelyn last year. Theo had argued that it was on theme, but his mom made him change it, and apparently didn’t feel like dealing with that argument in person this time.

“Think we should find some wrapping paper with skulls on it?” Theo teased, and Jake giggled again. Evelyn was lucky that a staid, boring store like Dartboard probably wouldn’t have skull wrapping paper for Christmas. He would have to make a mental note and see if they had any around at Halloween next year.

Jake grabbed cranberry sauce from the shelf in the next aisle and looked sideways at him. “What happened with Avery?” he asked, so carefully it was like he was disabling a grenade.

“Nothing. We just broke up.” Theo rested his forearms on the handle of the cart. “Anything else on the list before we get the wrapping paper?”