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No, Arden typed again, before Phoebe could reply. I can’t go home. I don’t know what to do. I have nothing and no one.
Feeling pathetic for sending such sappy messages to a near stranger, she added, I hope you’re having a good time. Enjoy it. Ignore me. I’ll be fine.
She shoved her phone in her pocket and leaned her forehead against the cold window. The sky was white with impending snow. Maybe Sam had been right. The thought gave Arden a small, unexpected pang. Something like regret. Cute strangers didn’t walk into Arden’s life on a daily basis, and she’d let her conversation with Sam stutter to a stop just because Peter Blake had called her.
She vowed not to let him have that kind of power over her ever again.
Outside the window, fluffy white snowflakes began to fall. Just as Sam had promised.
Chapter 7
Phoebe
What are you doing here?” Phoebe gaped at Jonathan, then realized she was gaping and snapped her mouth shut.
He gestured to the market around them. “Just looking for some festive cheer. What are you doing here?”
“I’m—but wait, don’t you live in New York?”
“I do. Don’t you live in Seattle?”
Phoebe nodded. She couldn’t get over how different he looked—he’d filled out, gone from a gangly college kid to a fully grown man.
She was distracted by the incessant buzzing of her phone.
“Give me one second.” Phoebe stopped in front of a booth selling all things candy cane—candy-cane stockings, candy-cane plush toys, and a wide assortment of actual candy canes. She read Arden’s messages with increasing concern.
Jonathan lingered at her shoulder, idly fingering a purple-and-green candy cane. “What flavor do you think this is?”
His presence was extremely distracting. Phoebe felt magnetically pulled toward him, and she wanted to give him her full attention. But Arden was having some kind of emotional breakdown. Phoebe wished she could be there for her, if only via text message, but she needed to focus on Jonathan. Jonathan Lee was here.
She typed a quick message to her brother, calling in reinforcements: Sam, I need your help. Flamingo Girl is in distress. Can you go check on her?
Sam replied, Uh… what?
The girl who’s staying at my place, Phoebe texted back. Can you go make sure she’s all right? Be a knight in shining armor, please!
Sam: Is she hurt? What’s her name? What do you want me to do, exactly?
Hit by a sudden stroke of brilliance, Phoebe typed, Take her to the Hanukkah party to cheer her up.
She watched as typing bubbles appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared. She knew Sam was being reluctant, trying to craft a compelling argument for why this was nuts. But finally, as she’d known he would, because she was his big sister, he replied with two letters: OK.
Satisfied, Phoebe zipped her phone in her purse and bounded over to Jonathan.
“Let’s get that one.” She plucked a pink-and-red candy cane out of his hands. “Want one?”
“Um, no, that’s o—”
“Don’t be silly,” Phoebe interrupted. “I’m getting you one, too.” Jonathan stopped his half-hearted protest and laughed, shaking his head.
Two minutes later, they resumed their walk down the dark, cinnamon-scented street, both licking their candy canes as they commented on the market stalls they passed.
“That hat would look good on you.” Jonathan pointed at a floppy, Scrooge-like sleeping cap.
Phoebe side-eyed him. “So really, what are you doing down here in Florida?”
She was buzzing with adrenaline. Never in a hundred years had she imagined she would find someone she knew in High Springs. And not just anyone—one of her closest friends from college. A man she’d never even kissed yet had thought about more than she would ever admit in the last eight years. She hadn’t seen Jonathan Lee since they’d graduated, when he’d left Seattle for a job in New York City. They had not stayed in touch, probably because of the way they’d left things. Their friendship had ended as abruptly as college had—in a way that hadn’t satisfied either of them.
