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For one second, he thought she might come anyway. Thought she might ignore him because Emily Whitaker had never been especially good at being told what to do. He almost wanted her to. Almost wanted her to get angry, to fight him, to give him something solid enough to hold on to.

But she didn’t move.

Cole nodded once, though he wasn’t sure who he meant it for—her, the table, or himself.

Then he turned and walked out.

The cold hit him the moment he stepped onto the sidewalk.

It cut through the heat in his face and slid under the collar of his coat, sharp enough to make him breathe in hard. The door closed behind him, muffling the warmth and the voices and the life inside the Kettle until all that was left was the cold wind whipping down the street and the faint hum of holiday lights strung above Oak Way.

Cole stood there for a moment, his hand still half-curled from where he’d pushed the door open.

He waited.

He hated himself for it, but he waited.

One breath.

Then another.

Behind him, the door stayed closed.

He had his answer.

THIRTY-SEVEN

EMILY

Monday, December 21st

Emily made it half a block before the tears came.

The flood gates opened, her shoulders shook and vision blurred. She had absolutely no dignity whatsoever, which was fitting because she had just said something unforgivable about Mr. Alders and watched Cole put on his coat and walk out of the Kettle with his good night nod directed at the table and not at her.

Oak Way was beautiful. That was the worst part. The Christmas lights were all on, strung along every storefront and lamp post, casting the snow in amber and gold and deep red. It was late enough that the street was mostly quiet, just the distant sound of someone’s car on a side street and the wind moving through the garlands on the lamp posts. And the wind, making the temperatures feel downright arctic.

She had her coat this time, at least. Small mercies.

She replayed it on a loop the whole way down the block. The conversation turning. Her own voice, thinking out loud, saying the thing she shouldn’t have said. Like she always did. Cole going still beside her—that stillness she’d learned to read over the past two weeks. The table going quiet. And then him standing, measured and controlled and more hurt than he was showing, saying the things he said.

I was falling in love with you.

Past tense.

She’d sat there. She’d said nothing. Every fear she had fired simultaneously, and she’d sat in the middle of the Kettle surrounded by people who loved her and she’d let him walk out the door without saying a single word back.

She’d done that. She’d put that look on his face, and then she’d sat in silence while he told her he loved her, and she’d let him leave.

“Emily.”

Cassidy’s voice came from behind her. Emily stopped walking and turned, knowing she looked exactly as wrecked as she felt—red-eyed, coatless in spirit if not in body, tears she hadn’t quite managed to stop cutting cold tracks down her face.

Cassidy caught up to her in a few quick strides, slightly out of breath, her own coat half-zipped, clearly pulled on in a hurry. She’d left the Kettle right behind her.

She took one look at Emily and didn’t say anything clever or pointed or well-meaning. She just opened her arms.

Emily walked into them.