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“Game,” Jackson finished weakly. “I’ll… come back later.”

He turned and walked out.

Emily let out a breathless laugh against Cole’s mouth. “We really need to start locking doors.”

Cole kissed her once more—slow, deep, and full of promise—before reluctantly helping her slide off the table.

“Next time?” he asked, voice low.

Emily looked up at him with sparkling eyes. She leaned in, lips brushing his ear as she whispered, “Next time, lock the door.”

She kissed his cheek, smoothed her sweater, and walked over to invite Jackson back in, leaving Cole standing there hard and aching, already counting down the minutes until he could have her completely.

THIRTY-ONE

EMILY

Sunday, December 20th

Emily had left Cole and Jackson to their football game and planned to drive back home, truly she had.

But somewhere between the fire station and the turn for her apartment, she thought of her mother, and realized that what she actually needed right now was not her own couch and her thoughts circling each other. She needed someone who had known her for her whole life and would tell her the truth without making it complicated.

She drove by and parked along the curb.

The café was dark at the front, chairs up on the tables, the espresso machine quiet. Faux poinsettias, evergreen branches, and birch twigs filled the sidewalk planters on either side of the door, a splash of deep red and winter green against the cold night. The back light was on, warm yellow visible through the front window.

Emily let herself in with her key the way she had since she was old enough to have one.

Familiar smells wrapped around her at once: coffee, maple syrup, lemon dish soap, and the hint of butter left over from whatever Anita had baked that afternoon.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you,” Anita said, wiping down the counter. She looked up with a warm expression.

That was one of the things Emily loved about her mom. She could show up anytime, day or night, and Anita would be happy to see her.

“I was just about to head up for the night,” Anita said, rinsing out the washcloth.

Emily glanced toward the little staircase tucked beside the pantry, the one that led to Anita’s apartment above the café. The kitchen around them was half-asleep: the dishwasher humming low, the specials board wiped clean for tomorrow, a stack of mixing bowls drying beside the sink. At the center of the room sat the old butcher-block table where Emily had done homework as a kid, rolled cookie dough as a teenager, and cried more than once as an adult.

“I just thought I’d stop by,” Emily said, attempting nonchalance.

Anita looked at her for exactly one second. “Want to come upstairs for a cup of tea?”

Anita’s apartment above the café was, in Emily’s private opinion, the most comforting place on earth.

It wasn’t decorated the way Emily would have decorated—there was no Pottery Barn restraint here, no white and silver, no carefully curated vignettes. Anita decorated the way she did everything: with personality and without apology. The small living room was warm and slightly overflowing, bookshelves crammed with paperbacks and framed photographs, a vintage rug in deep reds and golds that had been there since Emily could remember.

She had a Christmas tree in the corner, decorated with a lifetime of memories. There were glass balls in deep jewel colors. There were tiny wooden animals Anita had collected from various Christmas markets over the years. There were delicate blown-glass icicles from Nana that Emily had been forbidden to touch as a child.

And there were the ones Emily and Zach had made.

The salt dough handprints, painted red and green and hung with a ribbon. A popsicle stick frame with a school photo of six-year-old Emily in it, grinning with a gap where her front teeth had been. Snowflakes made of glitter and glue.

“I don’t know why you don’t get a new tree,” Emily said, every year.

“I know why I don’t,” Anita said, every year.

They sat on opposite ends of the couch with their tea—Anita’s with honey, Emily’s plain—and the Christmas tree lights made the room amber and soft and exactly the right temperature for a conversation Emily hadn’t quite planned out yet.