Page 19

"Not yet," she says. "Stay here a minute."

I stay.

We stay a long time. Long enough for the radiator to tick on and off twice. Long enough that she starts to shiver, and I pick my flannel up off the floor and put it around her shoulders. She pushes her arms into the sleeves. They hang past her fingertips.

She's sitting on my wrap counter in my shirt, with the stopped carousel beside her and her hair a mess from my hands, and I know I'll see her exactly like this every time I walk past this counter for the rest of my life.

My girl.

"I didn't know," she says quietly. "That it could feel that good."

"Neither did I."

She looks up. "You've done this before."

"Not like this." I tuck her hair behind her ear. "It’s never been like this."

She looks down at her hands, lost in my sleeves. When she speaks again, her voice has changed. It’s gone careful and small.

"My bus leaves at eight on Tuesday."

Cold slides down the back of my neck.

"I know," I say.

"I didn't want you to think this changed anything. I'm not staying."

"I heard you."

She nods. Then she waits.

I know what she's waiting for. I know exactly what I should say. Stay with me. Stay because I want you.

What comes out instead is, "Dottie wants to cut back to three days after New Year's."

Noelle's brows draw together.

"The counter's yours," I say. "Full time. Past Christmas. Gran's spare room upstairs is empty, so you wouldn't need a room in Denver. Or the next room after that."

I'm offering her the shop. The counter, the room, the window glowing at the end of it. Everything I give everybody. Everything except the one thing I'm afraid to put where she can see it.

She's quiet for a long moment.

"A job," she says. "And a room."

"It's a good room."

"I'm sure it is." She slides off the counter. My flannel hangs to her thighs. She bends and picks up her jeans, her back to me. "It's always a good room. Until it isn't."

"Noelle—"

"It's late. Shay's going to wonder." She steps into her jeans. She takes her bra off the counter and pulls it and her T-shirt on under my flannel, then takes the flannel off and holds it out to me. "Thank you."

Thank you. It's what customers say at my counter.

I take the flannel. I don't put it on.

She dresses fast. Boots, cardigan, the coat with its missing button. I pull my clothes on and walk her to the door, under Gran's sprig, and neither of us looks up at it. I walk her to the corner. The lamppost sprig hangs over us, red cord knotted twice. She doesn't look at that one either.