Page 28 of Back Home For Christmas

“Oh right,” he said. “But you did start it.”

“Start what?”

“The serious conversation. You asked me about Aubrey, again,” he said.

“Do you have to win at everything?” I asked.

“I don’t have to, but I do,” he said. If I had something else to throw, I would have thrown it.

“This snow isn’t looking great,” I said, as I pulled up my phone to check the weather app. I wondered how many inches they were predicting now. When we left, the app had suggested only one to three inches, which wouldn’t be a problem for Jay’s truck, but since the gas station, the snow had started coming down heavy. The scenery had been a wintery wonderland of brown grass covering dunes and tan stretches of sand. Now everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, including the road. I hadn’t seen a single plow or salt truck. They must have trusted the predictions the same way I had.

“We should be okay. We are only thirty more minutes away,” he said.

He spent the next hour white knuckling the steering wheel while I squinted out the front, trying to determine where the landscape ended, and the road began. Eventually we saw a salt truck-plow combo passing us in the opposite direction, but only five minutes after it cleared the street, the snow covered it again.

Chapter Twenty

By the time we pulled into the small strip mall that held the artisanal specialty candy shop we had been looking for, I felt sweaty and strung out from the stress of driving through what felt like a blizzard.

“We made it,” Jay said, looking at me like he hadn’t fully believed we would. Even four-wheel drive hadn’t kept us from nearly fishtailing off the road a couple of times.

“Good job.”

“I know how awful it would be for you to die in a fiery crash with me as the last person you saw.”

“Yep, that would have been pretty bad. What would people have said? All the papers would print our names together, they would bag our bodies together. Not the way I want to go out.”

“Wow, you are morbid,” he said. “I always thought those black clothes of yours were a goth phase or something.”

“Nope, my heart is black as coal,” I said. “I guess we have to go in.” I wasn’t looking forward to climbing through the foot of snow between us and the front door.

“I can go in if you want,” he said.

“And be the hero? I don’t think so.”

“What are you talking about? I’m already the hero in this situation. You faced certain death driving through the snow in your Prius,” he said. “I’m your knight in shining armor.”

I snorted. “I definitely do not need or want a knight, regardless of the armor.”

“Of course, you do,” he said with that smirk of his that made my blood boil.

“What makes you think you know what I want in a man?”

“I knew about the combos, didn’t I? Beside you wouldn’t watch those romcoms obsessively if you didn’t want to find love one day.”

My mouth drew into a thin line. I hated that he knew so much about me, and I had just learned what an asshole his mom was. I hated even more that he was right. I liked to pretend that I didn’t need or want anyone, but I did. I desperately wanted someone to fall in love with me like all those romcoms I grew up with, but I was incapable of letting my guard down long enough to let it happen. “Just because I want to find love one day doesn’t mean that I need some sort of savior. I can take care of myself just fine,” I said.

“Sure you can, Kitty Cat,” he said, pushing his door open and letting the cold sweep through the car.

“Asshole,” I whispered.

I trudged through the snow to catch up to him in front of the darkened door.

“Shit,” I said, pulling on the handle.

“They can’t be closed.” He put his face up to the window and cupped his hands around his face. “There are people in there.”

He banged on the door with a loud, persistent knock. I watched as the guy inside shook his head and mouthed the word, no. Jay knocked again so hard that I thought he might break down the door. This time, the guy inside unlocked the dead bolt, pulled the door open an inch and said, “We’re closed. Haven’t you seen the snow?”

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