Page 7 of When in December

“You were out late last night. Were you on a date?”

“No, Mom. I was working.”

She huffed. “Excuse me for asking.”

“I’m running kind of late,” I said, looking over my shoulder.

“We’ll talk later—no, wait. We’ll be out with the Carmichaels tonight. Don’t wait up. We’re trying that new Mexican restaurant even though Simon has been going on about how he hopes there isn’t any cilantro anywhere.” She rolled her eyes. “Let me know if we can bring you back anything.”

“Okay.” I reached to shut the door.

She waved a hand out into the bathroom, stopping me. “Have a wonderful day. You’re going to do great things. I can’t wait to see what you do with the place. It’s like a cabin, right?”

“Kind of.”

“Oh, then I’m sure it will be so cozy. Remember what you did to Aunt Shannon’s place after she broke up with that awful man she was with? You know, she went back on one of those dating apps and found her new partner. You would probably be a catch on one of those?—”

“I’m runningreallylate.”

“Well, excuse me for trying to build your confidence.”

“Consider it overflowing,” I said. “I have to go. Thank you. See you.”

“Make gooddesignchoices!” she yelled after me.

In these moments, I saw how my mother and Simon worked so well together. Though my mother was loud and often overbearing, somehow, Simon, who was a little too book smartfor his own good, mellowed her out. Yet even he couldn’t explain how they both had the same dorky sense of humor.

They just fit.

I shut the door to their bedroom, and my feet nearly stumbled over themselves down the steps until I was against the front door again.

Simon called out after me, “Have a good day. Be careful with the car!”

I jogged around the corner. Simon used the car more than I did, though he’d gifted me his old blue hatchback shortly after I graduated from high school, thinking I’d need it when I planned on moving for college or work.

It ran well enough.

Unless—

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” My shoulders slumped as I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

A few cars flew by, honking while their tires shoved more slush in my general direction.

At some point, the city had thought it was trying to help, and the roads had gotten significantly more snow-filled in the past ten hours. My car was another snowplow casualty, covered in the white mounds of heavy frost.

Now, it was a car snowman.

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. It was fine. Everything was perfectly one hundred percent fine. It was going to be a good day?—

No, agreatday.

I was starting my solo project on a cute home along the edge of the woods from what I’d seen in the picture. If that didn’t scream traditional holiday magic all by itself already, I didn’t know what did.

I balanced my stuff in my arms as I yanked one of the handles until the passenger door flew open enough so I could reach for the snow brush stashed under the seat.

I dug my way through the snow mounds blocking my tires. Water seeped through my shoes.

Once I was behind the wheel, I let the heat run on full blast, though it only started to get warm by the time I hit the highway, clenching the wheel and trying not to wiggle my toes.

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