Page 65 of Christmas Criminal

"We're friends."

I raise an eyebrow. "He got awfully defensive of you yesterday when Dad showed up. Certainly seems like there are still some feelings there."

She gives me a look. "We're friends," she repeats.

A beat of silence passes between us. "Well,Iam just friends with the math teacher."

Christina snorts.

"You shush."

Rather than returningto Hank's booth, I spend the day with my mom and Christina. The two of them overpower me and decide on a number of Christmas movies to watch in turn, my mom squished under Christina's cast and me curled up in the armchair. We order lunch to the house and eventually, my mom moves to the floor where she starts surreptitiously wrapping Christmas presents while barking at us, every single time we stand, to keep our eyes on the ceiling.

When I clean up our empty lunch containers from the coffee table and dump them in the trash, I take a moment to grab my jacket and slip out the door to the front stoop. My mom has a giganticMerry Christmassign along one side of her door and an array of snowmen in the front garden dressed up in the winter clothes.

I tug my jacket around me and sit on the stoop next to a snowflake with a too-wide smile wrapped in a winter scarf.

It dawned on me, sometime today, what Nick had said when he told me about Christina's job.

That his loyalty lies with me.

I'm not sure he meant it in the way it came off, but there was something so comforting in his words. Like aside from my mom and sister, who have always been my fiercest supporters, there's one other person in this town who truly has my back.

Like it doesn't matter that he and Hank are buddy-buddy, or that he might get in trouble for crushing on the criminal.

All that matters is... me.

And whether he meant it that way or not, it inspired a calmness in me that I don't usually feel when I'm here. Like I can trust him to have my back when I'm not around.

So, I take a deep breath and call him.

He answers in two seconds, almost as if he had been sitting there, waiting for me to call.

"Noelle," he says. I hear the sounds of the fair going on in the background. Christmas music and kids shouting.

"Hey," I say, picking at the hem of my coat. "I wanted to call and say thank you for telling me about my sister's new job today. I really appreciate that you were in my corner."

He lets out a breath, and I hear the clanging of the folding chair against the table. "Did everything go okay? When you rushed off like that, I worried that maybe I hadn't done the right thing."

"No, you did. I'm sorry. All I knew was that my sister had some big thing going on in her life and I was missing out on it." I shake my head. "I panicked, a little bit."

"Are you okay now?" he asks.

And I can't help but think of my dad, hearing his daughter on the phone asking for his help because yes, she had broken her leg, but she mostly needed the comfort of someone who shows up when they're needed.

And Nick, hours after the fact, doesn't hesitate to ask how I am.

Because his loyalty lies with me.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Thank you for checking in with me."

"Of course. I mean, I feel so terrible that I blurted it out like that, but you and Hank were all jokey with each other and I worried that if I kept it in any longer, it might screw up your relationship with him. Or me, you know?" He pauses, and Iwonder if he meant to refer tousas a relationship. "Because you're my criminal."

I laugh. "Yes, god forbid you're on bad terms with your criminal."

He lets out another long breath into the microphone. "So you talked to your sister?"

“Yeah. We’re fine. She’s excited, and I’m excited for her. Bummed that our little powwow is ending, but happy that we had so many years together.”

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