Page 24 of The Holiday Fail

I had to force myself to look at his face instead of continuing to check out his body. “Yeah.” Did my voice just crack? I cleared my throat. “Yeah, you look, um. You look good.”

Levi smiled, a big one that had both his dimples making an appearance. I dropped my gaze to the floor, only looking up when he walked closer.

“So, where are we going for dinner?” he asked.

“I made reservations for a place in town,” I replied as we headed to my car.

“A reservation? I thought this would be something casual,” Levi replied with obvious shock in his voice. He buckled his seat belt from the passenger’s side and turned to face me.

“I said we’d do a proper date, and that’s exactly what I intended to do,” I replied as I turned on the car engine.

Levi opened his mouth, but whatever words he’d been planning to say died on his tongue. We were silent the entire drive into town, which, to be fair, was only ten minutes.

The reservations were for The Nest. It was the only restaurant around these parts that even took reservations. The inside was decorated tastefully, with the town’s doves as the primary decoration inspo. And when I said that, I wasn’t even exaggerating.

The first thing we were greeted upon entering the restaurant was a floor-to-ceiling mural of doves in Victorian dresses out on a picnic. Beside the giant piece of art was where the hostess stand stood, except for a wooden stand that was usually the norm, it was a sculpture of…yep, you guessed it, a dove.

And somehow still, they managed to make it look elegant and fitting for a fancier restaurant.

“You guys take your doves seriously around here,” I said to Levi once we were seated.

He laughed. “That we do. We’re pretty proud of our history, so the Doves are pretty important to us.”

Before I could reply, the waitress came to introduce herself and fill our water glasses. She left after reciting tonight’s specials and handing us menus that had doves embossed on the edges.

I fingered the little birds and peeked at Levi. “So, whatisup with this town’s obsession with doves?”

Levi had half his face covered by the menu, but when he heard my question, he pulled back like I’d hit him with a shocking truth.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been here an entire month and not a single person has told you about the Doves of Destiny?”

I shook my head, which only made him balk even more. “Well, that does it. You can’t leave until you know our town’s history,” he said, then told me about the pair of lovers that had started this town.

The founder had been trekking in the forest in the dead of winter—which sounded like a freaking terrible idea.

Levi confirmed it by telling me how the idiot wandering around in a snow-covered forest had gotten separated from his companions. He was cold, hungry, and all alone.

“Well, what did he expect?” I said, “Honestly, he was too rich for his own good if he thought that would be a fun idea.”

Levi scowled at me, and I held my hands out in surrender. “As I was saying, the founder had no clue what he was going to do when suddenly, a dove showed up.”

“A dove in the middle of a snowy winter?” I asked with ahealthy dose of skepticism lacing my question, which only earned me Levi’s glare. “Okay, sorry! Continue.”

Levi watched me, waiting to see if I’d interrupt him again. I mimed zipping my lips shut, which seemed to appease him as he continued telling me about how the dove guided the founder to a cabin in the middle of the woods. There was something about another dove welcoming them with the person who lived in the cabin, thus saving the founder from what would have been a very unfortunate and cold death.

“They founded this town together and lived happily ever after,” Levi finished with a hand to his heart.

The chandelier above our heads, which had two doves dangling from the middle, of course, swayed as if responding to the finale of his tale. It was a ridiculous thought, and the tiny glass movement was probably from the AC blowing over it, but something about the way itsparkledwas unnerving, so I looked away and focused back on Levi.

“Can I speak now?”

He eyed me. “If you must,” he replied. The corners of his lips lifted ever so slightly.

“Do people here actually believe in a story like that? It seems all somanufactured, like they’re trying to sell you a dream,” I said.

Levi shrugged. “I can’t speak for everyone, but most of us here do. We think the Doves will bless us and lead us to our destinies.” He took a sip of water, then added, “Besides, even if it’s not real, that doesn’t mean it can’t give us hope.”

“Hope that these little birds will someone point you to who you’re supposed to be with?” I asked again.

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