Page 29 of The Holiday Fail

It was a simple observation. One anyone could infer from having any length of time here. Wintertown was nothing like the big city life. The people here didn’t yell if you walked too slowly and nobody honked either, which surprised me.

In my tiny New York City studio apartment, cars honking was practically the white noise I fell asleep to.

And out here in Levi’s cabin—that might as well be nestled in the woods—all there was, was blissfulsilence.

Enough silence to hear my own thoughts and realize that they weren’t as scary as I sometimes believed them to be.

And even if there was noise, be it here or at the B&B, it was usually the happy chatter of the excited guests or Levi. Nowadays, my ears perked up whenever I heard Levi’s voice, which wasn’t often. The B&B had been busy with the end-of-the-week rush as people checked in for the weekend.

It was good for business, and I’d been getting a lot more guests dining at the B&B restaurant. And the more people I could keep eating at the B&B instead of in town, the better it was to convince Henry and Peter that my plan to open the restaurant to the entire town was one worth exploring.

But being this busy also meant that I hadn’t been able to spend any time with Levi since the faux date, and I found I missed talking to him. It was completely out of the norm for me.

Even with my best friend Casey, it wasn’t like we talked all the time. Life was far too busy, and that was just the fact of the matter.

It’d never bothered me before, but with each passing day, barely even getting a glimpse of Levi despite living together, I started hating how busy we were.

Andthatthought only irked me even more. I wasn’t here to make friends. I should be putting together a well-detailed planto expand the restaurant. I still needed to finalize the menus too—I wanted a special menu to serve around the holidays.

There was a ton of work waiting for me if I wanted to create something newsworthy during my time here, somethingtangibleI could show off during my interview for one of the more luxurious restaurants in Manhattan.

I hadn’t picked where I wanted to work next, so maybe I’d shoot for aMichelin Star restaurant if my plan here succeeded. It would be a huge leap in my career. An undeniable proof that I’d made something out of myself. And that was all I’d ever wanted…wasn’t it?

Tuesday night, I found Levi home before me. It was a rare occurrence since the man seemed to work all hours of the day most of the time.

What was even more shocking was to find him all snuggled up on the couch in an oversized sweater. The collar hung low against his chest, and that damn collarbone peeked through so temptingly.

He looked criminally adorable.

He lit up with a dimpled smile when he saw me. “Hurry up and get changed, then come join me!”

I stared at him, brow raised. “Did we make plans I forgot about?”

“Yep!” He nodded with bright eyes. He looked so excited I was starting to feel bad about these forgotten plans, though I still wasn’t surewhatexactly they were.

“You said you’ve never watchedThe Addams Family, and I said we’d remedy that as soon as possible, and since you don’t have work tomorrow,andit’s October, what better time than now to have a marathon?”

“You were serious about that? I thought you were joking.”

“I never joke about Gomez Addams,” Levi said gravely.

I laughed, which was interrupted by a pillow to my face.

“Okay. Fine, fine,” I conceded with my hands up. “I’ll jump in the shower and be out in a bit.”

“Great! I’ll make the popcorn!” Levi jumped up from his seat and ran to the kitchen.

“Don’t burn the kitchen down,” I called out.

His footsteps paused, and I thought he’d turn around to tell me off, but only his hand appeared at the kitchen entranceway with his middle finger pointed sky high.

I laughed again, then went to wash up. After a quick shower and changing into my soft red-and-black checkered PJ pants and an old T-shirt I’d probably had since high school, I returned to the living room to find Levi already back on the couch with a large bowl of popcorn in his lap.

“Took you long enough!” he quipped, though it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. I snorted in reply. Levi grinned, and lifted the blanket covering his lap, making space for me the same way he did the first night we’d watched a movie together.

Like last time, I didn’t think much of it and scooted to his side. Cozy warmth radiated off him, and even through our layers of clothes, I could feel his heat through our thighs. This was all so strange, but at the same time, not strange at all.

Levi faced me, half his face a shadow from the black light coming from the TV. “Ready to watch the best movie of your life?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

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