Page 19 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

“Actually,” Harry says, still holding his beanie, “you can’t. We couldn’t risk retrieving your wallet from the office, remember?”

“Oh,” she says, biting her lip, and the sight of her white teeth flashing against her plump, pink bottom lip sends blood pumping directly to my dick.

Damn it. My dick would choose to react to a woman I definitely can’t have and almost certainly don’t want.

“I’ll take a hot chocolate.”

“How about you?” Oliver asks Harry.

“I have my wallet,” Harry says stiffly. “So no need to worry about me. Or Kennedy! I’ll buy Kennedy’s drink too.”

Oliver shrugs. I shrug.

“I have emergency cash,” she tells him. “You don’t need to buy me anything.”

“I insist,” he says.

My friend orders a coffee, black. I get spiced cider with a splash of whiskey, and if I partly did it because I have a weird impulse to do the opposite of impressing Kennedy, then so be it.

They’re up next, and Oliver gives his head an amused shake when Harry pointedly asks if the spiced cider has dairy in it before ordering some for himself. Kennedy gets a hot chocolate, and the look of joy on her face when she sees the mountain of whipped cream that gets put on top before the lid is applied is cuter than it has any right to be. If this place is less impressive than what she’s used to, and I’m guessing it would have to be, it doesn’t show. She seems as delighted as a seven-year-old child holding her father’s hand and jumping up and down, eager to see a tree get murdered.

Once we’ve acquired our drinks, Oliver and I approach the ax station, where Ethel, Ralph’s wife, is waiting. She resembles Mrs. Claus, with her snowy white hair gathered into a bun and her red house dress, but it would be a mistake to think this is a costume. She looks the same year-round.

“Gonna get a good one, boys?” she asks, beaming at us. “I still have those pictures of you from last year, Rowan.”

“You were here last year?” Kennedy asks in surprise.

“Oh, he comes in nearly every year,” Ethel says, being far too chatty for my taste.

“Not for myself,” I say quickly, instantly annoyed with myself for feeling the need to explain. Despite what Holly and Oliver implied the other day, Idoactually like this place. I’ve liked it ever since Jay, my one-time stepfather, used to bring me hereto chop down a tree with him. My own father never bothered to do that sort of thing, but Jay was a good man. The only stand-up guy to fall within my mother’s clutches. He’s my sister Ivy’s father, so I still see him every now and then, usually when she’s passing through town. He invites me to do things sometimes. Go hiking. Watch a documentary about something we both enjoy, like ice fishing, but I usually don’t take him up on it. I feel the weight of knowing that he might feel obligated to spend time with me. “I always come and get one for one of my sisters.”

“Your grandmother?” Harry asks.

“No,” I scoff. “She’d sooner drink the blood of Santa Claus than put up a real tree.”

Ethel scowls at me. “Oh, you.” Turning to Oliver, she says, “Nice to see you again, sweetheart. Good of you to come instead of your father. He’s always complaining about his back.”

Oliver gives a slight nod, choosing not to tell her what very few people know yet. His father has Stage Three cancer, which is why he came back to this shit hole.

“How about you folks?” she asks, beaming at Kennedy and Harry. “What a nice-looking couple you are.”

“Oh, no. We’re not…” Harry starts, then swallows. “I’m not… I mean, if I were, she’d be on my top five list, obviously. Maybe top two list, but…”

Ethel eyes him strangely. “Are you going to cut down a tree or not?”

“Not,” he says. “We’re here to watch the carolers.”

“You’re out of luck. They all came down with food poisoning,” she says, shaking her head. “I told them not to trust anything Draper Hiddleston made for them, but did they listen? They scarfed down those cookies he brought in like no one’s business, and every last one of them spent the night in the bathroom.” She shrugs. “But we’re piping Christmas music outback, and you’re welcome to take photos with the sleigh. There’s a life-sized model of Santa in it.”

“Thanks,” Kennedy says, seeming to mean it. “That sounds wonderful.”

It’s not. The sleigh’s been there since I was a kid, and the Santa, which used to be animatronic but stopped working about a decade ago, is probably a health hazard at this point.

“Well, you lot have fun,” Ethel says, but something in her gaze tells me she finds our grouping weird and will be talking about it to other people. The more people who talk about it, the more likely it is that my grandmother or one of the producers will put two and two together.

Not good for Harry. Or Kennedy.

I shouldn’t care about that. I want that show to crash and burn. I need it to. But Holly’s right about one thing—Harry’s a good roommate—and I also don’t want Kennedy to get in trouble. None of this has been about getting her into trouble.

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