Page 70 of Mistletoe Kisses

Lucas: I can’t do this.

Arlo: Do you want a pep talk or want me to listen?

Lucas: Pep talk, I guess.

Arlo: You’re more than those terrible things that happened. They don’t define you. And it’s wonderful that you have the talent to be a part of a huge moment in your brother’s life in this way. He’ll be grateful forever that you did this because he knows what it means for you to do this. Best of all? You can stop having this thing hanging over you. It’s time to break the fear. Worst case, if something happens, I’ll give you all the hugs and kisses you want.

Lucas: You’re good at pep talks. Thank you. [heart emoji]

Arlo: You’re welcome. [heart emoji]

There was no way I could let Arlo drift out of my life. We were too good for each other.

* * *

ARLO

“My hero! My savior! My Superman!” Ron clutched his chest as I entered the bookstore.

I nipped those melancholy thoughts in the bud and delivered him his coffee.

I laughed. “Why are you calling me that? Because of the coffee?”

“That and because you got Jade Torrence to do a sign and ship with us. This is going to be huge! They said they don’t want to do a signing because they don’t do public appearances, but they are happy to come in to sign books. And we talked about some limited-edition swag ideas, like you suggested.”

“That’s amazing!” Ron’s wide smile pulled out one of my own.

“You’re a magician. This will put us on the map as the bookstore Jade uses. I did a search for them on TikTok.” Ron whistled. “I didn’t realize they werethatpopular.”

I stood tall and fought the urge to wave off his complimentary words. “Yeah, they’re pretty popular. Hopefully, that will attract other authors in the area. I bet even Portland authors would be willing to come out here to work with a small independent bookstore. Maybe eventually Seattle too. We’ll give Powell’s a run for their money. I mean, you will.” I smiled and tried to ignore the pang in my chest at not being involved in the bookstore after tomorrow. Not intimately, anyway.

Ron nodded. “I think you’re right.” He took a sip of his coffee and sighed happily. “Thanks for this. Any word on your apartment?”

“We still don’t have a date we can move back in. Our landlord had an assessment of the damage done this week and provided details to our renter’s insurance company. He’s getting bids for the work, but given the season and something about back orders on certain supplies, I don’t know how long it’ll be.”

“Well, if you end up staying over Christmas, we would love to have you over. Lucas is welcome too. We have a big dinner on Christmas Day, full of more food than you could eat in a week and more eggnog than is proper.”

I laughed and pictured them drinking eggnog from thoseNational Lampoon’s Christmas Vacationmoose mugs. I wanted to be there too. “Thank you. That’s generous.” I got the words out before the emotion took over. I turned to tidy a stack of books to collect myself. If he only knew what his invitation meant to me. I hadn’t spent Christmas Day with blood family since my grandparents moved to Florida when I went to college.

Keaton’s family had always accepted me as their own, but I was still an outsider. I’d stopped assuming it was a pity invite years ago, but I wasn’t true family. I was there as an extension of Keaton. His overly anxious, too quiet tagalong.

“I know you fly home before Christmas, but it was worth a try in case you postponed again. When do you leave? Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Going to Making Spirits Bright tonight, then catching a red-eye tomorrow.” God, tomorrow.I’m not ready to leave.

I could postpone it again and tell Keaton I wasn’t going to spend Christmas with him and his family. But why delay the pain even further? When I returned to the store tomorrow to tell Ron the truth before I left town, they would need time to adjust to the news. And me joining them for Christmas a couple of days later would be the opposite of giving them time.

Telling him on my way out of town before I raced away with my tail between my legs was the chicken way to do it, but it was the only way I’d have the courage. At the end of the day, all that mattered was that I’d told them. The when and how weren’t important.

Ron set his coffee on the counter and resumed opening the box in front of him that he’d been looking at when I’d come in.

“What’s that?”

“One of your suggestions from last week. I didn’t expect them to come in so fast.” He pulled back the cardboard flaps and then pulled out bookish swag, like bookmarks and notepads with fun sayings.

“Those are great.” I grabbed a bookmark that readRead now, sleep laterand studied it as I corralled my thoughts.

Tell him. Just tell him instead of waiting until tomorrow. If I wait, we won’t have time to talk about it. Assuming he’ll even want to talk to me after that.

---