Inside, I was screaming. I wanted to connect with him. Wanted to feel even a shred of the same closeness that I felt when we were faking it.

But if he wasn’t going to give me even a little bit, I couldn’t force it out of him.

“Good night,” he said, and I felt something in my chest tensing up.

He walked away and I kept glancing up at him, watching his shrinking figure heading off, hoping he’d turn back. That he’d say he wanted to show me more about who he really was. To open up to me even the tiniest amount. Instead I watched him disappear, knowing more than ever that I had no control over the situation at all.

When I headed out a few minutes later, his car was gone.

A chilly breeze blew through my hair as I started on my own walk home, trying to puzzle through where everything had gone wrong. As I walked past more and more houses that had started to put up their Christmas lights and decorations, I knew what had happened.

I’d wanted too much.

The holiday season had grabbed hold of me already, making me wish that things could be different. When I was with Rowen—in our best moments—things feltspecialagain. But it wasn’treal. Come January, all of this would be gone. The beautiful wreaths and lights and garlands, and him, too.

Everything good went away, it seemed.

By the time I made it back to my house, my heart felt like it was being cracked in two. I flipped the switch on the front of the house to turn on my Christmas lights, and the warm glow only did a little to make my sadness bittersweet. The holly branch tinsel sparkled on my front door. That had always been Gram’s favorite part.

Inside, I heated up some apple cider on the stove, mixed in a cinnamon stick, and tossed a nice glug of whiskey in it after I took it off the heat.

A knock at the front door sounded out right after I’d taken my first sip.

At first I thought I must have been imagining it. Wishful thinking, maybe.

Nobody ever came to see me, and if it was my sister, she certainly would have called beforehand.

But another knock came a moment later. I grabbed my mug and made my way over. My heart was somewhere near my throat as I swung the front door open.

Rowen looked like a fallen angel.

Again, I could tell he’d been crying, even though he was doing his best to put on a composed expression. His hair was whipped by the breeze, falling across his head in a swoop that should have been illegal for how attractive it made him look.

And those eyes. Sogenuine, even in moments where he wouldn’t tell me a damned thing about himself. Right now Iswore I was looking right into his soul, and something in there was in deep pain.

“I know you probably don’t want to see me,” he started, his voice just a little hoarse. “But I can’t be back at that guest house right now, and the bar was making me crazy, and I don’t know all that many other places to go in this town—”

“I’m glad you’re here, Rowen,” I interjected, and I hoped he could tell that I meant it. “Just come inside. Please.”

“I don’t deserve a friend like you,” he said softly as he stepped inside.

Is that what we are?

Friends?

The whiskey was already hitting my blood, and I’d had about enough of not telling Rowen what was on my mind.

He didn’t have to be real with me.

But I was going to be real with him.

“Listen,” I said as I shut the door behind us. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I do know that you deserve happiness and friendship and whatever the fuck else you want in life. And I’ll be here, even if you don’t want to tell me shit about yourself—”

“I left New York because my parents are in prison,” he blurted out, standing beside my Christmas tree.

Pain was written all over his face, and in an instant I froze, tiny puzzle pieces starting to come together in my mind.

Rowen swallowed, running his fingers through his hair. “They embezzled. A lot. There was tax fraud. Those Sorinelle scumbags that the guy at the bar was talking about earlier tonight? That’sthem. That’s me, Shane.”