Page 21 of War on Christmas

“Inhigh school.” She rolls her eyes. “I missed it in high school. My bigger point is that I’ve made it through the past seventeen years without you, and I’m fine. If you want to mess around and have some fun for the next couple of weeks while we’re stuck in Northview, then great. I’m game. But I’m not setting myself up to be hurt again when we get back to Chicago and have our own separate lives to live. I’m not signing up for that.”

A long lock of glossy black hair has escaped between her hat and scarf and is curling along the shoulder of her sweater. Holding my breath, I reach out and let my fingertip trail down its length, gently capturing the ends between my thumb and forefinger so I can rub the silky strands. Her eyes close, and her eyelashes fan out across white cheeks. I stretch my fingers and cup the smooth line of her jaw, my skin tingling at the warmth of her. For a moment, I think she presses into me.

“I never left you, Freya,” I say. I try to keep the pain out of my voice, but it’s there. “Youleft me.Youwere the one who pulled away. Not me.”

A long silence stretches between us, my eyes flicking away from the road to glance at her face. She glances at anythingbutme.

“I just needed time,” she finally says. She presses her lips together. “I was scared of things changing between us. I was scared of something happening and losing my best friend. I’m not saying I handled it well, but I wasfifteen. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I just needed some time to adjust, and then I blinked and you were dating Tiffany fucking Ebner.”

Sheblinked? I look back at the three weeks between our kiss and when I started dating Tiffany, and it feels like one of the longest, most interminable times of my life. An entire fucking era of fear and self-doubt.

“You don’t think I was scared?” I ask. “I was terrified, Frey.” I check the rearview mirror to make sure nobody’s behind me, then pull the car to the side of the road and throw it into park. Then I reach for her, my fingers sliding into the hair at her nape, and I drag her to me. Meet her halfway. Her surprised, black-lined eyes widen, and her breath accelerates. But dammit, I’m not signing up for her stupid two-week rule, and until she takes it off the table, I’m damned if I’m going to kiss her. No matter how much I want to. So, instead of letting myself taste her, the way my body is screaming for me to do, I press my forehead into hers. “I just thought you were worth the risk.”

Fifteen

FREYA

Thosewords—I just thought you were worth the risk.—echo through my head for the rest of the silent drive to pick up Abi.

Silence is different in winter. Deeper. It’s one of the things I like about these slow, frozen months. I don’t know if it’s the snow or the cold, but it absorbs sound differently, taking it in and swallowing it whole instead of bouncing it back to you in that sharp, crisp way summer does. Right now, the silence is an echo chamber, a blank, barren space that returns Jeremy’s final words to me over and over again.

We pull up in front of a brick, two-story Cape Cod, and I roll my eyes at its cheery wreath and light-draped bushes, then grab my phone and shoot off two rapid-fire texts. The first to Abi.

Me: Here.

The second to Thad. (Don’t judge. He once texted me at two in the morning on a Wednesday because he was having a brain block about Pippin the hobbit’s real name. It’s Peregrin. Peregrin Took.)

Me: Jeremy hated me in high school…right?

The lights are on in the house, and the front door swings open to reveal the outline of a wobbly Abi, bundled up in her winter coat and supported at the elbow by a tall teenage boy in shorts and a T-shirt. I frown. For whatever reason, I’d assumed that Abi was with girlfriends. When she talks to me about her friends, it always sounds like the same three or four girls who’ve been hanging out since middle school. My eyes narrow as I throw open my door and run to help her. Jeremy is close behind me, shoes crunching on the snow, and despite my reeling thoughts about the conversation (argument?) that just took place, I’m glad to have his giant, Viking physique at my back.

“What happened?” I ask the boy, sliding in next to Abi and displacing him at her side.

Abi, as always, looks like a perfect combination of Bethany and me. She’s willowy, like Bethany was at that age, with long legs and none of my curves, and she has Bethany’s cute, button nose. But her hair, pulled into a thick, elaborate braid that trails down her back, is black like mine, and her dark jeans and the black-and-white studded belt are definitely reminiscent of me, circa 2005.

I’ve always loved Abi. From the first moment I saw her squishy, wrinkly newborn face as she howled herself purple in her hospital bassinet—like she already knew this world was a bullshit place and she wanted a refund—I loved her. But I’ve never needed to feelprotectiveof her before. Bethany was always there to do that. Now, for the first time, I feel the sharp side of maternal instincts. The instinct to rip and claw and destroy anything that could possibly harm her. Kill-first-ask-questions-later kind of instincts.

Mostly directed at this dumbass teenage kid who’s shivering on the porch.

I wrap an arm around Abi’s shoulders and turn to glare at him, and his brown eyes go wide with alarm at whatever he sees on my face. He’s cute in a young, cocky way, but if I had to guess, he’s a few years older than Abi. I spot some stubble on his chin—He shaves? Abi was under the influence with a guy who shaves?—and I’m not sure, but I may bare my teeth at him.

“Woah, Abi.” He takes a step back. “I thought you said your aunt was cool.”

“Hey, man.” Jeremy steps forward, his demeanor relaxed and friendly. “We’re just here to take Abi home. But it will help us out if we know exactly what she had. Just alcohol, or—”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah.” The kid’s eyes go round, and he waves his hands in front of him. “Abi came over to study with my little sister.” He gestures toward the front window, and I sigh with relief as I spot a teenage girl standing there, nose pressed to the glass as she watches us. “We may have…gotten into my parents’ stuff? My parents are out of town, so I was supposed to be in charge and”—he grabs at his curly brown hair—“and I guess I didn’t do a great job. Abi just had a few drinks. I’m honestly shocked how drunk she is.”

I want to grab him by the shirt and shake him down—just to make sure he’s telling the truth—but Abi slumps into me, and I know we need to get her to the car. Jeremy, however, reaches out and claps the kid on the back.

“Thanks for calling us,” he says in a casual, man-to-man voice. “It was the right thing to do. Are you ok taking care of your sister?”

The boy nods his head, frantic. “Oh, yeah, bro.”Jesus, what is with boys these days calling everybody bro?“I’m good. You gonna be ok, Abi?”

Secured in the crook of my arm, Abi nods miserably and raises her hand in farewell. “G’bye, Tay-ler,” she slurs.

As far as I’m concerned, Taylor is dismissed. I turn my back on him and wrap Abi’s arm around my neck, and without missing a beat, Jeremy comes around to her other side and takes most of her weight. We start navigating the icy walkway and driveway, and I hear myself growl low in my throat. Jeremy counters with a soothingshushingsound, whether for me or Abi, I don’t know.

Blinking, Abi turns her head to look up at him, then turns to me. “Hoosthat?”

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