Page 17 of My Holiday Hookup Road Trip

“Aww, the Christmas guy wants to find his Christmas girl.”

She pats my hand in mock sympathy, but I give her a truthful answer. “I really do. She’s just been hard to find.”

Watching Darby fall for Gabe made me picture my own future, and I didn’t like the thought of being the only single St. Claire sibling at the next family Christmas. So I spent the past year on the apps, getting matched up by friends, the whole nine. And here I am heading home for the holiday as the only single St. Claire sibling.

“Lots of first dates?” It’s like Birdy’s reading my mind, or maybe that’s just my bleak expression.

I sigh. “So, so many.”

“See, the trick to that?” She leans close like she’s about to impart some big secret and faux-whispers, “Just don’t date. Then they can’t let you down.”

She leans back again with a flourish of jazz hands, and although I laugh at her theatrics, it brings me down a little. I haven’t been able to shake the thought that, despite the ups and downs, Birdy’s the kind of girl I’d want to bring home to my family.

“So that’s why you’ve still got an apartment in Detroit with no Christmas tree in it,” she concludes.

“Correct.” A semi roars by us in the left lane, driving way too fast for the conditions and leaving our little Chevy shaking in its wake. I grip the steering wheel to keep it under control and risk asking her a personal question in return. “What about you? Is there a tree waiting for you in Milwaukee?”

I can practically see her walls going up. “No.” Again, she doesn’t offer any more details, but this time, I feel comfortable pressing a little bit more.

“So you’re not a Christmas girl?”

She stares intently out the windshield rather than looking my way. “It just wasn’t a big deal when I was growing up.”

“Come on,” I scoff. “What about at the bar, with the bow and all?” I feel a little stupid obsessing over her green Christmas headband, but she’d looked like an adorable gift to me from the universe in it.

“Tips, darling. Tips,” she drawls. “It worked on you.”

“Oh, that wasn’t the bow.” I practically growl it and am rewarded with more pink in her cheeks. But she doesn’t elaborate, and her silence lets me gather up all the facts about herself that she’s dropped. I pop another orange slice into my mouth as I consider what I know.

“You always shut the hell up about your family,” I say, “but what I’ve been able to put together is that you grew up not taking a lot of vacations or celebrating Christmas, and now you’re in grad school in Wisconsin, but you have a bag with the ostrich mascot from a bar that’s halfway across the country.”

Her shoulders tense as I speak, but I’ve already shared my story. I need hers.

“I don’t quite know what to make of all of that, but I’m kind of dying to know,” I say. “What’s your deal, Elizabeth Denton?”

She doesn’t speak, just zips and unzips the top few inches of her bright red coat over and over. She’s not wearing her hat at the moment, and her blond hair curls around her cheek, begging to be touched.

She sucks in a huge breath. “So the thing is, I was—”

Then a rock hits our windshield with a crack like a gunshot. All hell breaks loose.

NINE

Birdy

Istart screaming the instant the road disappears behind a dense web of cracks.

Sebastian doesn’t join me in shrieking his head off, but he does switch into action-hero mode as he coolly decelerates, flips on the hazards, signals to move onto the shoulder, and brings us to a stop out of the flow of traffic. This despite the snow-packed roads and still-gusting winds buffeting us.

Once we’ve come to a rest, he exhales shakily and asks, “You okay?”

“No! We almost died!” My heart’s thundering, and I’m sure my eyes are Disney-character sized in fright.

Sebastian reaches over to wrap his hand around the back of my neck, and I flinch. “Hey. We’re fine.”

“I know!” I shout, then slump against his shoulder. “But that sucked.”

“I know.” He exhales hard, his nerves showing for the first time as he strokes his thumb along my jaw.

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