Page 4 of Let Me Hold You

That Forsythia.

Someone Maggie shouldn’t try to compete with.

“You’ve never made gingerbread cookies—or any cookies—in your life without burning them or forgetting an ingredient of some sort,” Levi reminded her.

Rub it in, will you?

Maggie’s shoulders sagged. “You’re right. I better not try at all.”

Levi shook his head. “No, no. You must try. Tell you what. I’ll come over and we can bake together. Then we can carpool to the Christmas dinner and save gas money.”

Another reason Maggie had to leave Atlanta, leave Georgia, leave, leave, leave…

If she didn’t, Levi would walk into her activities all the time. She couldn’t get rid of him even if she tried. Sure, she wanted him to spend many happy moments with her, but there was a barrier between them that she couldn’t break through.

“What a nice friend you have.” Mrs. Kim didn’t show one way or another whether she knew anything about Maggie’s relationship with Levi.

Friend.

Exactly. That was all she would ever be to Levi.

Often, he’d call her his “best friend,” but they could never go beyond platonic.

As a friend, Levi often came to the women’s ministry office to lounge on the couch and chat with Maggie whenever he wasn’t helping her to move this or that for the Midtown Village or the church warehouse. He was very good at moving things.

He even moved Maggie’s heart.

Yeah, right into “park” in the friend zone.

Chapter Two

Single and free.

Sure. He’d been single and free for at least one year and nine months since he’d broken up with Soline and watched her first love propose to her at Tally’s wedding.

Single? Yes.

Free? No.

Not at all.

He felt that something was missing from his life—the companion he believed God would give him so he wouldn’t be alone in his thirties.

He had tried to explain that to Soline, but she had warned him not to put her on a pedestal. That was two days before she dumped him and returned to her first love.

Good for her.

Levi wished them well.

As far as he knew, the marriage had taken place, so he wasn’t about to get Soline back.

He had let her go.

Maggie had told him that he must.

Maggie.

The only person who understood what he had felt these months, who sat there and listened to him without judging him or calling him out on anything—even though he knew he’d been wrong to cling to Soline so much that she suffocated.

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