Page 37 of No Business Like Snow Business

His mouth twitched. “I think you are vastly overestimating the outside world’s knowledge of Christmas Falls and its must-see tourist attractions.”

“You’d be surprised.”

He looked as though he were about to say something else, then stopped. I wished I could kiss him right on the corner of his lips, where that serious line curved upward just a little. The wagon showed up then, and while the group surged forward, I couldn’t make myself move.

“Come on,” Sterling said with a laugh.

He took my hand. Didn’t look back, either, just tugged me gently with him, like it was a natural thing to do. Like we’d done it a hundred times before. Even when I stumbled forward and matched his stride, he didn’t let go. I would have peeled my gloves off and thrown them in a snowbank if I could have, just so there’d be less knitted fabric between his hand and mine.

My heart was beating fast as we climbed into the wagon, and it didn’t slow as we headed toward the lake. A feeling I couldn’t exactly define tugged at my chest, something wistful but warm at the same time. Sterling kept hold of my hand during the short ride, our laced fingers resting on his thigh. We reached the lake, and I tried to focus on Matthew Jessup as he took our tickets. He was wearing a deerstalker cap, and one might think that’d make him easier to place as the guy from the photo. But nothing about him that screamed Cap Guy. I opened my mouth to…what? Ask him if he’d worked for Blitzen’s in the 80’s?

Also—and I knew this wasn’t very Trixie Belden of me—I suddenly didn’t care who Cap Guy was. I mean, I cared, for Sterling’s sake, but…that was the thing. I cared about Sterling. A lot. More than I had any right to. Part of me wanted to say that to him. Maybe not right here in front of all these tourists—though that might be a sacrifice the Hallmark gods demanded. But before he left Christmas Falls forever.

How would that help him, though, to know he’d be breaking my heart just by going back to his regularlife? If I admitted the depth of my feelings for him, would I go from being a fun holiday fling toyeesh-remember-that-guy-who-was-kinda-cute-at-first-but-then-became-a-total-stalker?

Thousands of tourists came and went every year, but this place washometo me. Sometimes it felt like I lived inside a snowglobe, sheltered and…not confined, exactly, but accustomed to the limitations of my life. Sterling had come to my little corner of the world, and I was doing my best to showhim what was so magical about it. And it seemed to be working. But I didn’t want to be just one of the novelties he encountered in Christmas Falls—quaint and vaguely charming, but easy enough to put back on the shelf when it was time to leave. He’d go back home, and I’d still be here, but I’d be different. I would see Christmas Falls differently, without Sterling in it.

“Harvey?”

“Huh?”

Sterling was studying me, and I could have studied him too. Forever. Except we were standing in front of Matthew Jessup, who was waiting for our tickets. Which were in my pocket. I fumbled them out and handed them to Matthew, and he gave us a cheerful “Thank you.” We sat on one of the benches.

“You okay?” Sterling asked.

“Yeah,” I said too quickly. “I’m fine.”

Sterling gave the briefest of nods as though he didn’t believe me, but said, “So what’s the plan?”

“The plan?”

“Yeah. Are we just going to ask him straight out if he’s the guy in the photo?

“That seems too easy.”

“But it’s literally the one question we came here to answer.”

“Sterling.” I stared somewhere in the vicinity of his coat pocket, rather than into his eyes as I’d planned. I felt him shift, and I made myself look up at him and say this to his face. “Whether or not Matthew is our guy, I really want to take this boat ride with you. Not just because it’s a can’t-miss tourist attraction. But because I want to do this withyou.”

His forehead furrowed slightly, but his gaze softened. “Yeah,” he said.

Which…I wouldn’t have minded something a bit more than that. Sterling didn’t really do enthusiasm—except in bed—but I now had the glaring feeling I’d come on too strong. Or notstrong enough, I wasn’t sure. I mean, he was the one who’d held my hand. Multiple times. And he hadn’t said no to coming to dinner at Grandma’s. So maybe we were on the same page, but I wanted to keep turning pages. Heck, I wanted to flip ahead to the end and make sure the characters got together and lived happily ever after and all that. Okay, I didn’t actually want to skip ahead, because I wanted to experience every single moment of Sterling’s and my imaginary journey to happiness.Together. But I needed to know it turned out alright.

It was frustrating, how slim our odds were. Painful, to know nothing was guaranteed. There was just now. There was just this stupid boat ride. And I didn’t know how to explain that to him, or whether I even should.

So I pulled off my glove and took his hand. It didn’t help things much, because he was still wearing his gloves. But it was still one layer closer to Sterling.

He tugged his hand out of my grip, leaving me surprised and mortified for a second. But it was only to yank off his own glove and then take my hand again. Our hands were a bit clammy, but the feeling of his skin against mine hit me everywhere, rippling down my spine, between my legs, even making my toes curl in my shoes.

Matty Jessup had stepped aboard the boat to give an introductory speech, and I, emboldened by how well the hand-holding was going, leaned against Sterling. Not as hard as I would have liked. Not with my head on his shoulder, or my arm around his waist. But enough so that he’d feel it. He squeezed my hand as we listened to the safety instructions.

It probably would have been more romantic to take this ride in the evening, when the sky was dark and streaked with winter clouds, and the lights of Christmas Falls shone all along the lakefront. But then we would have had to deal with all the tourists, every single one of them with their phones raised,capturing crappy, blurred night shots of the lights. This way, our boat was only half full, and the Christmas lights strung along the rails still twinkled against the soft gray of the sky. Sterling had, at some point, subtly leaned against me as well, and even with the chill coming off the lake, I wasn’t the least bit cold.

I tuned out Matty Jessup’s voice, and focused on the hum of the boat and the warmth of Sterling by my side. I sneaked a couple of glances at him to check if he was enjoying himself, but mostly I just relaxed and trusted that he was. I watched the lakefront cottages flash by and tried to see the town as Sterling might. Did he have moments like this in New York, where he walked along the city streets, taking in all those New York sights like—I didn’t know, exactly, but skyscrapers and statues and rats eating pizza—-filled with a sense of pride and belonging? It didn’t sound like it, from what he’d told me of his life back home. But surely he must, or else why did he stay there?

And if he didn’t, would he considernotstaying there?

Only in Harvey Novak’s Fantasy World.

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