Page 5 of Cocoa Kisses
Taylor’s old room faces mine. The curtains are drawn; I know she moved into the apartment over her café when she opened it. But for a moment, I sit and remember the number of times we sent messages back and forth. I slide open the drawer of the nightstand beneath the window and smile when I find the small whiteboard and markers still inside it. We could have just texted, but we’d started sending messages like this when we were kids before we had cell phones and the window messages kept going through high school.
One of the things I’d always hated about Creekville was how nothing ever changed. But right now, that’s exactly why I’m here—at least for a couple of weeks. I’m going to soak it all in, and when the itchiness strikes to be on the move again, that’s about when my editor will send me on a new assignment.
“Levi! Come eat!” my mom calls from downstairs.
I shouldn’t have stayed away so long. I smile again, but it fades as I catch a glimpse of my closet, the door hanging open, a coat and some old snow boots sitting inside where I left them when I was here last. We’d gone next door for Mrs. Bixby’s potluck. She held it every year, three days after Christmas, and all the neighbors brought leftovers from their holiday feasts, played cards, and drank the last of the eggnog. The very strong eggnog.
The eggnog of Christmas regret. The eggnog of very bad choices. The eggnog that makes it easier to skip the holidays at home the next year. Or four.
But it’s fine. I saw Taylor, and it’s fine.
Only, seeing her has me thinking something else. Something like…I’m not sure anymore that four years ago was a bad choice.
I slide the closet door closed and head downstairs to get spoiled. I’m ready to do a Creekville Christmas reset—mistake-free and regret-free.
Chapter Three
Taylor
“Leviisback!”
I glance up at my sister, who is making this announcement in time to the jingle bells as she walks through the café door. Typical of Sara, who is always in the middle of a half-finished thought. It’s been worse the last couple of months while her husband, Dean, is deployed in Kuwait. She’s solo parenting their twin boys, who are darling maniacs. She could probably keep a viral social media channel going with the wild things those two get into before breakfast.
“I know,” I tell her. “I saw him yesterday.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything,” she says. “It’s been forever since I saw him. At least, what, three years?”
“Four. The twins had just started walking last time he was home for Christmas.”
“Oh, yeah.” A haunted look flickers through her eyes as she recalls the early days of chaos when the twins graduated from crawling. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The ornament carnage from my parents’ Christmas tree. The lengths everyone kept going to as they tried to keep the tree decorated but out of the twins’ reach.
Actually, it was the funniest of times.
“He looks good,” Sara continues, talking over her shoulder as she heads toward my tiny office.
He’s too skinny, I argue in my head.
Sara returns a minute later, her coat and purse left behind as she ties on an apron that says “Bixby’s” on the bib. “Anyway, the Tafts suggested a game night tonight—7:00 but at Mom and Dad’s so I can keep an ear out for the twins.”
The boys aren’t quite old enough for kindergarten yet, so Sara decided to stay with our parents at their invitation until Dean is back from Kuwait. My parents love it, since—as Mom points out with a meaningful look at me every time—the twins are their only grandchildren.
Sara loves being back here because the boys wear themselves out at preschool during the day, and then she has help with them during what my mom calls “the witching hour,” the time between dinner and bedtime when they lose their minds. Or their ability to regulate their emotions, anyway. And “witching hour” is a lie. The few times I was dumb enough to be there around dinnertime, the meltdowns lasted closer to two.
I love having Sara here because she helps in the café several times a week while I work on Christmas Town stuff, aka the Beast Trying to Eat Me Alive.
“Are you coming?” Sara asks.
I blink. “What?”
“Game night with the Tafts. You coming?”
“Depends on how much organizing I get done.”
“But Levi will be there. You have to come. It’ll be like old times.”
“That’s not a selling point,” I say, and she snorts. There will be cheating and trash-talking. There will be arguments about the rules. Unholy alliances will form. Friendships will be pushed to the breaking point until someone wins, everyone else says they cheated, and the teams change for the next game. Then it’ll happen again with new unholy alliances.
There will also be our moms driving me and Levi crazy. We may have outgrown our childhood weddings, but Mrs. Taft and my mom started trying to marry us off when they were pregnant with us, and the more the wine flows at game night, the harder they try. I cringe every time they bring it up.
