Page 13 of Back to December
She nods, her mouth still open in surprise.
I’m shaking a little, and it’s not from how cold it is. I hope she can’t see my fear, though all the layers I have on.
“Will you stop pretending with me?”
She visibly swallows. “Can you be a little more specific?”
“I don’t want a highlight reel anymore. If we get messy? Bring it on. Our weekends are usually filled with one foot in reality and one foot racing to fill our time with as many memories as we can make. But we’ve got a chance to go all in here. No cell service, no one who knows us. I don’t want to lose more time with you, and I don’t want to waste the time we have. Don’t you want to see what happens when we do that?”
But I don’t get a chance to play out the rest of this memory—Quinn’s elbow finds my ribs.
“Holden, you should really pay attention,” Quinn hisses.
There’s about six inches of room between me and the person beside me. That’s not nearly enough, but I make the move, anyway.
“That was unnecessary.”
“That six inches won’t save you.” She scoffs and takes asip of her iced coffee. “Besides, you need to pay attention. You know how Vera is.”
My gaze flicks to the woman standing on the gym floor, commanding a microphone. McKenna, my sister, says she’s the poster child for “the higher the hair, the closer to God”. It doesn’t matter that Dolly Parton is probably the only woman still teasing her hair to heaven. I know from experience that you can smell the mixture of hairspray and perfume from several feet away.
Vera Honeycutt is the head of the Booster Club for Phoenix football. No one has dared challenge her to step down in well over a decade. She adjusts her red rhinestone reading glasses on her nose and clears her throat with a ferocity that has every man in the gym adjust their posture.
She looks sweet, but Vera takes no prisoners.
“All right, y’all,” she begins, commanding the hum of conversation to quiet. “Homecoming is Friday, and I just want to make sure everybody is on track. We play Midnight Grove this year—bless their hearts—and you all know what that means!”
All at once, the whole gym chants, “Wolves howl. Phoenixes soar!”
I’m all for town spirit, but football in this town is a whole different beast. Especially when we’re playing our town’s biggest rival at the same time as Autumn Enchantment. Tension is high as all the things that mean most to Enchanted Hollow collide.
“Now,” Vera continues, flipping through her color-coded binder. “This year isextraspecial. I know everyone already has their hands full with the bicentennial of Autumn Enchantment. But we’ve got a big star alumnus coming forthe game on Friday, and he deserves all the Phoenix Pride we can give him!”
My stomach clenches as she continues on and on about Cade and his famous fiancée, Holly Everheart. She came here around the flower festival at Ever After Farm—I guess, late spring—and ran right into Cade in the sunflower field. Rumors have flown for months that their relationship is a publicity stunt, but I know better.
Cade is a great guy.
He’s the quarterback for the Frost Giants, an NFL team represented by a town about an hour away. My brother Logan is a running back on the same team. I’ve met the entire team on multiple occasions. But now this town is ready to lose its mind over this “homegrown love story” between Cade and Holly, and you’d think they’re practically royalty.
Granted, it’s not every day an Grammy-winning country singer and a star quarterback plan a wedding in your small town. But between demands for Autumn Enchantment, a local fall festival hosted out at Ever After Farms, regular town activities, the season, and now Homecoming—I’m swamped.
Drowning even.
I tug my phone out of my pocket for a quick glimpse of my home screen. Laila sent me the picture she took on our sleigh ride in Sweetheart Springs last Christmas, and it’s one of my favorite pictures of us. She’s so carefree here, with cheeks flushed pink and snow in her hair. Her name still drifts through this town like a restless ghost, stirring up every memory I swore I’d buried.
Her scarf was bright red that day—love used to feel thatway: burning, reckless, loud enough to drown out everything else.
Now I want something steadier. Golden. Something that doesn’t fade when the season ends, that hums quietly but lasts.
I used to think love had to burn to mean something—fast, bright, impossible to ignore. But the older I get, the more I think the real thing glows steady, golden, like light through honey.
I’m one foot into another memory when Quinn’s shoulder presses up against mine.
“Did you catch the love bug, too?” she asks dramatically.
With a sigh, I press the power button and darken the screen.
“You’re worse than McKenna, you know that?”
