Christmas at the Riverview Inn

She wasn’t a stranger. She was his best friend. Had been. Back when he’d had that kind of thing.

And he didn’t look away. And she didn’t, either. And his longing for her, for what they might have been, was painful. Excruciating.

“You’ve really made a name for yourself,” she said quietly into the loaded air.

“That’s what I’m told.”

“You know something?” She laughed. “Fuck that.”

“What?”

“Yeah, fuck that oh I just stumbled onto something and I’m just lucky and I’m not paying attention to the money.”

“What are you talking about?” He laughed.

“You don’t have all those followers without paying attention.” He glanced over at her and she raised an eyebrow. “I’m just saying you can cut the act. With me. You can be honest. I know exactly what that kind of success takes and how hard you have to work to keep it.”

With me. You can be honest.

“So?” She knew the drill. The energy around these self-made stars and everyone trying to capitalize on it.

“YouTube and Netflix keep calling me in for meetings,” he said.

“They want to do a show?” she asked

“Yeah.”

“And you?”

“I like what I’m doing.”

Her silence was telling. So was the way she was staring at him. “What?” he asked with a laugh.

“What what?” She shrugged one shoulder.

“You want to say something and you’re stopping yourself.”

“I don’t…” The coyness fell away for a moment. “I don’t know you well enough to tell you your business—”

He put a hand out, stretched it across the back of the seat and touched her shoulder. Just slipped his hand over her coat, and he could only feel the shape of her beneath that coat.

She shifted and his fingers, icy cold, touched the hot skin of her neck and they both gasped.

He pulled away, put both hands back around the steering wheel.

“You knew me better than anyone else.” He shrugged.

“That was a long time ago,” she said.

“Was it?” He glanced over at her. “Because it doesn’t feel like it. Not tonight.”

What the hell are you doing? This whole conversation felt like it was tempting fate in a way fate did not need to be tempted. The past was the past.

“Being back,” he said into the quiet truck. “I can still feel that teenager I was when I first got here.” He pressed his hand against his chest as if showing her where that kid was hiding out.

“You mean Chaz?” she joked. It was the name he tried to get everyone to call him for about five minutes when he first arrived. Max had put the kibosh on that real quick.

“Yeah, him.” Her grin was bright white in the gloom of the twilight. “All that posturing. All that fear. How badly I wanted Alice and Max to…” He stopped and whistled. But the words he was going to say hung in the air as clearly as if he’d shouted them.

Love me. Be proud of me.

“Anyway, I used to be so embarrassed by that kid but now…I’m almost fond of him.”

“I was pretty fond of him, too,” she said. But she looked out the window instead of meeting his gaze. “It’s true for me, as well. I mean, it feels like part of me is still that girl. And maybe that’s just how people feel when they get older. Like they keep adding to the person they were, piling versions of themselves on top of each other.”

“Like those Russian nesting dolls?”

“Yeah. I mean, I can still feel that scared little girl who first arrived here, so angry at her mom. So worried about her dad. Confused about everything. She’s still…” She put a hand to her neck. “Here. Her voice still comes out of me.”

“You had a pretty traumatic event,” he said. “With your dad.”

“Thank god for therapy,” she joked but he didn’t laugh. They were getting closer to the inn, the glow of the main lodge visible over the trees.

Thank god.

“I think about my dad sometimes.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “About the kind of man he was and what parts of him are in me.”

“Josie,” he said. “You’re nothing like your father.”

“Well, I’m not a murderer.” Again she tried to make things light but Cameron was not having it. He knew how she was trying to deflect. “But I have his height. And his skeptic’s nature.”

“Stop,” he said as they pulled into the back driveway. The truck bounced over the snow and potholes, and the inn, even from the rear, was so pretty. He’d forgotten how pretty it was. Particularly this time of year.

“And he was a person who tore things apart, you know? He loved destruction. It made him feel strong and in control. And sometimes I’m scared that I have that part of him, too.”

He slammed the truck into Park and then, shockingly, he grabbed her hands where they were clenched in her lap. His skin was warm, his palms rough with calluses. And then, maybe because she didn’t pull back, he touched her face, her cheek, the edge of her lips.