“It’s…it’s Mom and Dad.” He stopped. “They’ve been worried about me and Elle.” I wasn’t expecting that. “About us settling in. My hunch is they’re thinking of moving again. That’s their reaction—something’s wrong, we move, we fix it. And that’s the last thing Elle wants. I just know it.” He paused. “So, when they started to worry about me after Grams had the fall, I knew I had to do something to make them stop. Show them we were doing okay here. Take the pressure off Elle too—she had way too much to deal with after everything that happened back in Nashton.” What happened in Nashton? “And spending all my time with someone who was eighty wasn’t exactly their definition of ‘settling in.’ So, thinking it’s the band, Dean, Blake, basketball, whatever just means zero questions…”

Whoa. This was so much bigger than I thought. And I couldn’t help but think I was the first person he’d told.

I knew Elle hated all the moves, that she wanted to stay in Alpine Peaks. I guessed that might have something to do with wanting to win this challenge with Dove. But I couldn’t help but think Nick not being honest, all the disappearing, wasn’t taking any pressure off—it was giving Elle more to live up to and maybe more to worry about.

“WANT A PHOTO WITH A PRINCESS?” A blue giant with the voice of a man who smoked fifty a day crashed between us. “ONLY TWO DOLLARS!”

“ELSA?!” The burn holes in its face were extra creepy. I grabbed Nick in terror, and we both ran. By the time it had chased us down the path, yelling, “PHOTO? YOU WANT A PHOTO?” Nick and I were too busy laughing to try and get back on to serious stuff. So we headed to the subway to take us over the water to Brooklyn.

But as I watched Manhattan stretch out behind us, I couldn’t shake a feeling. Everything I’d done here had been amazing—but was it finally time to move something else to the top of all my Christmas plans?

Helping Nick and Elle get everything out in the open.

Chapter Sixteen

Elle

“C’mon, then.” I had to shake this weird Fred thing off. Whatever it was, it was going nowhere. I was flying home in just over two days. Back to real life.

Real life, where I needed to have won this challenge. What was this trip doing to me? Other than mess with my sanity, totally proved by the fact I was now wearing some antlers Fred had found on the ground.

I leaned against the brick wall, using the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi as Fred used my rapidly running-out pounds to get us some gingerbread-spiced lattes in Covent Garden. I didn’t even like coffee, but I needed energy. Big-time.