Northern Ridge Country Club had really taken their Christmas tree game up a notch. Last year’s tree had been two stories tall; this year’s was two stories tall and decorated entirely in crystal. There were hundreds of ornaments—maybe thousands—and they all caught the sparkling lights like ice.

“I believe,” Lillian said beside me, “that we’ll skip the family portrait this year.”

“Why?” John David asked. He’d grown what seemed like about a foot since summer, and in the five minutes since we’d left the valets to park the cars, he hadn’t mentioned zombies even once. “We’re still a family, aren’t we?”

It was Lily who answered. “Of course we are.”

The Northern Ridge gingerbread was a thing of legend. Personally, I intended to drown myself in it and sneak at least three pieces out in my purse.

“Careful,” a voice said beside me. “I have it on good authority that people here really don’t like thieves.”

I turned to the last person I’d expected to see at this shindig. “Nick.”

He was wearing a tuxedo—the same one he’d worn to the lakeside fund-raiser. This time, however, he wasn’t overdressed, and he didn’t look like he was on the verge of ripping off the jacket.

“Don’t say a thing about the monkey suit,” he told me.

I called you. You didn’t answer. I left, and you told me not to come back.

Once upon a time, that would have had my guard up—almost as much as the way my heart was beating in my chest. I remembered what it was like to kiss him, what his body felt like next to mine. The feel of my hands in his hair.

The moment he’d told me that he wasn’t “dating” me for any reason other than the fact that he wanted to.

It had been four months since I’d walked away from him, and he looked exactly the same.

“I won’t say a word about the monkey suit,” I offered, “if you don’t ask me how many armed men I could disable with the excessive number of bobby pins in my hair.”

Nick managed a smile. “Seems like a fair trade.”

It took me longer than I wanted to decide what I should say next. “You never mentioned joining Northern Ridge,” I said.

“I prefer not to think about the fact that I’ve sold my soul and joined the dark side.”

“Part of Lillian’s plan to get Jessi into Symphony Ball?” I asked.

Nick nodded.

“I called you,” I said. “You didn’t answer.”

“I know.”

A few months ago, that would have thrown me into self-protection mode, if I wasn’t there already. Before that night on King’s Island, I wouldn’t have let myself want this—want him—want anything at all.