“Here, I can take them,” I offer. He fixes me with a long look before reluctantly handing them over. Okay, then. Cute, but a little odd. I stack them on top of one another in the back on top of our luggage.

“Thank you,” he says, but he looks nervous. Like he thinks maybe I’m trying to flirt with him. Whatever. He probably has a pretentious girlfriend back at college anyway. A poetry and women’s studies double major with tragic bangs and anti-establishment stickers on her laptop.

Still, when he adjusts his leg and groans, I wince in sympathy.

“This couldn’t have been fun at an airport,” I say, nodding at the hefty brace on his knee.

He frowns. “It had its moments.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I’m doing a social experiment on that,” he says with a chuckle. “What’s your guess?”

I tilt my head. “Pardon?”

“What do you think happened to my knee?”

“Sports thing,” Harper says, though he was asking me. “I’m also going to guess that you’re a psychology major based on that comment.”

Given that comment, I’m not sure I’d classify Josh and Harper as friends. She must be one of those popular girls who introduces any person they’ve ever met as a “friend.”

“It’s not sports. No way,” Brecken says, without looking to Josh for verification. “My vote is something involving stairs?”

“Both wrong, but both noted,” Josh says with a grin. “Mira?” he asks, prompting me for my answer.

“I’m going with a rogue bear attack,” I say.

“Rogue bear.” His smile widens. “That’s my favorite yet.”

Okay, maybe not totally pretentious. And definitely coffee shop cute. Like half the guys at Perkilicious in San Diego, he’s tall, blond, and in dire need of a meeting with the business end of a pair of scissors. I can’t see the rest of his clothes, but his gloves are sporting holes in a couple of fingers. When Harper starts maneuvering out of the parking spot, he pulls out Kafka’s Metamorphosis and a red pen. All we’re missing is a mug of some bougie dark roast and a sulky guitarist in the corner.

“This could take forever,” Harper says softly as she eases into the lane leading out of the garage.

Brecken twists in his seat, looking left and right and then squaring his shoulders like it’s time to make decisions. He reaches for the radio first, scanning through the stations. “We should listen to the news. Try to find out if there’s some sort of traffic report. There might be road closures.”

“It’s not bad at all so far. And we have the emergency kit,” Harper says. “Snow chains and flares—everything we need to get home for Christmas.”