I would have been perfectly content to sit there for another hour, close to each other, talking, despite my ass growing numb from the freezing-cold cement tabletop. But I also knew we had people waiting for us.

Arthur seemed to realize that, too.

He hopped off the table and reached out his hand to offer me help. Which I took because I’m not an idiot.

And when he didn’t immediately release my hand, I felt a powerful shiver go through my chest that had nothing to do with the cold night air.

He squeezed my cold, ungloved fingers twice. “Lest we run into the dynamic duo,” he explained.

My chest squeezed. “Good idea,” I said, happy for any excuse to hold his hand and not merely because it was so very much warmer than my own, though that was a plus.

Together, we walked back in the direction of our respective family members, only letting go of each other once we arrived.

Seventeen

DECEMBER 22

Arthur decided to take his aunt to the Gingerbread Café for breakfast next morning, a move I thought had as much to do with avoiding any possible interaction with Mrs. Buzzard post–pan fiasco as the “Christmas curiosity factor,” as he claimed in his text to me this morning.

Which, yeah. We were texting now.

Take that, Bronwyn.

I wanted to be excited about it—a cute boy texting me!—but the logical section of my brain shut that down tout de suite by pointing out that, duh, of course we’d be texting. We had to coordinate things, which required the ability to communicate, and texting was the most efficient form of communication, move on, nothing to see.

And it wasn’t as if there was an iota of flirting in our exchanges, either in word choice or subject or even emoji (though Arthur had yet to use emojis with me).

Nope. Just Arthur being Arthur and letting me know the 411 in the most basic fashion.

I suppose I should’ve been happy that he thought enough of the Gingerbread Café to show it to his aunt, that it somehow passed the undercurrent of the Perfect American Christmas test that pervaded everything about their holiday in my hometown.

But it would’ve been nice to see him. Especially after our brief foray into fake dating last night, which if this had been a rom-com we would have formalized with rules and taken to far greater lengths that included learning everything about the other person so we appeared genuine to the world at large and somehow wound up accidentally kissing because we wanted to prove to the disbelievers we were a real couple even though we weren’t, even though at least one of us (hi!) secretly wanted to be.

Alas, no.