“Hot chocolate,” said Carmen firmly, steering them into the little café at the bottom of the hill, its windows all steamed up. They ordered two for staying in, while Blair stabbed buttons on his phone and made large sighs.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Carmen, as they sat down by the window, watching the lovely street taper up into the snowy horizon, the cutout white snowflakes fluttering prettily above their heads, the scent of cinnamon heavy on the air. It was ridiculously adorable, particularly without being thronged with its usual thousands of tourists. Although, thought Carmen with her business head on, it would be quite nice if they came back fairly quickly.

“Give me one of your marshmallows,” she said, having finished her own.

“No!” said Blair, pouting. “Why should I?”

“Because if you give me one of your marshmallows, I’ll sort out your flights for you.”

His grin was back, although he hastily damped it down. “Really?”

She took his phone and pulled up the airline’s website. Sure enough, with his booking reference and the airline being well aware of the thundersnow situation, it took her about six minutes to complete the transaction.

“Put me in a window seat,” he said quickly. “It is business, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Carmen. Goodness, flying off to sunny LA in business class—that would be something.

He sighed. “Honestly. You’d think they’d bump me up to first for all this inconvenience.”

She looked at him, shaking her head. “Yes, all the terrible hot chocolate and shopping-based inconvenience.”

She handed back the phone while he busied himself with making sure he had the right seat.

“I mean, 1A is obviously ideal,” he was saying, “but it looks like someone else has it, and frankly you’d rather be in, like, row six than with someone next to you who wants to talk to you. Worse if they’ve read your books.”

The sweet waitress, her hair in braids, came forward timidly. “Excuse me, are you Blair Pfenning?”

“Yes, hi?”

She beamed. “Hot chocolates are on the house!” she said.

“Oh, well, that’s fantastic,” said the man who’d just spent four figures on a new outfit. Then, sotto voce to Carmen: “We should have ordered extra marshmallows.” He turned his beam on the waitress. “Would you like a photo?”

Blair was being super-charming, and Carmen was trying to be snooty about it. Although, if she was strictly honest with herself, it was actually quite exciting being next to a famous person, with everyone being incredibly nice to you all the time and bringing you free hot chocolate, and he chatted idly to you about where exactly you should sit when traveling business class to Los Angeles, as if that were something you could feasibly have an interest in.