Frankie reached over, grabbed his arm, and swung him toward her.

“Fine.” He sighed. “Fine.”

She stood on her tiptoes, and he lowered his chin while holding the camera aloft, and then suddenly, before she could give it any more thought, she leaned in and kissed him. And now, with the wind kicking up but the snow coming to a halt and the sun beginning to make an appearance on the quiet Middleton campus, Frankie remembered that she hadn’t hated it. That it had felt familiar, comforting almost. That something about Ezra Jones sent a charge through her, through her veins, through her blood, through her guts, and when she kissed him, that electrical pulse raced inside her just as it always had.

She’d grabbed the photo and run it back to the blackboard where April had squealed and said, “Oooooh yeah,” and she’d flipped April off because really, come on. April had thrown her head back and laughed, and said, “The resurrection of Team Frezra!” and handed her the next clue. Which had led them to the pool. Which Frankie had already figured out.

At least that answered the question of the mistletoe, she thought as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her parka. She wondered where Ezra was, if he’d found his phone, if he’d tracked down Mimi. The church bells clanged twice in the distance, echoing over the campus, cutting through the quiet. It must have been the turn of the hour, ticking down to the start of the ceremony. She didn’t want to drag her problems from last night to the wedding. She could, at the very least, be dignified for April. She had about an hour left before she’d have to abandon hope of solving this mess.

Frankie knew where she was headed next. But she stood there for another minute, the sun on her face, with the church bells as beautiful as any music she’d ever heard. Her eyes blinked back tears. She just didn’t know yet what for.

TWENTY-FOUR

Ezra

TWO P.M.

By the time Ezra had collected himself and woven through the maze of hallways in the depths of Burton and walked past Bruno, the security guard, who wished him a Happy New Year unironically, and under the mistletoe in the front lobby and onto the steps outside, Gregory was nowhere to be found. Ezra blew out his breath, brushed the snow off the steps, and sat down. From across the campus, the church bells clanged twice, a reminder that not only was he losing daylight before the start of the wedding but that time was ticking down on his millennium proposal. In fact—he did the math now, despair taking root in his stomach: there really was no way that Mimi could get here from Kansas City in time: a connecting flight through Chicago, a car ride . . . Ezra could make magic from a bad hand, but there were some deal-ins that one simply needed to fold. The sun broke through the flat gray sky, illuminating the white landscape in front of him, and Ezra was momentarily blinded. He held his hand in front of his eyes and saw the gold wedding band. Maybe it was for the best that she wasn’t here. This notion punctured him, redefined, even if temporarily, the type of partner he considered himself to be.