Josie caught Cameron’s eye before he was pulled into the kitchen by Alice, and the look on his face told her it was all too much. All too soon.
She’d driven him away. Again.
How is this a mistake I just keep making?
“Come on,” Dom said, walking past her with rope in his hands. “Help me with the stockings.”
Helen walked by, her brow furrowed, looking down at her phone.
“Are you all right?” Josie asked Helen.
“Fine. I just…haven’t heard anything from Evan.”
“Well, the storm.”
“Totally, the storm.” Helen put the phone in her pocket and took Josie in from the top of her head to her feet. “What have you been up to?”
“So much,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” Helen asked, her eyes bright. She grabbed Josie’s hand.
“But I just did something so stupid and I’ve ruined everything. Again.”
“Josie!” Dom yelled from the fireplace. “You’re helping me!”
“I gotta help.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The stockings had once hung side by side on the mantel, but now there were too many so Max drilled little eye hooks into the wall, and the rope they hung the stockings on stretched from one corner of the room to the other. Ten feet of stockings.
“You okay?” Dom asked.
“Fine. Why?”
“You seem weird.”
“You’re a real wordsmith, Dom,” she said.
“I don’t know. Happy. I guess. You seem happy.”
It was weird that it was true. Even if she had ruined everything with Cameron. Even if they weren’t supposed to have more than one night, quitting her job had been the right thing to do. And she was happy. Even with heartbreak looming, she was happier than she’d been in ages. Years.
“I’m just so happy to be here,” she said, surprised as the words came out of her mouth about just how true it was.
“You should come back more often,” he said. “I mean. Mom and Dad, like…miss you.”
“What about you?” she asked, advancing on her brother for a hug she knew he was going to try to wrestle out of. “Do you, like…miss me?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.” And then he surprised her by pulling her in for a hug.
“Oh, well, I miss you too, Dom,” she said, squeezing him tight.
“Can we hang our stockings yet, or what?” little Iris asked.
“Hold your horses, Iris,” Dom muttered.
She and Dom called all the kids to hang their stockings first. And then the grown-ups. A wall of stockings made of felt with names spelled out in sequins or ribbons. They were too small for all the things that got stuffed in them, and tomorrow morning there would be stacks of gifts beneath every one. Cookbooks and makeup, glittery nail polish and NHL bobbleheads. Warm socks and practical jokes. So much love made real, and Josie could not believe she’d wasted the last five years alone in her apartment when she could have been here. Here with all this tradition. And fun.
And love.
“You want to go tell Alice and Cameron it’s their turn?” Dom asked.
“Yeah.” And she knew it was time. Whatever was next with her and Cameron, it was time for Josie and Alice to be family again.
The kitchen was warm and delicious smelling, and Alice and Cameron were in there, moving around each other like they’d been doing it forever. Taking things in and out of the oven. Stirring pots on the stove.
“Taste this?” Cameron asked Alice and held out a spoon, his hand beneath it catching some kind of sauce.
“Perfect,” Alice said after she sipped at the spoon.
“Well, that’s a Christmas miracle,” Cameron said dryly. “I don’t think you’ve ever said something I’ve made was perfect.”
“Well, I should have,” Alice said.
“Another Christmas miracle!”
“It’s your turn to hang stockings,” Josie said abruptly from the doorway, her heart pounding a mile a minute. They both turned to stare at her.
“Do I still have a stocking?” Cameron asked, looking for all the world like the boy he’d been, surprised to be brought in out of the cold.
“Of course,” Alice said, and the two of them started to take off their aprons.
“Actually,” Josie said. “Can I talk to you for a second, Alice?”
There was a loaded moment in the kitchen, everyone looking at each other. They were the kind of moments she and her team used to spend hours trying to manage and create on the show. Pregnant pauses and dramatic silences. Josie stood there inside of it and held her own. Something she hadn’t done for a really long time.
“Sure,” Alice said and stayed back in the kitchen. Cameron walked by her, an eyebrow raised, and she smiled at him. Projecting things she wasn’t sure she really felt. Calm. Control.
Cameron was gone; the sound of the family hummed on the other side of that door.
Alice rested a hip against the table. “Are you—?”
“In love with Cameron?”
“I was going to say all right.” Alice blinked her eyes. “But we can go your way, too.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I love him or if I never stopped loving him or if what I’m feeling is wrapped up in what happened. I don’t have an answer for any of it.”
“Okay.”
“But I want to find out.”
“That’s good. Isn’t it?”
“Are you going to stand in the way of it?”
Ah. Alice blanched white, her hand flittering from her hips to her face. “Is that…do you think that’s what I want?” Alice asked.
“I’ve never been very good at understanding what you want. Or what you think. Or how you feel about me. But it’s always been obvious you love Cameron. So, I’m asking you—”
Alice came striding across the kitchen to grab Josie by the shoulders. “You have my full blessing. My one hundred percent excitement and enthusiasm for you and Cameron being whatever it is you can be to each other. That’s it. That’s all. I love you both and just want to see you happy.”
“Oh.” Well, that took some of the wind out of her sails. Josie slumped in Alice’s arms. “Well.”
“I take it you two made the most of the snowstorm?”
Josie felt herself blush. And the need to tell someone, anyone, what she had done pushed the words right out of her mouth. And maybe Alice was the right person to bring this to. She knew Cameron better than anyone. Loved him unconditionally. “I think I just made this grand gesture and he’s not interested in it.”
“What was the gesture?”
“I quit my job and offered to help him create a show out of his YouTube channel.”
“That is—”
“Ridiculous?”
“Perfect. Like the most perfect thing I’ve ever heard. Are you…all right?”
“I think so? I actually have no idea. I quit my job.”
Josie laughed with hysteria and joy. Relief. Worry. All of it. She laughed and it caught on a sob.
“Don’t tell my mom,” Josie said. “I mean, I’ll tell her, but she’ll get all…mom about it.”