Page 36 of Spicy or Sweet (Wintermore #2)

SHAY

ONE MONTH LATER

It’s only been a few weeks since I braced myself, called Nico, and said Georgie’s name to him for the first time in twenty-something years.

He took it better than expected; I think he knew it was coming.

It’s impossible not to see how much I’ve changed in the past two months, but I can’t truly move forward without acknowledging what brought me here in the first place.

“I want to do something to honor Georgie in town,” I told Nico, after he got over the initial shock of me calling rather than texting.

For a moment, he said nothing; I couldn’t even hear him breathing down the line, but I knew he hadn’t hung up. And because I’m god-awful with silence, I kept going:

“Maybe plant a tree, or a flower garden, or, I don’t know, get a new swing for the playground, or—”

“A bench,” he interrupted, surprising me so much I almost dropped my phone.

“A bench?”

“Yeah. I want to make her a bench.” His voice was thicker than usual, still gruff and scratchy, but with a softness that made me wonder if he was holding back tears, thinking about her.

“That sounds great. I’ll talk to the mayor, but I’m sure she won’t have a problem with us putting a bench somewhere.”

“I don’t know Wintermore very well. Is there a spot you think G”—he sucked in a deep breath—“Georgie. Is there a spot you think she would’ve liked?”

Hearing him say her name for the first time in so long almost knocked the wind out of me, but I pushed down the tears choking me up and said, “Yeah. I know the perfect place.”

I figured a bench would take at least a couple of months to complete, but last night, while Noelle was holding Croissant up to the fridge to “show him things he’s never seen before,” I got a three-word text:

It’s finished. Tomorrow?

I lean against my car, half-expecting Nico not to show—he never did come back down to meet Noelle after the fire—but, sure enough, an engine rumbles up the road and his truck pulls in beside me.

He steps down from the truck, wearing a red flannel and jeans that look like they’ve been through surgery a time or two. “Hey.”

“Hey!”

Nico frowns at my sweater. “Is that a Christmas sweater?”

I follow him around to the back of the truck. “Yeah. The Whittens don’t celebrate Thanksgiving—they celebrate ‘pre-Christmas.’” It was heavily implied that the festive dress code wasn’t optional.

Nico pauses. “Today is Thanksgiving?”

I nod, not surprised that he wouldn’t know. Sometimes I think he would forget Christmas if I didn’t brave the mountain to spend the day with him. I don’t think he could ever forget our birthday, though.

We were never a big Thanksgiving family growing up, but Georgie loved the holiday for exactly one reason: after Thanksgiving dinner, every year, our parents let her put up the Christmas tree.

Like the Whittens, she would’ve had a tree year-round if they’d let her.

Today feels like the perfect day to honor her.

Nico looks down, his jaw set. He sniffs exactly once before squaring his shoulders. “Good. Yeah. She’d like that.”

“She would,” I agree, squeezing his arm.

The bench is covered by a blue tarp and some kind of thick bungee cord, presumably to stop the tarp from flying off on Nico’s journey down the mountain.

He looks at me skeptically when I offer to help him carry it, understandably, considering he has a full foot of height on me, and a hell of a lot more muscle.

He single-handedly lifts the bench down, straining but not uncomfortably, and politely pretends I’m helping when I grip the other side to help him carry it to the reservoir.

I marked out the spot I had in mind before he got here, and it fits perfectly, right beside a flat rock that could be a side table if someone was sitting here with a cup of coffee or, knowing Wintermore, peppermint hot chocolate.

Nico fusses with the bench until it’s perfectly in place, then stands back and nods. “Good spot.”

“I thought so. Can I see it?”

“Oh. Right, of course.”

Nico unclips the cords and tosses them aside, and I gasp as he reveals the bench.

It’s beautiful, like everything he makes, but it’s…

us. Three little mice stand on top of the backrest, each with a letter carved on their stomachs—N, S, and G.

Carved forget-me-nots wind around the arms of the bench, coming up on one side so there’s a single flower in front of Georgie’s mouse.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, wiping my eyes. It’s no use—the tears are going to fall whether I wipe them or not. “Seriously. You’ve outdone yourself. How the hell did you do this in less than a month?”

He shifts, rubbing the back of his neck. “I started it twenty years ago. Just wasn’t ready to finish it.”

I look up at him. His eyes are red, and he looks so much younger.

“But you’re ready now?”

He rubs his hand over his beard. “Shit, I don’t know, Shay. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.” Because he knows as well as I do that this isn’t about a bench—it’s about closure. It’s about moving forward. “But you were ready. I could tell. And I wanted to do it for you.”

“Thank you.”

If he could hug me after the fire, surely I can hug him now.

I wrap my arms around him and, after a second, he does the same.

There’s still something—someone—missing from the hug, but a soft breeze blows through my hair, and I let myself believe that it’s the universe’s way of telling us Georgie is still with us.

“Should we test it out?” I ask when we break apart.

“Test what? It’s a perfectly good bench. It’s not going to break.”

I hold my hands up, fighting a laugh at Nico’s indignation. “Hey, no one is implying otherwise. I meant test the spot.”

“Oh. Right. Sure.”

We sit side by side on the bench and stare out at the crystal-clear water. It’s a beautiful day—the scent of fresh pine emanates from the forest, the sky is clear, and the air is cool, but not cold. The peace of it all quietens my mind; it’s easy to be just in the moment here.

“This was a good choice,” Nico says quietly. “Why here?”

“Oh, you know. Georgie loved water so much. I come here a lot, and I can imagine that if she had made it to Wintermore, this would be her favorite spot, too. Also, I get a good view of the mountains from here. It’s not like I can see your cabin or anything, but I feel closer to you when I’m here.”

I feel Nico looking at me, but I keep my eyes glued to the horizon, because I really don’t want him to see me crying again.

He lifts his arm, pointing to the mountain. “Do you see that tall, crooked tree? It kind of pokes out above all the others.”

It takes me a second—my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, but I spot it eventually. “I see it.”

“My cabin isn’t too far from that one. There’s a lookout there. You can’t see it from here, but you can see the town from the lookout. You can see the water. I go there a lot, spend a couple hours looking down, wondering what you’re up to. It makes me feel closer to you, too.”

There’s no hiding the tears streaming down my cheeks when I do look up and meet his eye.

The pain in his expression is like a knife in my chest, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned since Georgie died, it’s that there’s nothing I can do to bear Nico’s pain for him.

If I could, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d take every drop of pain, every drop of regret, and shoulder it for the rest of my life so he didn’t have to.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Shay,” he says, and I have to look away when a tear slides down his face. “You moved here for me, and we don’t see each other any more than we did before. I want to be the brother you deserve, I just…”

“It’s okay. I understand. I know how hard it must be to look at me and see Georgie. I don’t blame you. I get it, I promise.”

“Is that what you think?” Nico asks. I glance at him, and he looks stunned, his face crumpling when I nod in confirmation. “God, no. It was never you, Shay. I’m so sorry if that’s how I’ve made you feel. It’s just… it was my fault.”

“No. It was a freak acciden—”

“I was the one who wanted to leave early. If we’d left at the time we planned originally, we would’ve missed the rockslide,” he counters.

“And we might have ended up rear-ended or being struck by fucking lightning, Nico. You can’t know that.”

“Either way, I was driving. I should’ve had better control of the car.” His voice rises gradually.

“No one could have outdriven a giant boulder.”

“Then it should have been me!”

“Nico—”

He stands up and crosses his arms, glaring at the reservoir like it was personally responsible for the accident. “It should’ve been me. I don’t understand why she died and I didn’t. It’s not fair.” His voice fades into nothing, and I watch his shoulders shake as sobs wrack his body.

“It’s not fair,” I agree, standing up and joining him. I don’t touch him, just let him cry it out. “No one should’ve died, Nico. But Georgie did. And she wouldn’t want either of us to waste our lives. She wouldn’t want us to shut each other out.”

“I don’t know how to do anything but waste it,” Nico says, his face blotchy.

“But I know I need to try. If I can’t do it for me, and I can’t do it for Georgie, I’m going to try and do it for you,” he promises, and it’s amazing how much pressure one promise sucks out of my chest. I had no idea I was carrying around quite so much.

“Does that mean we’re going to see each other more?”

“Definitely. And I called Bryan. I invited him to come and stay this winter with his husband and… shit, I can’t even remember his daughters’ names.”

“Celeste and Sloane,” I remind him, bursting with pride. I don’t want to make a big deal of it—god knows Nico doesn’t like a fuss—but this is the biggest step I’ve seen him take since Georgie died. “That’s amazing. I’ll need to drive up when they’re here.”

“I’d like that,” Nico says, a tentative smile curving his lips. “How is the bakery progressing?”

I recognize his need to change the subject onto a lighter note and take it, gratefully.

“Amazing. We’re having our grand reopening tomorrow, actually.

” An idea takes hold, and I open my mouth without thinking it through.

“You know, I’m going to the Whittens’ for their pre-Christmas dinner tonight, and I’m sure they’d be happy to have you.

You could stay tonight and come to the reopening tomorrow. ”

Nico shoves his hands in his pockets, and I wait for him to let me down gently. “I can’t stay—I have the dogs,” he says.

“Shit, of course. I forgot about them.”

“Understandable—the three of you have never gotten along,” he replies, his mustache twitching. “Tomorrow—what time is your reopening?”

“Ten.”

Nico nods, his face lighter than I’ve seen in a long time. “I know I missed when you first opened the patisserie, but I’m not going to miss any more. I’ll be there.”