Page 33 of The Christmas Arrangement

When he doubles over laughing, I quickly dump the rest of the drink into the sink.

Chapter 14

Friend Zoned

Dash

* * *

White Pines Tree Farm is straight out of a Hallmark movie. There’s a rustic barn, a red tractor pulling a wagon filled with pink-cheeked families perched on hay bales, and the sound of squealing children and barking dogs. The scent of fresh-cut pine and woodsmoke mingles with spiced cider wafting from the refreshment table beside the barn. I've been on movie sets that I thought captured this kind of magic. Now, though, I realize it was only a weak imitation.

Beside me, Ivy inhales deeply, and her face lights up with quiet joy. I want to make her smile this way every day. The thought startles me. Then I remember with a pang—friends. It doesn’t matter what I want. She wants something else. Friendship. Boundaries.

“Are you coming, Dash?” Noelle calls.

I’ve stopped walking. I shove aside the sting of reality and follow the Jollys through the rows upon rows of trees that stretch up the hillside. We stop by a row of tall, elegant firs.

Ivy looks over at me. “We always get one of these for the inn. Concolors hold their needles for a long time and”—she breaks a needle off the closest tree and crushes it between her gloved fingers—“they smell like oranges.”

I cock my head, not sure if she’s serious.

“Here, smell.” She crunches through the snow and holds the needle out for me to take.

Instead, I wrap my fingers around her wrist and bring her hand up to my face. I inhale, and the aroma of citrus fills my nose. Her pulse rate is fast under my fingers, and my own heart races in return. I hold her near me for a beat too long before gently removing my hand.

She swallows hard and looks away, but not before I see the color creeping up her neck. The Jollys settle on a twelve-foot tree for the foyer and tag it to be cut down by the workers.

“Now, it’s time to pick the important one,” Holly tells me.

Noelle and Nick lead the family further up the hill, fingers entwined. Nick carries a saw. Merry bounces between trees, her laugh echoing across the hillside as she touches one snow-dusted branch after another, declaring each "the one" before moving to the next. Holly follows with a measuring tape, calling out dimensions. Jack trails behind her with a tender smile that says he'd follow her anywhere.

Then there's Ivy. She crinkles her eyes when she laughs at her sisters. Reflexively brushes pine needles from Noelle's shoulder. Points out a cardinal to Jack. She's the quiet center of this solar system, the gravity that holds them all together.

I want to be in her orbit. This morning she woke up in my arms, warm, soft, and relaxed, and I felt peace. At least for the ten seconds before she realized where she was and scrambled out of reach. And reset our boundary. Friends.

I never have women spend the night. The optics are too risky, and, if I’m honest, it’s always seemed too intimate—way more than sex. But I loved waking up next to a sweatsuit-wearing weirdo who mumbles names of flowers in her sleep.

“Dash, come settle this!” Nick waves me over to the group.

Holly's measuring a towering Douglas fir. Merry's pushing for a fat Fraser fir that's wider than it is tall. They're not actually arguing. I’m learning this is how the Jollys communicate, through affectionate bickering that somehow ends in consensus.

“You’re the tiebreaker,” Nick declares. “Which tree?”

Six sets of eyes land on me. You’d think it would feel uncomfortable, being put on the spot. Instead, it feels like … family.

Ivy hasn't weighed in, but she runs her hand over the branches of a medium-sized blue spruce. No bare spots, a perfectly straight trunk, and glossy needles. It’s understated and beautiful—like her.

I point to it. “That one. The one Ivy likes.”

She snaps her head toward me. Surprise and delight that I really see her flicker across her face before she smooths her expression to neutral and looks away.

Right. Friends.

Nick claps my back. “Good eye, son.”

Son. The word lands like a punch.

Before I can unpack the three letters, he passes me the saw. “You do the honors.”