Page 39 of The Holiday Clause

She remembered they used to sit out back on the palettes and boxes with their slushies, so she went around back. “Oh, my gosh!”

A bottle of wine waited on a stack of palettes with a quilt draped over them. Two milk crates were flipped over as chairs.

“Table for two?” He waved his hand like a maître d’.

Once she sat down, he uncorked the wine and lit the small candle in a mason jar. “I can’t believe you went to all this trouble.”

“We spent a lot of time here back in the day.”

“I remember.” She turned the bottle and snorted. It was the swill they used to steal from her Aunt Astrid’s house. “I didn’t know they still made this.”

“I wanted to be nostalgic.” He poured them each a glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

They each took a sip and winced. “Oh, God.”

He gasped. “I don’t remember it burning like that.”

She gagged. “Maybe it’s an acquired taste.” When she sipped again, her eye twitched.

“You looked so nervous when I showed up.”

She blushed, now feeling silly for ever being nervous about Logan. “I was.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. This is... weird. We’re friends.”

“So? Sometimes friends date.”

She still wasn’t comfortable calling this a date. “Some friends aren’t as close as we are.”

“True. I was surprised you changed your mind. What made you call?”

She’d called to goad Greyson, but she didn’t want to bring him into this. “I don’t know. I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”

“Is that because you still see me as the kid brother? Because I haven’t been a kid in a long time, Wren.”

She looked at his defined jaw and five o’clock shadow. Meeting his dark eyes, she agreed, “No, you haven’t.”

He refilled their wine. After the first glass, it went down a little easier. He studied her for a long moment, and nervousness crept in again.

Sipping the unpalatable wine, he asked, “What’s something you used to believe about love that you don’t anymore?”

His question cut to a hidden part of her she didn’t easily expose. If he was trying to knock her off balance with his emotional maturity, he succeeded.

“Um…that’s a deep question.” She laughed and tried to think of a truthful answer. “That there’s someone out there for everyone—like a perfect soulmate.”

“You don’t believe in soulmates?”

“Not anymore. How about you?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say. I’ve never actually been in love, but I think it’s possible to meet someone who fits your personality so well they complement your soul and fill in all the missing pieces.”

“That’s really sweet. What’s something you stopped believing in?”

He took a deep breath and smiled softly, staring into the murky wine. “I used to think love was something you had to earn. Like, if you worked hard enough, stayed out of trouble, did everything right, eventually, the payoff would come.”