Page 73 of Time After Time

“No alcohol,” Latika warns, because Mama, like my father, has a French sensibility when it comes to wine, which means she’s perfectly okay with offering Anika a sip or two or three of hervin chaudthat has significant quantities of cognac mixed in with the mulled wine.

Mama orders warm apple cider with sparkling water in a champagne glass for Anika, who beams.

Freja orders a round ofvin chaudfor the rest of us.

When the drinks are served, Mama raises her mug. “We toast to resilience, ridiculousness, and maybe just a little revenge.”

Freja grins. “Spoken like a woman who once hunted down a man in Paris for ghosting her and returned all his suits…with…holes.”

“Since I’m now married to that man and have been for several decades, I stand by my comment,” Mama declares, haughty as a queen.

Laughter spills out around the table like warmth itself.

“Is everyone going skiing tomorrow?” Aunt Tanya asks.

Latika frowns. “I’m going to pass. My butt hurts from all the falling I did yesterday.”

She’s not an experienced skier, though Aksel is determined to teach her, despite her lack of interest. He’s convinced that once she learns, shewilllove it.

“No way around it.” Freja waves her glass. “You gotta fall to learn. I once fell off a ski lift in Austria while getting on. Just—boom. Face first into a snowbank. The boy I liked pretended not to know me the rest of the day. I was wounded.”

“I think it’s silly to get hurt because a boy is mean to you,” Anika remarks.

“I’m raising a feminist.” Latika clinks her glass against her daughter’s, who giggles.

“I once pretended to be an Olympic figure skater.” Tanya swirls hervin chaud. “I even gave thebartender my stage name. All to impress a man who was sitting next to me. He was such a dish.”

“What happened?” Latika asks, clearly delighted.

Tanya sighs. “He turned out to be a sports journalist.”

Across the table, Anika’s eyes widen. “Did he write about you?”

Tanya sips her drink with a proud little shrug. “No, darling. I disappeared as soon as I found out, because he knew I wasn’t who I was saying I was.”

There’s a clatter at the entrance.

The men arrive—Jean, Bob, Thomas, Jonathan, Aksel…andRansom.

He’s the last through the door, shaking snow from his coat, his gaze sweeping the bar until it lands on me. His hair is damp at the temples, his cheeks flushed, and he looks completely, heart-wrenchingly beautiful in a way that makes me want to…slaphim.

Yes, slap him, Ember, not kiss him, not hug him. Slap him! Got it?

He smiles softly at me. I look away.

Damn, but he’s making this harder than it needs to be.

If he’d only stayed wrapped up with Calypso, it would’ve hurt—but at least it would’ve been a clean kind of hurt. Not the kind where I have to keep saying no to something I want with everything in me, because I know it isn’t good for me.

The table adjusts to fitthem in.

Ransom ends up directly across from me again, because…he’s….

I focus on Thomas who, at five, can read the menu and is doing so patiently. Only he’s reading the cocktail list.

“What is Sexy Snow Bunny?” he asks innocently.

“Something and someone you can’t have until you’re much, much older.” Aksel takes the menu away from him and waves to a server.