I knock on the glass one more time. “You can still prank me,” I call. “I’m still your little sister. And I give good prank back.”

There you go, Max.

I caught your pitch. I lobbed it back.

Let’s see what you want to do with it now.

13

Max

Fucking snow.

Fucking snow on a fucking holiday in a fucking town that’s fucking perfect.

Except it’s not, Max, Tillie Jean’s voice whispers in my head. Come to dinner. It’s just dinner. Just people. Except more food and more people.

And that’s exactly why I need to go to the city.

Lots and lots more people, but none of them will give a shit if I don’t show up for someone else’s idea of a good time.

For the record—there’s no snow in the city.

Copper Valley is lovely today. A little chilly, but not snowy. Or even wet.

But can I get there?

Not until I shovel ten damn inches off my driveway. And even then, there’s no telling if or when the streets will get plowed.

But I’m still out on my driveway, shoveling snow, at seven AM.

Just in case.

Maybe I can shovel the street too.

If I can’t get out of town, I’ll have to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Rock why I don’t want to join them for the Thanksgiving thing they’ve been making such a big fuss over, and I don’t want to look Tillie Jean in the eye after everything I confessed to her Saturday afternoon won’t cut it.

Holidays suck, thanks for asking isn’t something you say to people who’ve been nothing but kind to you for years.

Don’t want to bring you down when I inevitably get stuck obsessing over how it’s all just for show probably won’t go over so well with the Rocks either. They seem legitimately tight without a lot of dysfunction, and knowing Tillie Jean’s talked to at least one professional too?

They might be the real deal.

They might be the one normal, healthy family in the world. The anomaly.

The fucking perfect example for the rest of us.

Trevor left yesterday.

Robinson flew out Sunday.

Elliott and Rossi and their ladies didn’t stick around past the weekend either.

I should’ve left last night, but I was tired after pushing myself too hard at the gym. Plus, I kept telling myself I’d go talk to Tillie Jean and ask her to not say anything about everything I told her, when really, it would’ve been an excuse to see if she looked at me any differently, and I know it.

And on top of my physical and mental issues, we were only supposed to get half an inch of snow.

“Not to tell you how to shovel, but most people wear clothes while they’re doing it,” Tillie Jean herself calls.

I straighten and glare at her even though she’s fucking gorgeous leaning out her own window this morning and the mere sight of her makes me want to drop my shovel and dive into her house with her.

Reason number forty thousand this woman gets under my skin. “It’s hot.”

“You’re hot.” She grins, then stops and sighs. “Sorry. Habit. I’m stopping, I swear. But seriously, you can’t expect a woman to not react to a guy in his boxers shoveling three feet of snow.”

It’s not three feet, but it’s the heavy, thick, wet kind of snow that sticks together, as opposed to the light and fluffy, airy stuff that you could sweep away with a broom, so I don’t correct her.

Mostly. “I’m wearing boots too.”

“Ooh, I love boots. Are they lined?”

I grunt and start counting shovels of snow by the fours, which is a pretty decent indication that I should be inside, accepting my fate of being stuck here for the weekend and finding something more productive to do with my time instead of being out here, counting by fours.

Like maybe calling my doc and asking if it’s okay to double up on anxiety meds through the holidays.

The next step in shoveling snow this morning is getting upset that she interrupts me at—

“Cooper’s stuck up on the mountain. We’re probably pushing the progressive dinner to tonight,” Tillie Jean continues. “Or at least later this afternoon. Gotta have time to digest before bed and the world opening up again tomorrow, right? Not that I’m telling you that because I don’t respect your decision about whether or not you want to come. It’s more that I know you guys are tight and if you wanted someone to commiserate with about interrupted plans, he’ll have extra time today. And I think Uncle Homer probably has snowshoes in your basement if you want to hike the mountain. Not like he’ll be using them.”

Three.

I didn’t make it all the way to four.

Go inside, Max. Go. Inside.

I hate holidays.

I hate holidays more than I hate knowing that Tillie Jean talked me out of my darkest secrets. I hate holidays more than I’ve ever hated Tillie Jean. And I hate holidays more than I hate knowing that I don’t hate Tillie Jean, not even close, but she’s still fucking off-limits, which might be what I hate most of all.

Right behind she somehow isn’t making me feel like a loser-failure for having a meltdown on the driveway over not being able to leave town for Thanksgiving when all I really need to do is barricade myself inside the house.

How does she do that?

How does she talk and talk and talk and then say the exact right thing that should be the wrong thing, since she’s the one saying it, but it isn’t?

There’s another noise next door, and I slide my eyes just enough that way to see a leg come out a window.

It’s dressed, albeit in bright pants that are most likely pajama pants.

In a boot of its own.

And it’s followed by the woman who haunts my sleep now shimmying out of her window in a coat.

I stop shoveling. “What are you doing?”

She reaches back inside the house and pulls out a shovel. “My front door won’t open. I’m gonna go free it.”

“I’ll get your door.”

“Aww, that’s sweet of you to offer, but I love shoveling snow. The first time it snows, anyway. I manage to forget over the summer how much I hated it the last time I did it last winter.”

She’s completely serious.

And she very much needs to be none of my business, so I go back to my own shoveling.

One scoop. Two scoops. Three scoops. Four scoops.

One scoop. Two scoops. Three—

“Did it snow a lot where you grew up? I forgot where that was.”

“Some.” One scoop. Two—

“Like Alaska some, or like you lived in Texas and occasionally had weather that shut the whole state down?”

I straighten and start to glare at her, but she’s not wiggling her eyebrows at me, tugging up her pants to show me her ankles, winking, making duck lips, or doing anything beyond attempting to walk through snow that almost reaches halfway up her calf.

Actually, the snow’s deep enough that she’s taking comically large steps, her arms extended, one holding the shovel, balancing so she’s not dragging her boots through it.

She’s only leaving footprints.

No shuffle marks.

The other thing she’s not doing?

Shooting me covert looks to see if I’m mentally stable today.