Scott said, “God, I hope I never have to do anything like that ever, ever again.”

Only now does Ava remember how she had, in that moment, loved him with every cell in her body.

Now there is the other thing eating at her, the new sexual energy between them. The magnetic attraction. She still doesn’t understand how it just appeared out of nowhere. She held Scott’s hand under the table through a good part of dinner, and even the hand-holding was a turn-on.

She says, “I broke up with Nathaniel.”

“You did not.”

“I did. I called him and ended it.”

Scott swallows. “Not… because of me?”

“Not because of you, no. Because of me. I’m sick and tired of chasing after something that’s never going to happen.”

Scott nods once; she can see him trying to understand. “But you still have feelings for him.”

“Yes,” Ava says. “But that doesn’t matter. I’m finished.”

“Really?” Scott says.

“Really,” Ava says. She gives Scott’s tie a tug, and before she knows it, she and Scott are kissing up against the sink, next to the half-loaded dishwasher, and the water is running.

She stops him. “Let’s finish here,” she says, “and go to my bedroom.”

“Okay,” he says, breathless.

The dishes get done very, very quickly after that.

Ava leads Scott down the hallway, to her bedroom. She lies on the bed and pulls Scott on top of her. They make out like teenagers for what feels like an hour. Out in the main room, Ava hears her mother announce that dessert is ready—plum pudding with hard sauce. Ava loves plum pudding with hard sauce, and she knows her father will be making his famous Irish coffees—but nothing in the world right now is sweeter than being with Scott.

As he runs his hand up her sweater, her phone rings. She catches the display out of the corner of her eye. NO, it says.

Nathaniel.

Scott says, “Do you have to answer that?”

“No,” she says.

Ava stops Scott somewhere between second and third base. It’s not that she doesn’t want to keep going; it’s that she wants something to look forward to.

“Okay, right,” Scott says. He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “It will be better if we wait.”

“Just not too long,” she says.

After a while she tiptoes to the kitchen to snag two dishes of plum pudding for herself and Scott—she hopes there is some left—and she overhears her parents in the kitchen, talking.

Margaret says, “You don’t have to sell the inn. I could either lend you the money to keep it going, or I could buy it outright and you could run it.”

“Kevin wants to run it,” Kelley says. “Kevin and Isabelle.”

“Do they?” Margaret says. “Would that be a bad life for them?”

“I can’t let you buy the inn, Maggie,” Kelley says. “You’ve already done too much as it is.”

“What have I done?” Margaret asks. “I showed up, is all. And I was long overdue for that.”

Ava strolls into the kitchen. “Hello, parents,” she says. “So, are you two getting back together, or what?”

They both laugh. Ava gets two dishes of plum pudding and douses them with her mother’s luscious hard sauce. She asks Kelley to make two Irish coffees.

“This may come as a shock,” Ava says, “but since we’re all being honest, I’m entertaining a guest in my room.”

“Scott is lovely,” Margaret says.

“We just want you to be happy, sweetheart,” Kelley says.

Ava takes dessert back to her room on a tray, thinking, Sell the inn? Well, it’s time, probably, that she found her own place to live.

But still… sell the inn?

She and Scott gobble down dessert, and then they turn on the TV to watch It’s a Wonderful Life while drinking their Irish coffee.

Then they must have both fallen asleep, because Ava wakes up to someone knocking on her bedroom door.

“Ava!” It’s her mother. “Ava, are you in there?”

Ava stands up, collects herself, and opens the door. “Hi, what is it?”

Her mother mouths something, but Ava is too bleary-eyed to make out what it is.

“What?”

Margaret leans in and whispers, “Nathaniel is here.”

Ava blinks. “Here?”

Her mother nods vigorously.

Nathaniel is here.

Ava turns to look at Scott. He is passed out cold in her bed. Ava tiptoes out into the hallway, closing the door gently behind her.

Nathaniel is in the living room, chitchatting with Kevin, listening to Kevin and Isabelle’s big news, admiring Isabelle’s diamond ring.

“Wow, that’s great!” Nathaniel says. “I’m really psyched for you guys.”

“Thanks,” Kevin says.

Nathaniel sees Ava and breaks into that heart-stopping grin of his, the same one he gave her the day he met her.

“Hey, baby,” he says.

She will not succumb.

She says, “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

“Or your room?” he says.

“No.”

“Wow,” he says. “You really are mad.”

She strides into the kitchen but finds Kelley in there, cleaning up dessert and making fresh muffins for the morning.

“Hey, Ava,” he says. Funny look. “Hey, Nathaniel.”

“Mr. Quinn,” Nathaniel says. “Merry Christmas.”

“And to you,” Kelley says.

Ava can’t believe it is still Christmas. This is the Christmas that never ends.

She says, “Well, we can’t talk in the kitchen, so we’ll have to talk in the dining room.”

“Or your room,” he says.

“No,” Ava says.

“Or we can go to my place,” Nathaniel says.

“Negative,” Ava says.

“Wow,” Nathaniel says. “Where did you get that necklace? Did Scott give you that necklace?”

“None of your business,” Ava says.

“Did Scott give you the necklace, Ava? If he did, then this makes sense. I mean, one guy gives you rain boots, one guy gives you a diamond necklace…”

Ava sighs. “It’s from my mother.”