“You get the wine then. Heath, you get the pumpkin pie ingredients. I’ll see what they have in the meat section. Maybe find some sweat potatoes…or stuffing? I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.” John disappeared off in one direction and Heath went in the other direction. That left me, the eighteen year old, to go choose wine. Splendid.

The alcohol section took up half of the entire store. And even though it was kind of picked over, they had a decent selection. Or at least I think that they did. I knew nothing about wine, not that anyone back home would even be sober enough to care what I picked. There was a man in a big puffy coat and hat also trying to make a selection. I thought about asking him for help, but he seemed pretty deep in thought trying to decide between two different bottles. So I decided to go with whatever was the most expensive. Seemed like a good enough approach.

I grabbed something—yikes, one-hundred dollars for wine?—off the shelf.

“Sydney?”

The bottle of red slipped out of my hand and hit the tile floor. Red wine and glass splattered in every direction, all over my boots, my pants, and even on the other person. The man in the puffy coat was Rhett. I hadn’t even recognized him under all his layers. But I recognized his voice instantly.

“What…what are you doing here?” I choked out, looking up at him. I hadn’t heard from him in three days and now suddenly he was here. In the wine section? I’d never seen him in winter clothes before. Seeing him from behind I hadn’t even known it was him.

He set one of the bottles he held back on the shelf. “I was on my way to come see you. I figured I couldn’t show up empty handed. So I stopped here. Wine seemed like a good ‘meet the parents’ gift. Well, actually, that’s not the full truth. I was kind of killing time…trying to decide if I even wanted to show up.”

My heart went through a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Saying he was on his way to see me—I was thrilled and ecstatic and ready to grab his face and kiss him. Then he said he wasn’t sure and I didn’t know what to think. “Oh,” I muttered. “Okay.”

“The flights out here were complete shit. I spent the last few days just trying to book a flight and then when I finally got one I had to transfer in Chicago and Boston. With the holiday and the snow, everything was a mess—the airport was a mess. Thank God they have an underground subway system in the city or I never would have made it this far. And I’ve lying my ass off to all of our friends, acting depressed as hell over us. And the thing is, I don’t know if it’s an act or if it’s real.” He set the other bottle down, groaning, stepping through the wine mess at his feet, coming a little closer to me. His eyes were so sincere and intense and trying so hard to read something from me. “You’re my girlfriend,” he stressed. “At least, for a moment, that’s how it felt. And I missed my girlfriend.”

He said this with so much conviction that my heart kind of stopped and the world stood still.

“Your brother might hate me, but in time he’ll see that I’m genuine. Because I would never do anything to fuck this up. So if there’s any chance that you might feel otherwise…then I don’t see why…I don’t see why we aren’t together.”

There were so many things I wanted to say to him. But I couldn’t contain my emotions or my excitement, and I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck, pulling his body in closer to mine, and I slammed my lips to his. I was a little rough and a little desperate, but he didn’t seem to mind as he kissed me back. He tasted and felt exactly like I remembered. It was the most comforting thing on Earth being able to touch him and hold him again. We had too many layers of coats and scarves and whatnot between us, but he held me tight like we were naked.

Big tears were rolling down my cheeks. I couldn’t help it. I was so blissfully happy. When it came to Ben, for so long I’d thought I’d been in love with him, but the truth was I knew nothing about love. This was love. What I felt with Rhett was love.

“You’re gonna have to pay for that. You know that, right?” came a voice, interrupting us.

I broke away from Rhett to see a man with a mop staring at us. He was the store manager and he didn’t look happy. “Okay,” I muttered, wiping at my face. Why did I have to drop the most expensive bottle ever? “I can’t believe you took three different planes to get here just for me,” I whispered to Rhett.

He shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“It is to me. And I’m good with the whole girlfriend thing.”

Rhett smiled. And then he really started to smile. He pressed a quick kiss to my lips, taking my hand and tugging me away from the giant mess so the man with the mop could clean. “You look like an adorable snow bunny in that outfit. It’s killing me.”

The mop man shot us a very disgusted look.

“We’d better go find my brother,” I suggested, pulling Rhett off in one direction.

“You break it, you bought it,” the man shouted after us.

Jeez. “I know,” I shouted back, as Rhett and I hurried away from him as fast as possible. We were rounding the corner when I ran smack into my brother. His arms were filled with various food items, no rhyme or reason to them. He looked at me and then he looked at Rhett. I waited for the insults to come flying out of his mouth. But, surprisingly, they didn’t.

“Okay then,” John said. “If you’re going to be here then you can carry all this.” He shoved everything into Rhett’s arms. Rhett quickly moved to balance the items as best he could. One stray orange—an orange?—went rolling off into the unknown despite his efforts.

“Look,” Rhett said to him. “I know you don’t care much for me but—”

“We really don’t need to discuss this,” John said, immediately cutting him off. “Frankly, I’m sick of talking about you. If you’re here, you’re here. Whatever.”

“Well, can I at least say I’m sorry about Shelley? If it helps, it didn’t mean anything to me.”

I slapped my hand to my head. Shelley was the last person Rhett should have brought up at this moment. John wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t fighting or screaming or bitching. Just let it go, Rhett.

“It doesn’t help,” John grunted. “So…yeah.”

“Fine,” Rhett said, dropping the Shelley thing. “What are you making?” he asked, checking out the ingredients in his arms. “Chicken stew?”

“No,” John huffed. “I don’t know. Our mom has never made a Thanksgiving dinner in her life. Every year she gets the meal catered. Now with the snow…well, tomorrow isn’t looking so good. So I’m trying to figure out an alternative. There aren’t many options here. I’ve never cooked much more than pancakes in my life.”

“Right.” Rhett handed the ingredients back to John. “Lucky for you, I can cook. I’ve helped my mom with every Thanksgiving dinner since I was old enough to mash the potatoes for her. Plus, whenever one of the cooks at Chancy’s is out sick or running late, they make me cook. I can help.”

I said nothing. Only watched as Rhett took over Johns little ‘grocery trip’ and started running things. Even when Heath found us, holding nothing but a single can of pumpkin, Rhett started ordering him around, too, making him go find ingredients for the pie. An hour later, the four of us left the store, with wine, pumpkin pie ingredients, stuff to make a couple different casseroles, and a giant amount of chicken breasts. The chicken would have to do since they had no turkeys left.

I was impressed. Even if John wasn’t. And Rhett, with his ability to get along with almost anyone, seemed to have made a friend out of Heath. When we reached the house, Mom and Mrs. Carter were both passed out on the sofa. Dad and Mr. Carter, like two children, had found a sled from God only knows where and were heading outside to ‘try to find a hill.’ I think the only hill they were going to find was a set of stairs straight into a subway station.