Red and green twinkly lights are flashing and reflect across the

snow. The air smells like sausage and coffee and it makes my

stomach growl.

“You alive back there?” Kayden asks, turning his head and

looking over his shoulder at me.

I nod, but don’t move my face away from his back. I’m afraid

if I do he’ll disappear.

“Callie?” Kayden says. “Are you okay?”

My shoulders lower as I let out a breath and then force

myself to let him go. I lean back and look him in the eyes. “Yeah,

I’m fine.”

He frowns and draws a line across my cheek with his finger.

“You look frozen.”

I touch my cheeks and either they’re numb or my fingers are.

“Maybe we should go inside.”

Kayden swings his leg over the bike and gets to his feet. I

start to climb off when my phone vibrates inside my pocket. I take

it out and scroll through to check my messages.

Seth: We’ll b there in a bit. We had to stop at the store.

Me: For what?

Seth: For stuff.

Me: Is something wrong?

Seth: No… we just think you two might need a few

minutes to yourselves.

Me: When will you be here?

Seth: Soon. And remember: skittish cat.

“Skittish cat?” Kayden says.

I look up at him and realize he’s leaning over me, reading the

screen. “It’s nothing.” I shove the phone into my pocket, bend my

knee up, and draw my leg to the side to get off the bike.

Kayden lifts an eyebrow as he circles his fingers around my

wrist and helps me off the bike. “So they’re giving us time?”

Damn it. Why did he have to read the message? He lets go

off my arm and I lower my chin down into the jacket and tuck my

hands into the pockets. “Seth’s just being weird.”

He eyes me with suspicion and I’m worried I’ve already

messed my chance up. But then he says, “Isn’t Seth always weird?”

And I feel like his giving me an easy exit because maybe he wants

a few minutes with me.

I nod. “Yes, he is, but he wouldn’t be Seth if he wasn’t weird.”

He returns my smile and then moves his hand toward mine,

hesitating momentarily before he interlocks our fingers, slipping

his large ones through my tiny ones. I glance up at him and his

chest puffs out as he liberates a stressed breath from his lungs. We

don’t say anything else. We just cling onto each other as we head

toward the front door of the café that’s decorated with a picture of

Santa holding a bag of toys.

When I step inside, I realize how frozen I am. The coziness of

the warm air encloses me and prickles the life out of my cooled

skin. It’s not very crowded today in the café, but we still pick one of the corner booths hidden away at the back to get as much privacy

as we can. Christmas tunes play from the speakers in the ceiling

and on each table are unlit silver and white candles. It’s that time

of year where people are happy and they try to sprinkle things

with magic. I wish they would sprinkle some on us.

Once I’m in the booth, I wiggle my arms out of Seth’s jacket,

ball it up to the side of me, and then remove my own jacket that

was beneath it. I’m a little disappointed that Kayden chose to sit

across from me, but I just remind myself skittish cat, skittish cat.

He instantly reaches for the saltshaker and rotates it between

his hands, channeling his nervous energy. It’s quiet, except for the

flow of chatter and the clinking of glasses and pans coming from

inside the kitchen. I struggle to think of something to say as

Kayden stares at the saltshaker in his hands. I retrieve a menu from

the stack on the table near the napkin dispenser and begin reading

it over.

The waitress comes to take our orders. She’s the same one

who flirted with Seth and she gives me this knowing look, like I’m a

slut. Her hair is braided to the side and her name tag says “Jenna.”

I think I remember her from school. She was a grade lower than

me and was friends with Daisy McMillian.

“Hey, Kayden,” she says, adding a giggle at the end.

He glances up and then shoves the saltshaker to the side.

“Hey, Jenna.”

“How are you?” She touches his arm with her manicured

fingers, petting his muscles like he’s a dog. I have this insane

impulse to slap her hand away. I don’t like it because it’s not me. “I heard you were in a car accident or something.”

Kayden rolls his eyes and mutters, “Yeah, or something.”

She laughs, but her eyebrows knit. “You’re so funny.”

Kayden looks at me as he stretches his arm toward the stack

of menus and my gaze darts to the table. I tuck my hands between

my legs and focus on the list of appetizers.

Kayden and she start conversing about their old high school

days and how everyone’s missed seeing Kayden play and hanging

out with him at parties. Kayden smiles at her every once in a while

and it hurts a little because he’s barely said anything to me since

I’ve seen him.

“You know she misses you,” Jenna says, smacking on her

gum with the pen poised against the order book.

Kayden peers up from the menu at her, his eyes glazed over,

looking lost. “Who?”

She pops a pink bubble in out of her lips and glances at me

from the corner of her eye. “Daisy.”

I inch lower into the booth, wishing I were smaller or

invisible, and position my hand to the side of my face, pretending

to be fixated on the beverage list.

“Yeah…” Kayden focus on the menu. “I think I’ll have the

pancakes.”

I smile, thinking of Seth and our pancakes endeavor and a

little bit of courage surfaces in me. I sit up a little straighter and scoot my menu to the side. “I’ll have pancakes too, and coffee.”

Her nose scrunches as she writes down my order and then

smiles charismatically at Kayden. “Do you want anything to drink?”

Kayden closes his menu. “I’ll have a cup of coffee too.”

She scribbles that down, flashes a grin at him, and when she

turns around to head to the counter, she scowls at me. I look away

from her and focus my concentration on Kayden. I have more

important things to worry about than Jenna and Daisy.

“I want to talk to you,” he starts, looking at the cracks in the