Month: December 2025

Chapter 11 Noel The real mistletoe hangs crooked above the cabin door like it knows it’s part of some fate-spun conspiracy. I swear I didn’t hang it. At least, not this one. This is Nash’s doing. The man who told me to take my fairy lights and shove them now struts around his own front

Chapter 10 Nash She hasn’t said a word since we got back from the river. Not a sarcastic jab. Not a glitter-soaked threat. Not even a hum while she made hot cider with her fancy cinnamon sticks and shit I didn’t even know people put in drinks. It’s quiet. But not the awkward kind. The

Chapter 9 Noel It’s colder than the Arctic out here, but I can’t bring myself to go back inside. Not when the porch lights Nash strung are casting this golden halo over the front steps like something out of a dream. The air’s sharp, stinging my nose, and the snow’s falling again—soft and slow, like

Chapter 8 Nash The snow’s up to my damn knees. I stomp the slush off my boots and haul in the wood, dumping it next to the stove just as Noel prances into the room like the storm is her stage. She’s in ridiculous Christmas leggings. Poinsetta red with little white snowflakes. Her sweater says JINGLE

Chapter 7 Noel Snow curls against the windows like it’s trying to break in. The wind moans low, and the coffee pot sputters behind me, filling the cabin with the warm scent of morning. I’m curled on the armchair in one of Nash’s old flannel shirts—buttoned just enough not to be scandalous, but short enough

Chapter 6 Nash The storm howls like it’s got a personal grudge against my roof. Wind slaps the windows. Ice pelts the glass. The wood stove crackles like it’s trying to be louder than Noel’s damn Christmas playlist that keeps bouncing between sultry jazz and some pop singer moaning about mistletoe. I could shut it

Chapter 5 Noel “Let me get this straight…” I say later that night as I slide a baking sheet into Nash Hollis’s ancient oven and smirk at the man currently glaring at the pile of flour on the counter like it personally offended him. “You don’t know how to make cookies?” “I know how to eat cookies,”

Chapter 4 Nash She doesn’t shut up. She hums while brushing her hair. Whistles while unpacking ornaments. Giggled earlier when the smoke alarm went off because she tried to “roast chestnuts” in my fireplace like this was some kind of cartoon Christmas movie and not real life. She’s humming again now. Off-key. In my cabin.

Chapter 3 Noel I’ve seen a lot of wet men in my life. Catalog shoots. Calendar auditions. One very regrettable spring break in Cabo. But nothing—and I mean nothing— compares to a pissed-off mountain man wrapped in a towel, dripping water onto the warped hardwood floor of his hunting cabin first thing in the morning,

Chapter 2 Nash She smells like cinnamon and bad decisions. Red lipstick, combat boots, and an attitude I can already tell is going to give me an ulcer. And now she’s in my goddamn cabin. Humming. Actually humming while she strings that sparkly tinsel shit across my bookshelf like she’s laying a trap. Which she is. Just