“I do like him. How about you?”
Aiden shrugged, looking so nonchalant, even though he hadn’t managed to wipe the smile completely off his face. “He’s cool.”
Rachel walkedhand-in-hand with Nick down Main Street, both of them sipping from cups of warm wassail, looking at all the lights and decorations just as snow started to softly fall. Everything about the evening had been perfect. The dinner, the conversation, and now that they were just out enjoying the season, the feeling that there wasn’t anywhere else they needed to be, the peace.
“This feels straight out ofIt’s a Wonderful Life,” she said.
“Except in color.”
“And I’m not wearing a dress.”
“That’s downright scandalous.” Nick pulled his phone out of his pocket. “What do you say to a selfie to remember the occasion?”
She snuggled in close to him as they both smiled at the phone camera. She had to admit that they looked pretty cute next to each other.
“You know, Jimmy is my middle name.”
She looked over at Nick. “Really. Your full name is Nicholas Jimmy Stewart?”
He laughed. “No, my middle name is Buckles.”
“Buckles?”
“Hey, don’t knock it. It was my maternal grandpa’s last name.” He paused a moment. “And his first name was Jimmy.”
She gave him a playful smack on the arm. “It was not.”
“True story. We went to Grandpa Jimmy and Grandma Ina’s farm every year growing up.”
As he told about it, the feeling of peace with him settled in more deeply. She had not been expecting that emotion at all. Lately, with all she had been saying yes to, she’d been feeling rather overwhelmed. She was trying to do all the traditions that she and Aiden had developed over the years, like the snowflakes and their Christmas movie marathon. Then all the town events, like the Christmas sing-in they went to last night. And then after last year, they’d added several traditions with Noelle’s big family, and every night she was coming home from work and hurrying to get Aiden ready for the next thing.
And all the Christmas shopping. She couldn’t forget that.
New relationships took time, too. Time she was more than happy to spend. Each time her phone dinged with a new text from Nick, her heart lit up like the big tree in Downtown Park.
As busy as the Season of Yes was making her, saying yes to a date with Nick was calming her stressed heart in ways she hadn’t even guessed it would do.
But still, whenever she was with him, thoughts of his late wife would inevitably pop into her head. It was clear that he loved her. That he still did. Which was honestly super endearing. She was glad that he did and that he kept Clara alive in Holly’s thoughts. She wouldn’t want anything different from him. She just didn’t know how that would affect how he felt abouther.
“Do you mind if I ask how Clara died?” She probably should’ve eased her way into the question. But she’d wanted to ask for a while, and it felt like it needed to be soon. Probably not blurting-it-out soon, but it was too late to pull it back.
He didn’t seem taken aback that she asked—he just looked up at the falling snow, one of the flakes landing on an eyelash before speaking. “From a heart condition she’d probably had since she was young that none of us knew about. We were completely blindsided. I only knew there was a problem when she didn’t show up to the school to pick up Holly from kindergarten as she had planned.”
“Oh. That must have been so hard.”
“It really was.”
She had an overwhelming urge to just hold him close and make everything better, but she didn’t know what to say. Instead of saying something comforting, she heard the words, “I had cancer” come from her mouth.
Nick’s steps halted momentarily.
“Last year,” she continued, “Acute Myeloid Leukemia. It was rough, but even with as rough as it got, I never worried that I wouldn’t be there for Aiden as he grew up. I always had a gut feeling that I would make it through to the very end. And I did—my scan six months ago came back clean.”
She could tell he was rattled, but she didn’t know what to do about that. The cancer was simply a fact. One that she worried could very well scare him away, especially after losing his wife.
“Everything is good now, then?” His voice wavered a bit, but she could tell he was trying to make the words come out strong and confident.
She shrugged. “I mean, yeah. Everything looks good so far. It was an aggressive cancer, but I had age and a good health history on my side. A lot of things really went my way, actually.”
