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James’s brows knit together. “Can’t say I’m a fan.”

“You don’t look like a fan,” she agrees. “Now, though, speaking specifically not to two-weeks-ago James Stone, what would you say to that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a sneak-peek, backstage tour of the most celebrated seasonal tradition in all of Maple Hills, West Virginia, free of charge?”

“How long has this tradition been going on?”

“Mentally? Years and years.”

“So . . . no years actually.”

She puts up a finger. “It’s an inaugural tradition you get a front-row seat to experience.”

He pauses. “Are you . . . asking me if I want to go camping?”

“I am.”

“When?”

“Tonight. Eight o’clock.”

James, to my surprise, pauses thoughtfully again. “In this weather?”

“About twenty degrees cooler than now, actually, at worst. Blustery and cozy. Perfect campfire setting. Could not be a more prime experience.”

“In the dark?”

“Hiking is most exciting in the dark,” she says, deadpan.

To my absolute shock, he is not turning down my lunatic of a best friend.

“Who’s going?”

“Me. Peter. At least a dozen more of the very best human beings in town, if I say so myself. Chloe, of course.”

His gaze shoots to me. “Did you know you were going on this inaugural yet traditional once-in-a-lifetime camping trip?”

“No,” I say flatly, shaking my head. “But I’m grateful she’s giving me a heads-up this time.”

“This time?”

“Well,” I say, tipping my head this way and that, “let’s just say I’ve kept my bedroom window locked ever since she took me on one of these ‘spontaneous trips’ in high school. I have a long history of being dragged along for my own good.”

I can go camping.

Actually, it’d be fun to go camping.

After so many years of having no plans, it sounds nice to get out and mingle a bit with people from the past beneath the stars—whether we’re doing so in ten-degree weather or not. This is precisely why I need Genie in my life.

James, however, clearly does not need a Genie in his life to get him out and about. He said he was trying to do more with his loved ones, and there’s no reason that should include things like slipping around the side of a mountain in fine leather because some stranger asked him to.

“Yes.”

Genie and I look at him with identical expressions of shock.

“Ms. Carlisle, please!” Mrs. Reinhart calls, this time most emphatically annoyed.

Genie makes one of those motions that conductors make at the end of a song, and most impressively, her class goes absolutely silent.

“You’re in?” she says, a flash of delight in her eyes.