Page 38
“I know exactly how small this town is. I live here. I’m telling you, right now, it’s safe. Fox, you’ve been in this apartment for over a week. You need fresh air… Besides, I want to show you something.”
I look at him. At the wine flush in his cheeks, the determined set of his mouth, and the green sparkling in his eyes.
“Fine,” I say. “But if we run into anyone—”
“We won’t.”
“If we do—”
“Then you’re a Hall of Fame member being shown around town by the mayor’s chief events guy. Everyone will believe it. Besides, everyone knows we know each other. We’ve known each other for twenty-five years.”
I let out a breath.
“Okay.”
His face lights up, and like with everything Finn, it’s something I could get used to seeing more of.
“Get your coat,” he says. “You can wear one of the hats on the hook. Pull it down over your ears.”
I do as I’m told, but Finn doesn’t seem quite satisfied because he goes back to the bedroom and returns with a warm scarf, which he wraps around my neck himself.
Outside, the cold hits my face and my lungs, and it’s the best feeling. I hadn’t realized how much I missed being outside until this moment. The apartment is warm and full of Finn, and there haven’t been many moments since I arrived when I’ve wanted to go outside.
I’ve been on the move for two and a half decades. I’m not made to be cooped up for long, even when it involves the first man in thirty years who’s made me consider the benefits of hiding in an apartment away from the rest of the world.
The snow flurries have picked up slightly.
Finn walks with his hands in his coat pockets, and I copy him to stop myself from taking his hand like I want to.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
He glances sideways at me and smiles.
“You’ll see.”
I walk beside him, our shoulders bumping occasionally.
We turn a corner and then another. He’s leading me down a quiet residential street lined with small clapboard houses set back from the road behind neat little front yards.
Then we turn onto another street, and I stop walking because every house on the block is lit up.
Not with a wreath or a modest string of lights along a railing hung a little too early in the season.
No. Every single house is fully decorated with icicle lights along the eaves, Christmas trees glowing in the front windows, reindeer on lawns. One house has a giant inflatable snowman. Another has coordinated color themes down each side of the driveway. The corner house has dancing snowflakes projected onto its exterior wall.
It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.
“What…?” I say, shaking my head while Finn is grinning. “It’s November twentieth…”
He takes a step forward, and we start walking down the street together, slowly.
“Years ago,” he says, “the family at number twelve and the one at number twenty-three got into a competition. Best Christmas lights on the block. It all started out normal. The next year, number twelve bought their lights on Black Friday to get a head start. The year after that, Black Friday wasn’t early enough, and twenty-three started ordering things in October. Then everyone else on the street got involved because they were tired of being outshone by two houses. Now most of the street changes their decorations right after Halloween. It’s a Winterberry tradition that only happens on this street. I’m not even allowed to write it into the official town brochure because the mayor thinks it makes us look unhinged.”
“It does make you look unhinged.”
“I know.”
“This is incredible.”
