been more than close. She’d been gone a little over a year and the wound was as fresh and painful as if the loss had happened only the day before.
It was because of her that Eva had grown up feeling safe and secure. She owed her grandmother everything, although she knew that there was no way of attaching a value to something so priceless. Her payment, although she knew none had ever been asked for, wanted or expected, was to get out of bed every day and live the life her grandmother had wanted her to live. Make her proud.
If she was here right now, her grandmother wouldn’t be proud.
She’d tell her that she was spending far too many nights alone in her apartment with only Netflix and hot chocolate for company.
Her grandmother had loved hearing about Eva’s romantic adventures. She would have wanted her to go out and meet people even if she felt sad. To begin with she’d tried to do just that, but lately her social life revolved round her friends and business partners, Paige and Frankie. It was easy and comfortable, even though both of them were now crazily in love.
It was ironic that she, the romantic one, led the least romantic life.
She stared out of the window through the white swirl of flakes to the darkening sky. She felt disconnected. Lost. She wished she didn’t feel everything so deeply.
Still, at least she was busy. This was their first holiday season since the three of them had set up Urban Genie, their event and concierge business, and they were busy.
Her grandmother would have been proud of what she’d achieved in her work.
Celebrate every small thing, Eva, and live in the moment.
Eva blinked to clear her misted vision.
She hadn’t been doing that, had she? She lived her life looking forward, planning, juggling. She rarely paused for breath or to appreciate the moment. She’d been running for a year, through a freezing winter, a balmy spring, a sweltering summer and, here now, full circle, to another winter. She’d muscled through, pushing the seasons behind her, moving forward step by step. She hadn’t lived in the moment because she hadn’t liked the moment she was living in.
She’d done her best to be strong and keep smiling, but it had been the toughest year of her life.
Grief, she thought, was a horrible companion.
“Ev?” Paige’s voice echoed down the phone. “Are you still there? I’m worried about you.”
Eva closed her eyes and pulled herself together. She didn’t want her friends to worry about her. What had her grandmother taught her?
Be the sunshine, Eva, not the rain.
She never, ever, wanted to be the black cloud in anyone’s day.
Opening her eyes, she smiled. “Why are you worried about me? It’s snowing. If this blizzard eases I’ll go across to the park and build a snowman. If I can’t find a guy in real life, at least I can build a decent one out of snow.”
“You are going to build yourself a sexy guy?”
“I am. With broad shoulders and great abs.”
“And no doubt you won’t be using the carrot for his nose.”
Eva grinned. “I was thinking maybe a cucumber for that part of his anatomy.”
Paige was laughing, too. “You’re so demanding it’s no wonder you’re single. And, by the way, you have the sense of humor of a five-year-old.”
“It’s the reason we’ve been friends forever.”
“It’s good to hear you laugh. Christmas used to be your favorite time of year.”
It was true. She’d always loved it. Every smiling Santa, every happy note of music that played in the stores and every sparkly snowflake. She especially loved the snowflakes. They made her think of sleigh rides and snowmen.
To Eva, snow had always seemed magical.
Enough, she thought. Enough.
“It still is my favorite time of year.” She didn’t need to wait until New Year’s Eve to make a resolution.
She was going to get out there and live every day the way her grandmother would have wanted her to live it. Starting right now.
* * *
Christmas.
He hated it. Every smiling Santa, every discordant note of music that blared in the stores and every freezing snowflake. He especially hated the snowflakes. They swirled with deceptive innocence, coating trees and cars and landing on the palms of enchanted children who saw falling snow and thought of sleigh rides and snowmen.
Lucas thought of something different.
He sat in darkness in his Fifth Avenue apartment, staring out across the wintry expanse of Central Park. It had been snowing steadily for days, and more was on the way. It was predicted to be the worst blizzard in New York’s recent history. As a result, the streets far below him were unusually empty. Everyone who wasn’t already home was hurrying there as fast as possible, taking advantage of public transportation while it was still running. No one looked up. No one knew he was there. Not even his well-meaning but interfering family, who thought he was on a writing retreat in Vermont.
If they’d known he was home they would have been fussing over him, checking on him, forcing him to participate in plans for Christmas celebrations.
It was time, they said. It had been long enough.
How long was long enough? The answer to that eluded him. All he knew was that he hadn’t reached that point.
He had no intention of celebrating the festive season. The best he could hope for was to get through it, as he did every year, and he saw no point in inflicting his misery on others. He hurt. Outside and inside, he hurt. He’d been crushed and mangled in the wreckage of his loss, and crawled away with his life but very little else.
He could have traveled to Vermont, buried himself in a cabin in a snowy forest like he’d told his family, or he could have gone somewhere hot, somewhere untouched by a single flake of snow, but he knew there was no point because he would still be hurting. It didn’t matter what he did, the pain traveled with him. It infected him like a virus that nothing could cure.
And so he stayed home while the temperature swooped low and the world around him turned white, transforming his building into a frozen fortress.
It suited him perfectly.
The only sound that intruded was his phone. It had rung fourteen times in the past few days and he’d ignored each and every one of the calls. Some of those calls had been his grandmother, some had been his brother, most his agent.
Reflecting on what his life would look like if he didn’t have his career, Lucas reached for the phone and finally returned the call to his agent.
“Lucas!” Jason’s voice came down the phone, jovial and energetic. There were sounds of revelry in the background, laughter
