My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

IT’S A YULETIDE MIRACLE, CHARLIE BROWN BY STEPHANIE PERKINS

Marigold loved this Christmas tree lot. It was brighter—and maybe even warmer—than her mother’s apartment, for one thing. Fires crackled inside metal drums. Strings of bare bulbs crisscrossed overhead. And, beside the entrance, there was a giant plastic snowman that glowed electric orange. Its pipe gave off real puffs of smoke.

She loved the husky green scent of the Fraser firs and the crinkle crunch of their shavings underfoot. She loved the flannel-shirted men, hefting the trees on top of station wagons and sedans, tying them down with twine pulled straight from their pockets. She loved the makeshift wooden shack with its noisy old cash register. The shack’s walls were bedecked with swags and wreaths, and its rooftop dripped with clear-berried mistletoe like icicles. And she especially loved the search for the perfect tree.

Too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny. Just right.

Marigold Moon Ling’s family had been coming here for years, for as long as she could remember. But this year, Marigold had been coming here alone. Frequently. For an entire month. Because how do you ask a complete stranger for a completely strange favor? She’d been wrestling this question since Black Friday, and she had yet to discover a suitable answer. Now she was out of time. The solstice was tomorrow, so Marigold had to act tonight.

Marigold was here … for a boy.

God. That sounded bad, even in her head.

But she wasn’t here because she liked him, this boy who sold Christmas trees, she was here because she needed something from him.

Yes, he was cute. That had to be acknowledged. There was no getting around it, the boy was an attractive male specimen. He simply wasn’t her usual type. He was … brawny. Lugging around trees all day gave one a certain amount of defined musculature. Marigold liked guys who were interested in artsier, more indoor activities. Reading the complete works of Kurt Vonnegut. Maintaining a respected webcomic. Playing the stand-up bass. Hell, even playing video games. These were activities that tended to lead to bodies that were pudgy or scrawny, so these were the bodies that Marigold tended to like.

However, this Christmas Tree Lot Boy possessed something that the other boys all lacked. Something she needed that only he could provide.

She needed his voice.

The first time she heard it, she was cutting through the parking lot that lay between her apartment and the bus stop. Every holiday season, Drummond Family Trees (“Family Owned and Operated Since 1964”) took up residence in the northeastern corner of the lot, which belonged to an Ingles grocery store. It was the most popular tree-buying destination in Asheville. Lots were everywhere in the mountains of North Carolina—this was Christmas-tree-farm country, after all—so to distinguish themselves, the Drummonds offered friendliness and tradition and atmosphere. And free organic hot apple cider.

Asheville loved anything organic. It was that type of town.

The boy’s voice had stopped Marigold cold. He was unloading slim, straitjacketed trees from the back of a truck and shouting instructions at another employee. Marigold crouched behind a parked minivan and peered over its hood like a bad spy. She was shocked at his youth. He looked to be about her age, but the voice issuing from him was spectacularly age-inappropriate. Deep, confident, and sardonic. It seemed far too powerful for his body. Its cadence was weary and dismissive, yet somehow a remarkable amount of warmth and humor underlay the whole thing.

It was a good voice. A cool voice.

And it was the exact missing piece to her current project.

Marigold made comedic animated short films. She’d been making them for herself, for fun, since middle school, so by the time she launched an official YouTube channel last year—her senior year of high school—she had the practice and talent to catch the attention of thousands of subscribers. She was currently trying to catch the attention of one of the many animation studios down in Atlanta.

She did most of the voices herself, getting additional help from her friends (last year) or her coworkers at her mother’s restaurant (this year). But this film … it was important. It would be her mother’s winter solstice present, and her ride out of town. Marigold was cracking. She didn’t know how much longer she could live here.

She needed this boy’s help, and she needed it now.

It was an unusually blustery night. Marigold searched between the trees—free organic hot apple cider clutched between her hands, she was not immune to its lure—and strained her ears over the sounds of laughing children and roaring chain saws. Under any other context, this combination would be alarming. Here, it was positively merry. Or it would’ve been, had her stomach not already been churning with horror-movie-like dread.

“Can I help you with anything?”

There. In the far corner. Marigold couldn’t hear the customer’s reply, but the boy’s follow-up said enough. “No problem. Just flag any of us down when you’re ready.”

She barreled toward his voice, knowing that the only way this would happen would be to place herself before him with as much speed as possible, so they’d be forced to interact. Cowardly, yes. But it was the truth. She hurried through a row of seven-footers, recently cut and plump with healthy needles. The boy rounded the corner first.

She almost smacked into his chest.

The boy startled. And then he saw her face, and he startled again. “You’ve been here before.”

Now it was Marigold’s turn to be surprised.

“That hair.” He nodded at the thick, stylish braid that she wore like a headband. The rest of her coal-black hair was pinned up, too. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”

It was true that it was her signature look. A sexy twenty-something with an eyebrow scar had once told her it looked cute. She felt cute in it. She did not feel so cute in this moment. She felt like someone who was about to upchuck.

“You know,” he said over her silence, “most people only have to buy a tree once.”

“I live over there.” Marigold pointed at the apartment complex next door. “And I catch the bus over there.” She pointed at the street beside the grocery store.

“Ah. Then I won’t stand in your way.” Though he didn’t move.

“I’m not going to the bus stop.”

“So … you are buying a tree?” He looked at her as if she were somehow askew. But at least he didn’t seem frustrated. His brown eyes and brown hair were as warm as chestnuts. He was even larger up close, his arms and chest even broader. He was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the uniform of Drummond Family Trees. Was he a Drummond or a seasonal hire?

It wasn’t that Marigold didn’t want a tree. She did. She really, really did. But her mother was saving for a new house, and she was saving for an apartment of her own in Atlanta. Her brain scanned for another way around this situation. She needed time to suss him out—and time to show him that she was a totally normal human being—before asking him the scary question. Unfortunately, a tree seemed to be her only option.

“Yes,” she said. “Well, maybe.” Better to qualify that now. “I was wondering if you guys had any … you know. Charlie Browns?”

The moment she asked it, she felt sheepish and ashamed. And then further ashamed for feeling ashamed. But the boy broke into an unexpected grin. He took off, and Marigold hurried after him. He led her to a gathering of pint-size trees near the register. They came up to her kneecaps.

“They’re so … short.” It was hard not to sound disappointed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But did you or did you not ask me for the Peanuts special?”

A thrill went through her, hearing his voice again at such a close range. Superior and aloof, but definitely with that paradoxical underpinning of friendly amusement. It probably allowed him to get away with saying all sorts of rude things.

Marigold could play this game.

“Charlie Brown’s tree was pathetic,” she said, “but it was almost as tall as he was.”

“Yeah. And he was short.”

Marigold couldn’t help cracking a smile. “How about something taller … but with a large, unsightly, unsalable hole? Do you have anything like that?”

The boy’s eyes twinkled. “All of our trees are salable.”

“Surely you have at least one ugly tree.”

He spread out his arms. “Do you see any ugly trees?”

“No. That’s why I’m asking you where they are.”

The boy grinned—a slow, foxlike grin—and Marigold sensed that he was pleased to be verbally caught. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe we have something over here. Maybe.”

He strode back into the trees and led her down the row beside the chain-link fence. They stopped before a tree that was shorter than him but taller than her. Exactly in between. “This one’s been sitting on the lot for a few days. It has a sizable hole down here”—he picked it up and turned it, so its backside now faced forward—“and then this other one up here. But you could put them against a wall—”

“Like you guys did?”

He gave her another mischievous smile. “And it would still look full to anyone inside your home.”

A boisterous, chatty family wandered the row beside them—a mother, a father, and a young girl. The girl pointed at the tallest tree on the lot. It towered above everything else, a twenty-footer, at least. “Can we get that one?” she asked.

Her parents laughed. “We’d need a much bigger living room,” her mom said.

“Do people own living rooms that big?”

“Some people,” her dad said.

“When I grow up, I’m gonna have one that big, so I can buy the tallest tree here every year.”

The words pierced through the air to stab Marigold in the heart. Memories of her own childhood here—of that exact same proclamation to her father—flooded her system. Last year had been the first year that her family hadn’t purchased a tree. Melancholia blossomed into longing as Marigold realized … she wanted one. Desperately. She touched the tall Charlie Brown, letting her fingers fan down its boughs.

“I do like it.…” She turned over the paper card attached to the tree and winced.

“Oh, that’s the old price,” the boy said. “I could knock off ten bucks.”

It still cost way more than her mother would be happy for her to spend. “I’d take it for half price,” she said.

“For a tree this size? You’re crazy.”

“You said it’s been sitting here, unwanted, for several days.”

“I said a few days. Not several.”

She stared at him.

“Fine. I’ll knock off fifteen.”

“Half price.” And when he looked exasperated, she added, “Listen, that’s all I can give you.”

The boy considered this. Considered her. The intensity of his gaze made it a struggle to keep her eyes on his, but she refused to relent. She had the distinct feeling that she was about to get the discount.

“Deal,” he finally grumbled. But with a sense of enjoyment.

“Thank you,” Marigold said, meaning it, as he hefted away her tree.

“I’ll freshen the trunk while you pay.” And then he called out, “Mom! Fifty percent off this orange tag!”

So he was a Drummond.

His mother—a woman with a cheerful face that, regrettably, somewhat resembled a russet potato—sat inside the wooden shack. She looked up from a paperback romance, eyebrows raised high. “Ah,” she said, at Marigold’s approach. “It all makes sense again.”

“Sorry?” Marigold said. A chain saw sputtered to life nearby.

The woman winked. “It’s rare to get a discount outta my son.”

It took her a moment—Marigold was distracted by that pressing question she had yet to ask—but as the woman’s meaning sunk in, the heat rose in Marigold’s cheeks.

“Our customers usually leave with more tree than anticipated.” The woman’s voice was pleasant but normal, though rural in a way that her son’s was not.

“Oh, I wasn’t even going to buy a tree,” Marigold said quickly. “So this is definitely still more.”

The woman smiled. “Is that so?”

“He’s a good salesman.” Marigold wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to protect the boy’s reputation with his mother. Maybe because she was about to ask him a favor. She paid for the tree in cash, eager to escape this conversation while dreading the one that still lay ahead. Her stomach squirmed as if it were filled with tentacles.

She glanced at her phone. It was almost eight o’clock.

The chain saw stopped, and a moment later, the boy headed toward her with the tree nestled in his arms. She was going to have to ask him. She was going to have to ask him right—

“Which one is your car?” he asked.

Shit.

They realized it at the same time.

“You don’t have a car,” he said.

“No.”

“You walked here.”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“It’s okay,” Marigold said. How could she have forgotten that she’d have to get the stupid tree home? “I can carry it.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it’s okay. That’s my place. Right there.” Marigold pointed at the only black window in the neighboring apartment complex. All of the others featured prominently displayed trees or menorahs. Every balcony had strings of lights wrapped around their railings or large illuminated candy canes or plug-in signs blinking Merry Christmas.

“That’s yours?” he asked. “The dark one on top?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve been staring at that apartment for weeks. It’s a real downer.”

“You should see the inside,” Marigold joked. Because no one saw the inside of her apartment.

“I guess I’ll have to.”

“What?” Marigold was alarmed. “Why?”

“You wouldn’t even make it halfway. This tree is heavy. Unwieldy.” To demonstrate, he shifted the tree in his grip and grunted. The whole tree shook. But Marigold was enthralled by the way he said the word unwieldy. A fantasy flashed through her mind in which he dictated an endless list of juicy-sounding words.

Innocuous. Sousaphone. Crepuscular.

Marigold snapped back into the present. She hated feeling helpless, but she did need this boy’s help—and now she needed it in two ways. She dug her arms between the branches and grabbed the trunk, wrestling it toward herself. Hoping he’d wrestle it back. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

“Let go.”

“Seriously, I’m stronger than I look.”

“Let!” He tugged it, hard. “Go!”

Marigold let go. She pretended to look put out.

“Sorry,” he said, after a moment. He actually did look sorry. “But it’ll go faster without you dragging it down.”

Marigold kept her hands surrendered in the air. “If you say so.”

“I’m a lot taller than you. The balance, it’d be uneven,” he explained. She shrugged as he called out to his mother, “I’ll be back in fifteen!”

His mother’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You’re taking your break?”

“I’m helping a customer.”

“You’re taking your break?” she asked again.

He sighed. “Yeah, Mom.”

Marigold trotted behind him as he struggled out of the lot. She felt like an idiot. She also felt a strong surge of guilt. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t.”

There was a gust of freezing wind, and Marigold pushed up her knitted scarf with one hand and held down her woolen skirt with the other. She was glad she was wearing her thickest tights. “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”

The boy grunted.

But it was a nice enough grunt, so she asked, “What’s your name?”

“North.”

“Huh.” This was surprising. “So … your mom’s a hippie, too. I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

“Why?” He stopped to look at her, and needles showered to the pavement. “What’s your name?”

“Marigold. Marigold Moon.”

North smiled. “That’s very Asheville.”

“Born and raised.”

“My parents aren’t hippies,” he said, resuming walking. “I’m North as in the North Pole. Unfortunately. My brother is Nicholas, and my sister is Noelle.”

“Wow. God. That’s…”

“About a hundred times worse than your name.”

“I was going to say devoted. Festively devoted.”

He laugh-snorted.

Marigold smiled, pleased to have earned a laugh. “So where’s the family farm?”

“Sugar Cove.” He glanced back at her, and she shrugged. “Near Spruce Pine?”

“Ah, okay,” she said. “Got it.” That made sense. There were tons of tree farms up there, just north of the city.

“You know how small Spruce Pine is?” he asked.

“It’s barely recognized by GPS.”

“Well, it’s Shanghai compared to Sugar Cove.”

Once again, Marigold was startled out of their conversation by his word choice. Her mother’s parents were immigrants from Shanghai. He couldn’t know that, but was this his way of saying that he guessed she was Chinese? Most non-Asian-Americans were terrible guessers. They’d say Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese before Chinese. As if they were afraid “Chinese” was a stereotype, and they’d get in trouble for suggesting it. As if China weren’t the most populous country in the world.

But Marigold didn’t have time to dwell. He’d finally given her an entrance. “You don’t talk like you’re from the boonies,” she said.

“You mean I don’t talk like my mother.”

She flinched. She’d walked right into that one. “I’m sorry.”

His voice flattened. “I used to. It took a concentrated effort to stop.”

They crossed into her apartment complex, and she re-pointed out her building. North groaned. “Right,” he said. “Of course it’s the one in the back.”

“So why’d you stop?” she asked, nudging a return to topic.

“Because city folk keep a-callin’ it ‘the boonies’ and makin’ assumptions about mah intelligence.”

This was not going well.

North thunked down the tree at the bottom of her stairs. He let out a singular, exhausted breath. “You. Help.” He leaned the tree on its side. “Take that end.”

She lunged forward to grab ahold of its top half. With their significant differences in height and strength, it took several uncomfortable steps to get their rhythm down. “Of course you live in the back building,” he said. “Of course you live on the top floor.”

“Of course you’re going to make me”—Marigold grunted—“regret your help forever.”

They navigated awkwardly around the small U-shaped landing between the first and second floors. “Can’t you move a little faster?” he asked.

“Can’t you be a little nicer?”

He laughed. “Seriously, you’re like a sea cucumber. Which I assume are slow, because they’re named after a vegetable. Which don’t move at all.”

They reached the second floor, and Marigold almost dropped her end. North kept moving. “Sorry,” she said, scuttling to keep up. “It’s hard to get a good grip.”

“It’s a tree. Trees have great grip. Their whole body is made for gripping.”

“Well, maybe I could get a decent grip if you weren’t pulling so hard.”

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t have to pull so hard if you could carry your fair share of the weight.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Marigold slammed her elbow against the railing on the next stairway landing. “Ow.”

North shot forward, wrenching the tree completely from her hands. “AHHHHH!” He yelled like a gladiator as he ran full throttle up the last flight of stairs. He dropped the tree on the third floor, and it skidded forward several feet.

“What the hell was that?” Marigold shouted.

North grinned. “Went a lot faster, didn’t it?”

“You nearly took off my fingers.”

“Looks like I didn’t need your help after all. Because you weren’t any. Help, that is. You weren’t any help.”

“I didn’t even want a tree.” Marigold glared at him. Forget it, enough. The voice work was out. “You talked me into this. This is your fault.”

“Then next time, pick someplace else to loiter.”

She heaved the tree into a standing position and shuffled it toward her door. “I wasn’t loitering.”

“What’s going on out here?” a sandpapery voice called from below.

Marigold cringed. “Sorry, Ms. Agrippa!”

“I knew it was you! I knew you were up to something!”

North raised one eyebrow.

Marigold leaned the tree against the wall beside her door, shaking her head. “I’m just bringing home a Christmas tree, Ms. Agrippa. Sorry for shouting.”

“You’re not putting it on your balcony, are you? I don’t want it dropping down needles onto mine. I don’t want to have to clean up your filthy mess.”

Both of North’s eyebrows rose.

Marigold dug through her purse for her key. “It’s going inside, Ms. Agrippa. Like all normal Christmas trees,” she added under her breath. The door below slammed shut.

“She’s a peach,” North said.

Marigold was done with this whole irritating escapade. Finished. The end. “Well, thank you. I appreciate you carrying this home for me, but I’ve got it from here.” She opened her door and turned on the light. “Good night.”

But North wasn’t looking at her. He stared past her with widened eyes. “And how, exactly, do you plan on carrying a tree into that?”

Furniture and bags and boxes were stacked to the ceiling. Literally to the ceiling. Even with the overhead fixtures turned on, the apartment was still dark. The towering, shadowy objects blocked most of the light. And there was only one pathway through it, straight ahead, barely wider than a person.

“You’re a hoarder.” North’s voice was amazed and incredulous.

“I’m not a hoarder. And neither is my mom.”

“Then what’s with all the hoarding, hoarder?”

Marigold’s chest tightened like a Victorian corset. “It’s a temporary situation. We’re … between houses.”

“Why isn’t this stuff in storage?”

“Because storage costs money, and we’re saving it for the new house.”

North didn’t have a comeback for that one. An abashed expression crossed his face, but it disappeared quickly. Purposefully. Maybe he understood. “So … where am I supposed to put the tree?”

“I told you. I’ve got it from here.”

“Clearly you don’t. It can’t even fit through there.” He gestured at the narrow pathway. “And where’s your end game? Where do you plan on putting it?”

Marigold was overwhelmed by a familiar sense of fear and humiliation. How could she have let him up here? How could she have spent money on something that they’d have to throw out next week? Something that couldn’t even fit into their apartment? Her mother would be furious. Marigold’s heart raced. “I—I don’t know. I was going to put it in front of the sliding-glass door. Like all the others in the building.”

North craned his neck across the threshold. “The balcony door? The one straight ahead? The one behind that china cabinet?”

“Yeah. Maybe?”

“You’re insane. Why would you buy a Christmas tree?”

“Because you’re extremely persuasive!”

North whipped around to stare at her. For a moment, his expression was unreadable. And then … he smiled. It was warm—unexpectedly warm—and it made Marigold feel the teensiest bit calmer.

“So what are you gonna do?” he asked.

“I guess … shift some of this around?” Her expression was as doubtful as her question. After all, she and her mother hadn’t touched anything since they’d moved in.

North took a tentative step inside the apartment. As he scratched the back of his head, Marigold’s chest sunk. She shouldn’t be embarrassed—They had a reason for this, damn it. This was all temporary, damn it—but she was.

“This is madness,” he said. “There’s no way it’s safe.”

“We’ve been here for a year, and nothing has fallen on us yet.”

“You’ve lived in this pit of death for a year?” He slunk into its depths. The pathway led to the most basic and primal living areas—kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you bring my tree in here,” he called out from around the corner. “It would die before Christmas. And that’s only five days away.”

“Doesn’t matter. My tree only has to live until tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow? The day the demolition crew arrives?”

“It’s Yule. The winter solstice.”

North’s head popped out from behind a wobbly stack of dining room chairs. “Are you a witch?”

Marigold burst into a surprised laugh.

“Wiccan, I mean? A Wiccan witch?” he asked.

“No.”

“Pagan? Some kind of … neopagan?”

Marigold shook her head.

“A druid? I don’t know, who celebrates the solstice?”

“Anyone can celebrate it.” She followed him farther inside. “It’s an astronomical phenomenon. Science. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year.”

“So you and your mother are … scientists.”

Marigold grinned. “No. My mom’s definitely a pagan.”

“And here I am, asking again: why, exactly, did you buy a Christmas tree?”

“Because I like them. My dad”—Marigold stopped herself before continuing uneasily—“He celebrated Christmas. My mom didn’t, but she agreed to make them a part of our tradition, because they’re nice. And nature-y. And, besides, the Christians probably wouldn’t even have them if it weren’t for the pagans who celebrated Yule. Evergreens were their thing first.”

She expected him to call her out on being so defensive—Marigold was always getting defensive—but the lines in his forehead softened. “And where’s your dad now?” he asked.

Dead. He was expecting her to say dead.

“In Charlotte,” she said.

“Oh.” North looked relieved, but only momentarily. “Divorce?”

“They were never married.”

“Siblings?”

“I’m an only child.”

“And where’s your mom?”

Marigold had thought she’d made this clear. “She lives here, of course.”

“I meant, where is she now?”

She felt embarrassed again, which was followed quickly by frustration. “Work. She works a night shift.” But as soon as the words left her mouth, Marigold was horrified. She’d just told a stranger that they were alone. How could she be so stupid?

But North only seemed irritated. “So there’s no one here to help us. Fantastic.”

“Excuse me?”

He slid out a turquoise Moroccan end table from the top of a furniture tower as carefully as if he were playing a game of Jenga. “You’ll have to back up now.”

Marigold’s frustration was growing at a colossal rate. “Sorry?”

“This can all be reorganized, but I’ll need a lot more space to work. Everything in these front rooms”—North gestured his head from side to side—“needs to be moved out there.” He jerked his head toward the outside hall. “You’re in my way.” And then he pushed forward, backing her out of her own apartment with her own Moroccan end table.

Marigold was gobsmacked. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you.” He set down the table beside her Christmas tree. “Obviously.”

“Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“I do. Which is why you’re going to keep doing this while I’m gone. One item at a time, okay?” He nodded, answering his own question. “Okay. I’ll be back when my shift is over.”

Marigold didn’t understand how he’d talked her into this. For the last two hours, she’d been carrying dusty chairs and dirty cardboard boxes and trash bags filled with linens and laundry baskets filled with tchotchkes into the outside hallway. Ms. Agrippa had yelled at her three times.

What would her mother say when she came home—in the earliest hours of the morning—and found that their entire apartment had been rearranged? And that Marigold had let a stranger help her do it? That it was his suggestion?

Though … this wasn’t true. Not entirely.

Marigold did sort of know why she’d let him talk her into this, and it wasn’t just because she thought, for sure, that now she could ask for his help with the voice work. North’s company had been the most entertaining she’d had in ages, since her friends had left for college last autumn. With North, she didn’t know what would happen next. And for the last several months, Marigold had known exactly what would happen next. A broken, depressed mother and an endless schedule of work, alleviated only by the silent company of her computer—and the world and people contained within it.

North was real. North was flesh.

And now her own flesh was covered with a thin glaze of sweat. Great.

It was just after ten o’clock, and she was paper-toweling her armpits, when she heard his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. She hastily threw away the paper towel and greeted him at the door.

“Happy solstice.” North handed her a tree stand.

“We do have one of these. Somewhere,” she added.

“I believe you. I think you have one of everything in here. But I’m not betting on our chances of finding it.”

Marigold wasn’t sure if she was amused or annoyed.

North barged past her and into the apartment. “Thank you, North,” he said.

Annoyed. Her jaw clenched. “Thank you, North.”

“You’re welcome, Marigold.” He glanced around the room appreciatively. “Wow. You got more cleared out than I thought you would.”

“Like I told you earlier: I’m stronger than I look.”

“It’s brighter in here, too.”

Marigold couldn’t refute that, but … everything still had to come back inside. She wished she could throw it all away instead. “You seriously think we can fit all of that back in here? And with enough room for the tree?”

“You sound doubtful. Why do you sound doubtful? I have yet to do a single dubious thing in your presence.”

Dubious. That was another good word. Not only did she like how he spoke, but she liked what he spoke. “You’ve done a few dubious things,” she said.

“Name one.”

“Helping out me, someone you don’t even know, in such an extreme manner? That’s textbook dubious.”

“I’d like to argue that”—he grinned—“but I can’t.”

“Why are you helping me?”

His eyes returned to her apartment, scanning its square footage, measuring its nooks and crannies. “Because I have superior organizational skills. I sense how things can fit together. I’m, like, a human Tetris. It’s my superpower. It’s my duty to help you.”

Marigold crossed her arms. “Your superpower.”

“Everyone has at least one. Unfortunately, most people have dumb ones like always being the first to spot a four-leaf clover. Or always being able to guess a person’s weight to the exact pound.”

Marigold wondered if that were true. It was nice to think that she might have a superpower, even a dumb one, hidden inside of her. What might it be?

“Okay.” North pushed her back into the real world. “While I move the rest of this furniture”—she hadn’t been able to move the bigger items—“you’ll need to vacuum and dust. It’s like eight cats live here. Do you have eight cats?”

“I have eighteen.”

“Ah. But you do have a vacuum cleaner?”

Marigold lifted her chin. “Yes, of course.” Though, admittedly, they hadn’t been able to use it here.

“Will Ms. Agrippa be angry to hear you vacuuming at this hour?”

“Very.”

North’s eyes glinted. “Perfect.”

Marigold vacuumed, fended off her neighbor, and dusted the newly emptied areas of her apartment while North hauled around the furniture. She hadn’t wanted to admit that they didn’t have dust rags—well, they did, but God only knew where they were packed—so she used washcloths from one of the trash bags. They were the decorative washcloths that they used to save for company.

The apartment had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. When the front rooms were clear, North explained their next move. They were standing in the center of the small dining room. Marigold had never stood on this particular patch of carpeting before.

“We’re gonna turn this room—since it’s divided from the others—into your storage space. We should be able to fit almost everything in here, including the stuff from your bedrooms, and we’ll stack the rest alongside that wall.” He pointed toward the longest wall in the living room.

Marigold frowned.

“It’s all about how it’s packed and stacked,” he said. “What I saw when I arrived was a complete mismanagement of space.”

She understood his logic, but after how she’d been living for the last year, she still couldn’t imagine anything different. Or, she had to acknowledge, maybe she wasn’t allowing herself to imagine it. Maybe that would only lead to disappointment.

“The movers did that,” she said. “They’re the ones who put everything up here.”

“But you left it.”

Marigold was too ashamed to answer his unasked question. Why? She wasn’t even sure she understood the full answer. Thankfully, North was already walking through the apartment again. “We’ll need the biggest, flattest pieces first,” he said.

“Like the china cabinet?”

“Exactly.”

They carried it together, stiffly and clunkily, but the instant it was in its new place, Marigold felt … lighter. The sliding-glass door was free and clear. She could see outside—the tree lot, the grocery store, the December sky. The crescent moon. She could step onto her balcony, if she wanted. If it weren’t so cold and windy.

And now there was a place for the tree.

“What’s next?” It was hard to downplay her excitement. “The bookcases?”

North shook his head. “That’s an empty china cabinet. Wasted real estate.”

“Oh.” Marigold hesitated. The cabinet usually held a mixture of hand-thrown pottery crafted by her mother’s friends and heirloom china that her grandparents had actually brought here from China. But she had no idea where these items were currently located. “I’m not sure where we packed the nice dishes,” she admitted.

“We don’t need the nice dishes. We just need to fill it.”

North pointed out the correctly sized boxes and bags, and they used them to pack the interior. They moved on quickly, removing the large farmhouse table from her mother’s bedroom and resting it on its side across from the china cabinet. Into this arrangement, they inserted the bookcases—stacking their shelves with still-packed boxes of books—and two overstuffed living room chairs. A porch swing, two rocking chairs, four patio chairs, a lawn mower, and half of the regular dining room chairs were further tucked in with expert precision.

The way North stacked everything—some things upside down, some things on their sides—was Tetris-like. Blocky. Stable. Every piece of furniture was padded with linens and towels, and every remaining crevice was jammed with knickknacks and small appliances. Everything was dusted before it was slid into place. North only vetoed a handful of items—a lamp, a table, a rug, and a few others. Those were set aside.

The air was cleaner. Emptier. As more space was created, Marigold became more aware of her breath, became aware that she could breathe. Her lungs felt hungry.

“What about the couch?” she asked. “It’s still in my bedroom.”

North mopped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. He was sweating. “It’s going in the living room so you can use it.”

The thought—that incredibly simple thought—felt peculiar.

“You guys need something to sit on beside your beds. Somewhere to relax when you come home from work.” He unbuttoned his red-plaid flannel shirt. “Something to sit on while you admire my tree.”

Holy mother of Earth. Marigold was thankful she was already flushed from exertion. She tried to remain focused, but the sight of North undressing was monumentally distracting. “You keep calling it your tree.”

He grinned. “I grew it, didn’t I?”

“I bought it, didn’t I?”

“And I’m very glad you did.” North tossed aside the flannel shirt. He was now wearing a black T-shirt … with an NPR logo on it.

Marigold was doubly tongue-tied.

She knew, on some level, that North must like her. Guys just didn’t do things like this if they didn’t like you. But this was the first out-loud acknowledgment that maybe he was here for something more than utilizing his superhuman organizational skills.

It was thrilling.

And then … there was the T-shirt. National Public Radio seemed like something a boy who liked indoor activities would be interested in. Maybe they had more in common than she thought they did, more than a mutual appreciation for verbal sparring.

But the fact that Marigold hadn’t immediately given him a smartass retort took North’s own smartassery down a notch. He looked unsure of himself, like maybe he’d misread the situation. Maybe she wasn’t interested in him.

Oh, Marigold was interested.

Marigold was definitely interested.

She gave him a cocky smile. “NPR, huh?”

Her expression made him straighten his shoulders, and Marigold couldn’t help but notice—really, really notice—the shape of his upper body. The fact that it had a shape. But as her question sunk in, he grew embarrassed. He turned around to shove a shoebox filled with nuts and bolts into one of the last remaining crevices.

“I got it during their last pledge drive,” he said, meaning the T-shirt.

“Mm-hm,” Marigold said.

“I like keeping up with the news. I like learning things.”

“My mom listens to NPR.”

His back was still turned. “So I should have asked this earlier, but are there any boxes of Christmas”—he shook his head—“Yule decorations that we should be looking for?”

He was changing the subject instead of playing along. Interesting. Until now, he hadn’t seemed like someone who could resist a comeback.

“Or are solstice trees bare?” he continued drily. “The way nature made them?”

There was the North she knew. But … she didn’t know him, did she? Marigold was suddenly struck by how badly she wanted to know him.

She moved toward him. “We decorate ours.”

North turned around, not realizing how close she was standing behind him. He didn’t step backward, and his confidence didn’t waver. “So you’re saying there’s a box.”

His voice was so deep that it rattled through her. “Yeah. There are two.”

North smiled. “Care to describe these boxes?”

“One is for an old Fisher-Price castle. The other is for a Fisher-Price Tudor house.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen those yet.” His voice had gotten even deeper, somehow. Even—okay, she could admit it—sexier. Deep and sexy … about Fisher-Price boxes.

She turned away from him, smiling to herself. “Can I get you something to drink? Water? Coffee? Tea?”

He seemed amused by her amusement. Even if he didn’t understand it. “Yeah. Coffee, thanks.”

The kitchen was a wreck, but—unlike how the rest of the apartment had been—it contained more room to maneuver around in. As Marigold brewed the coffee, North grabbed a round patio table and two dining room chairs, and he made a cozy new dining area in one corner of the living room. Marigold usually ate standing up or at her desk. She couldn’t remember the last time she and her mother had eaten together.

North appeared behind her, pointing at her coffee-making device. “What’s that?”

“A French press.”

“Fancy.”

She shrugged. “My mom doesn’t believe in electric coffeemakers.”

“At least she believes in coffee.”

Marigold laughed as she removed two mugs (handmade, her mother also believed in supporting local artists) from the cabinet. “How do you take yours?”

“Black,” he said.

“Figures. A hearty lumberjack like yourself.”

North snorted.

Marigold grinned. “I take mine black, too.”

He leaned over the island in the kitchen, leaned his tall body toward hers. “And here I had you figured for an herbal-tea kind of girl.”

“Right.” Marigold rolled her eyes. She handed him his coffee. “Because of the restaurant.”

“Because of the solstice. And your name. And this pottery.” He held up the mug. “What’s the restaurant?”

She’d forgotten that she hadn’t told him. It seemed like he should already know. Marigold sat down at the patio table, and North sat across from her. “My mom owns a late-night vegan comfort-food restaurant downtown,” she said in one breath. “Yes, I know. It’s very Asheville.”

“Henrietta’s? Is your mom Henrietta?”

Marigold’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

North shrugged. “There aren’t many late-night restaurants—and there aren’t any in Sugar Cove—so I’ve wound up there after a ton of movies and shows. Everyone knows your mom,” he added. “Or, at least, her reputation. Helping out the homeless and all. It’s pretty cool.”

Marigold had expected him to tease her. Instead, she felt a lump in her throat. It had been awhile since she’d heard anyone speak well of Henrietta. Her mother’s employees were as sick of the sadness and anger as Marigold was. But her mother had built her reputation on feeding everyone well, regardless of how much money they had in their pockets. Included on her menu was a simple beans-and-rice dish that customers paid for on a sliding scale. Those who paid more than the dish was worth, their money went toward those who had little or none. People were surprisingly good at paying it forward.

“Thank you.” Marigold could barely speak the words.

“Are you a vegan?”

“Not even a vegetarian. But,” she admitted, “I eat mainly vegan by default. I’m not allowed to have meat in the house, so I used to eat it in the school cafeteria.”

“School-lunch meat. That’s desperation.”

Marigold smiled. “You have no idea.”

“So … you aren’t a student anymore?”

“Not since I graduated high school. You?”

“Same,” North said. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen. You?”

“Same.”

They smiled at each other, shyly. Pleased. The moment grew bigger and bigger, until it was too big. North shifted in his seat. “I was a vegetarian for a few months. I had to go back to eating meat, because I needed that level of protein and energy for the farm work. But the moment I’m out of here, I’m gonna try it again.”

“You aren’t interested in the family business?”

“No way. You?”

Marigold shook her head. “The restaurant gene did not pass on to me. My grandparents also own a restaurant,” she explained. “Down in Atlanta.”

“That’s cool. My grandparents started our tree farm.”

“Family owned and operated since 1964,” she said, quoting their sign.

Something flashed inside North’s eyes. As if he were feeling the same thing she’d felt when he’d spoken highly of her mother. Pride, maybe relief. “That’s right,” he said.

“So why don’t you want to be a farmer, North Drummond?”

“Just not in me.” He sipped his coffee. “Like you and restaurant-ing, I suppose.”

But there was something in his tone that he couldn’t quite hide. Something that was more distressed than indifferent.

“So,” she asked again. “Why don’t you want to be a farmer, North Drummond?”

He smiled grimly. “It’s true that I’m not interested in it. But Nick—my older brother who was supposed to inherit the farm—it turned out that he didn’t want it, either. About two years ago, he left in the middle of the night. Packed up everything he owned and moved to Virginia to live with his girlfriend. Now they breed designer dogs. Puggles and Labradoodles.”

Marigold was struck by the excessive bitterness in his pronunciation of these words. “But … wasn’t he getting out, like you want to do?”

“My dad had just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.”

“Shit. Oh, shit. I’m sorry.”

North stared at his coffee mug. “It’s getting harder for him to work, and my parents have been relying on me more and more. They want me to take over the farm, but my sister is the one who actually wants it. My parents are good people, but … they’re kind of old-fashioned. There was a big fight last summer. Now Noelle’s gone, too.”

Marigold wished she could reach through the table to hug him. She understood everything—the love, the shame, the needing to stay until things were okay again.

“I’ve been trying to convince her to come back—and trying to convince my parents to give her the farm—so that I can leave.”

“Why can’t you just leave anyway? Like your brother and sister did?”

“The farm barely turns a profit as it is. My parents would go broke without me.”

Marigold swallowed. She’d made the same decision. She had also put her future on hold. “I—I’m staying home to help out, too.”

North looked up. His hardness, his edge, dissolved. “Does this have something to do with your father?”

“It has everything to do with my father.”

“And the reason why you’ve been living like this?”

Now Marigold was the one staring at her coffee. “You know those stories about women who didn’t know that their husbands had secret, second families?”

“Yeah.”

Marigold shrugged.

There was a beat. “Are you serious? You can’t be serious.”

“In Charlotte. A wife and two daughters.”

North looked appropriately shocked.

“They weren’t happy to hear about our existence either,” Marigold said. “And now he’s living there. With them. Making amends. To them. Maybe starting a third and fourth secret family, I don’t know. We found out just before Christmas, last year.”

North shook his head. “I didn’t know things like that happened in real life.”

Marigold hadn’t known either.

“So why didn’t you get to keep your house?” he asked.

“Because my mom and I … we were the second family.”

North’s eyes widened with understanding.

“He married the other woman before he ever met my mom. We were his exotic, wild-child, hippie side project.” Marigold spat this like poison. “So now his wife, his legal wife, is taking all the money in lawsuits. He had to sell our house, and we had to move.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to say.”

She pushed away her mug. “We’re gonna find a new house this spring.”

“And … you’ll stay here in Asheville? Helping your mom?”

Marigold had almost forgotten why she’d approached North in the first place. Almost. She’d decided that even if he couldn’t do it—or, more likely, even if she never asked him to do it—having another person to talk to was enough. Tonight was enough.

“It’s hard, you know?” she said. “I love this town. I love its art deco architecture and its never-ending music festivals. Its overly friendly locals. But … there’s no future for me here. No career. When my mom’s settled, I’m moving to Atlanta.”

North frowned. “To work with your grandparents?”

“No.” But her smile returned, because he’d remembered. “Animation.”

She scooted forward with a new eagerness and told him about the studios that were only three-and-a-half hours away. How the market in Atlanta had been growing for years—how the major television networks were all creating shows down there. She told him about her YouTube channel, her success, her aspirations. Marigold told him everything. Everything except the crucial role that she’d wanted him to play in this.

North leaned in. “Do you want to go to college for that? For animation?”

“I want to work. I’m ready to work.” Marigold paused. “Do you want to go to college?”

“Yeah. I do…” But he trailed off, embarrassed.

Marigold leaned in. Mirroring him.

His words came out in a rush as he gestured at his T-shirt. “I know it’s a dying art and all that, but I want to study broadcasting. I want to work in radio.”

An alarm sounded, full blast, inside Marigold’s head.

“Someone once told me I had a good voice for radio,” he continued. “I’ve never been able to get it out of my head. And I love radio. And podcasts. I listen to This American Life and WTF and Radiolab all day long, obsessively, while I work.”

“You do have a good voice. You have an amazing voice.”

North looked taken aback by her level of enthusiasm, but it was too late to stop.

“I have a confession,” she said. And the rest of her story poured out, the one that revealed that this whole night had been about the sound of his voice.

North was frozen.

“—and I’ve clearly freaked you out, and I’m totally mortified, and now I’m going to stop talking,” she said. And now I’m going to die.

There was a long and painful silence. And then North’s features slid back into their usual state of composure. “First of all,” he said, as smoothly and sardonically as anything he’d said yet, “I’m flattered that you came looking for me and not a tree. This shows excellent taste on your behalf.”

The corners of Marigold’s mouth twitched. “I came looking for your voice.”

“Second of all, I can’t believe it took you an entire month—not to mention, me physically entering your apartment—for you to ask me that question. Which, by the way, you still haven’t formed into an actual query, so I couldn’t possibly give you my reply until you do.”

Marigold sat back and crossed her arms.

North grinned. “Obviously, I don’t have anything else to do tonight. So I can sit here as long as it takes.”

“North,” she said through gritted teeth. “Would you please consider lending me your voice for my new video?”

“That depends.” He placed his hands behind his head. “How much does it pay?”

Marigold’s heart staggered. She couldn’t believe it, but she’d never even thought about paying him. Her friends and coworkers had always done it for free. But of course she should pay him. Of course.

“Marigold,” he said, after she’d been silent for twenty seconds. “I’m kidding.”

“What?”

“I’m kidding. Of course I’ll do it. It sounds awesome.”

“I could pay you in food,” she said quickly. “From Henrietta’s.”

North stared at her. “You know what’s the strangest thing about tonight? Tonight, being an astoundingly strange night?”

“What’s that?”

“That you still don’t realize I’m willing to do anything, anything”—he gestured in a full circle around them—“to stay in your company. You don’t need to pay me.”

Marigold’s heart was in her throat. It’d been over a year since she’d been in a situation like this with a boy. A handsome boy. Suddenly, she couldn’t think straight.

North nudged one of her boots with one of his.

Her boot—her foot—tingled.

A pounding on the door startled her out of her trance. “Keep it down in there! Some of us are trying to sleep!”

“Jesus,” North said. “She doesn’t stop.”

“Never.” Marigold got up and trudged to the door.

“I mean, this is the quietest we’ve been since I arrived.”

“She does this even when my mom and I are asleep. She’ll wake us up.” Marigold opened the door and plastered on a fake smile. “Ms. Agrippa. How can I help you?”

“It’s midnight. I can’t sleep with this racket—” Ms. Agrippa cut herself off. “Oh my lord! You’ve been robbed!”

“No!” Marigold took a step forward.

Ms. Agrippa bolted back—one shaking hand on her chest, the other pointing at North. “That man! There’s a strange man in your apartment!”

“That’s my friend.” Marigold steadied her voice. “He works at the tree lot next door. You saw him up here earlier? He’s been helping me clean. Doesn’t it look nice?”

“Do you need me to phone the police?” Ms. Agrippa hissed. “Are you in danger?”

“Really and truly, everything’s fine. That’s North. He’s my friend.”

North waved.

Ms. Agrippa’s expression changed. “Does your mother know he’s here?”

“Of course she does,” Marigold said firmly. Better to lie about that one. “Good night, Ms. Agrippa.”

“Will he be leaving soon? You’ve been so loud tonight—”

“Yes, Ms. Agrippa. We’re sorry to have disturbed you.”

Marigold wanted to slam the door shut, but she waited. Stared down her neighbor. It had gotten chillier outside, brisker. It felt … almost like snow weather. At last, Ms. Agrippa relented and headed down the stairwell. Marigold exhaled.

“Hello, friend,” North said, right behind her ear.

Marigold startled.

And then she chanced it—she bumped his chest with her shoulder, lightly. North looked delighted. “Is that…” He sniffed the air. “Snow. It smells like snow.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

It didn’t snow often here, but when it did, most of it happened after New Year’s. They’d only had one brief snowfall, back in November. The flakes didn’t even stick.

“I love snow.”

They said it at the same time. They glanced at each other and smiled.

“I hope it snows,” Marigold said.

“I’ve always felt lucky to live someplace where snow is rare, you know? It’s the rareness that makes it so special.”

“That could be said about a lot of things.”

“True.” North stared at her. His smile widened.

Marigold felt it, too. The rareness, the specialness, of North. Of this night. She wished it could last forever.

“Oh, no.” The wonderful thought had triggered a nerve-wracking one. She pushed North inside. “My mom! If it snows, she’ll close the restaurant early.”

They glanced at the lingering items in the hallway—and the tree—and hurried back to work. As fast as they could, faster than Marigold would have thought possible, everything was stacked flat against the living room’s longest wall.

Only the tree remained.

North hefted it inside—a groom carrying his bride across the threshold—and placed it proudly before the sliding-glass door. As he adjusted it in its stand, Marigold vacuumed away the fallen needles. She did another quick sweep of the bedrooms while he rearranged the last of the furniture—the couch, a coffee table, the Moroccan end table, a glass lamp—into an agreeable living space.

She was almost done when she spotted them in a newly cleared corner of her own bedroom. The Fisher-Price boxes.

Marigold carried them into the living room as if they were sacred.

“Look,” she said.

North turned on the lamp, and Marigold’s heart jolted. The area he’d created—everything on top of her favorite floral tufted rug—looked warm and snug and inviting. He’d even found the rainbow afghan that they used to wrap around themselves while watching television. He’d draped it over the back of the couch.

It looked perfect there. Everything looked perfect.

“It’s not much…” he said.

“No. It is.” This was, perhaps, the greatest gift she’d ever received. Her eyes welled with tears. “Thank you.”

North smiled. “Come on. Let’s decorate your tree.”

Marigold laughed, dabbing at her eyes with her sweater sleeve. “Oh, so it’s my tree now? I’ve earned it?”

He pretended to look shocked, as if it had been a slip of the tongue. Marigold laughed again. She felt happy—the kind of happy that reached every part of her body—as she opened the first box. It was filled with neatly bound strings of white and blue lights.

North peered over her shoulder. “Ha! Go figure.”

“What?”

It was as if she’d caught him doing something wrong. He looked uneasy, but he answered with the truth. “I was surprised by how carefully these strands were put away. Christmas lights are usually this big, tangled mess. But this—this—is the tidiest thing in your entire apartment.”

“When we put those away two years ago,” Marigold said, “our lives were a lot different.”

North removed a string of pale blue lights and began to unwind them. “You can tell a lot about a person by looking at the state of their surroundings.”

“If that’s true,” she mused, “then my life is looking significantly better.”

“But does it feel any better?”

Marigold met his gaze. She smiled. “Without a doubt.”

They strung the tree with lights. Tons of lights. Marigold wanted to use all the lights, and when they were done, it shone like a beacon—marvelous and sparkling and bright.

North opened the second box and removed a pinecone on a white ribbon. He raised an eyebrow.

“You won’t find any Santas or angels in there,” Marigold said. “This is a scientific household, remember?”

He laughed.

Each ornament was bundled in tissue paper. They gently unwrapped them one by one—red cardinals and spotted deer and black bears. Suns and moons and stars. Apples and pears and roses. And snowflakes. Lots and lots of silver snowflakes.

“Did you know,” North said, as he hung a feathery blue jay, “that real trees are better for the environment than fake ones? A lot of people think the fake ones are better, because you have to throw out the real ones every year, but real trees produce oxygen and provide wildlife habitats while they grow, and then, when they’re done, they can be ground into mulch to fertilize the earth. While the plastic ones just … rot in landfills. They can take hundreds of years to decompose.”

Marigold waited until he was done with his rant. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”

“Oh.” North stilled. A tiny skunk swayed on his index finger.

But she understood why he’d felt the need to tell her. She nudged his arm. “I’m glad you work for the good guys, North.”

“I am the good guys,” he said, trying to regain some swagger.

As the final ornaments bedecked the tree, Marigold glanced out the sliding-glass door. Tiny snowflakes were swirling and pirouetting down from the sky.

Marigold paled. “Did you know it was snowing?”

“It must have just started.”

“You have to go. My mom will be shutting down the restaurant now. She’ll be home soon.”

She scrambled, shoving the tissue paper back into the boxes. She felt him staring at her, wanting to know something—something she wanted to know, too—but they were out of time. He tucked away the boxes as she rushed into the kitchen. She pulled out a foil-covered serving dish from on top of the refrigerator and ran back to the tree. She shoved the dish at North’s chest. “Take these home, please. As a thank-you.”

His face was illuminated in blue and white light. “What are they?”

“Cookies. Vegan gingerbread ladies. It’s all we have, but they’re really good, I promise. You’d never know they didn’t have butter in them.”

“Gingerbread ladies?”

Marigold shrugged. “My mom isn’t really into men right now.”

“That’s understandable,” North said. “The last one was pretty bad.”

“The worst.”

“And … how do you feel about them?” he asked carefully. “Are you okay?”

She was surprised at how much the truth—the simple, obvious truth—hurt to speak out loud. “I’ve been better,” she finally said.

North stared at her. The lights of the tree glimmered in his warm brown eyes. “I’m so sorry, Marigold.”

Her heart thumped harder.

North took the serving dish. “Would it … would it be okay if I called you sometime? I mean, if you’re still interested in the voice work, I’d be happy to help. I could stop by after a shift. I’ll need to bring this back, anyway.” He lifted the dish in an uncharacteristically awkward gesture.

North could have kissed her. He could have done it, he could have swooped in, but he was being respectful. It made her want to devour him whole. Or be devoured whole. She grabbed the serving dish, shoved it aside, and placed one hand on each side of his face. She pulled him down into her.

She kissed him.

He kissed her back.

Their mouths opened, and he tasted clean and healthy and new. He pulled her closer. Her fingers slid down the nape of his neck. Down to his chest. He lifted her up, and her legs locked around his waist, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. As if they had rediscovered something essential that they didn’t realize they’d lost. They kissed deeper. They kissed like this, her body wrapped around his, for minutes.

When she finally slid back down to the ground, both of their knees were shaking.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all night,” North said.

His voice, so close to her ears, resonated inside of her. It filled her. “I’ve been wanting to do that all month.”

“I want to do that for the rest of the month.” North kissed above her lips, below her lips. “And after.”

“And after,” she agreed, as their mouths slipped over each other again.

“Okay, okay.” She laughed, a minute later. “You have to go. Now.”

They kissed some more.

“Ahhhhhhh,” he shouted as he pulled away. “Okay! Now!”

North’s hair was scruffled and wild. Marigold’s braid was halfway unpinned. They were laughing again. Dizzy with discovery—the wonder and thrill of connection. She tossed him his flannel shirt. “Don’t forget this.”

He threw it on over his T-shirt. “So what do you think your mom will say when she comes home and sees all of this?”

“Honestly?” Marigold shook her head as she repinned her hair. “She’ll be pissed. But then … I think she’ll be glad. Maybe even happy.”

“I hope so.”

“Here, give me your phone.” Marigold tugged hers out of a pocket and tossed it to him. He did the same. They added each other’s numbers. “Text me when you get home, okay? Let me know you got home safely.”

North smiled. “I will.”

They kissed again beside the front door.

“I’m working tomorrow night,” he said, between kisses.

“Thank God.”

“I know. I’ve never been so happy to work for my parents.”

They laughed.

“Until tomorrow, Marigold Moon.” And he kissed her one last time.

Marigold peeked through the sugary frost that was growing, shimmering, on her balcony door. She watched North cross into the lot next door. His entire figure looked perfect from here, like something she ached to scoop up and cradle in her hands. As he climbed into the seat of his truck, he glanced up at her window.

He smiled when he saw her figure. He waved.

Her heart leapt as she waved back. She watched his truck until it disappeared. The tree lot’s lights were off and its fires were out. Through the dull glow of the grocery store, she could see that the evergreens were coated in a fine white dusting. Everything outside was cold and empty and dark.

There was a rattling of keys at her door.

Marigold turned around. Everything inside was warm and cozy and bright. She had needed North’s help to create her mother’s present, but this was the gift—a beautiful apartment. And a beautiful tree.

The doorknob turned.

“Mom,” Marigold said. “Welcome home.”