Page 141 of My Favorite Holidate

I roll my eyes. “Stop, stop.”

“The first step is saying it,” Josie goads.

“The second step is doing something about it,” Everly adds.

“The third step is banging,” Maeve finishes.

I laugh, but then sigh. Nothing is fixed, and there’s no evidence it will be. I don’t know how Wilder truly feels or what he’s willing to risk.

“I’ll think about what you said. See how I feel in the morning. How’s that?”

Everly smiles, then pats the canvas bag she brought. “Fair enough, but in that case, we have to wait till morning to show you what’s in the bag.”

No fair. “I want it now.”

“Not until you admit you’re going to try. Not simply consider it,” she says, holding the bag tight.

I huff but relent. “I’ll try.”

Josie nods toward the bag. “Show her.”

Everly reaches into it and dramatically extracts a crushed red-and-white cardboard box for a store-bought gingerbread house. “Brady’s not the only one who can look around and snoop. We can too. And we found this inhis cabin after he threw his big man-baby tantrum on the gazebo stage. Somehow, it wound up on social under that hashtag—manbabytantrums. Which happens to be the best hashtag ever,” she says.

I can’t help it—I grin.

“It is.”

“And,” Everly continues, “the rules for the gingerbread competition were quite clear. You have to make the houses yourself.”

I smile devilishly. “And what are you going to do with this discovery?”

Josie lifts her chin proudly. “We already brought this to the judges. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

I say goodnight, then get ready for bed alone for the first time since I’ve been here. While I do, I think about the Girlfriends’ Guide to Getting Your Man Back.

Step one—saying it. Step two—doing it. Step three—coming back together.

And I’m pretty sure I want all those things more than I want to stay here, stuck.

I’m ready to do the hard thing.

I’m ready to fight for my man.

48

A PERFECT PAIRING

Wilder

After a half hour of pacing the grounds outside in the dark, crunching through the snow on hills by my cabins like a fucking caricature of a lonely billionaire (cue the violins), I’m fed up with myself more than I’d thought possible. I miss Fable horribly, but I don’t know what the hell to do about it.

I don’t have a spreadsheet to figure out this ache or a deal memo to stop these pangs of longing. There’s no business plan to navigate safely to the other side of these damn vexing emotions that have no place to go.

All I know is this—I’ve messed up spectacularly, and I need to go back to square one.

Fix one thing at a time.

I stop pacing, draw a deep breath of crisp winter air, and let it fill me with the first answer.