Snowflakes looked pretty from the inside of a store window. From the sidewalk, with your toes numb and your landlord’s voice buzzing in your ear, they just looked like tiny, frozen bills falling from the sky.
“I’m not kidding, Emily. The first of the year, you’re out.” Mr. Kowalski’s voice crackled through my phone, competing with the honk of impatient cabs and the low roar of Fifth Avenue. “I’ve been more than patient.”
I shifted the heavy box in my arms and tucked the phone closer to my cheek with my shoulder. One wrong move and the foam snowflakes inside would explode across the sidewalk like my bank account had across my credit report.
“I know,” I said, breath fogging in front of me. “I get it. I just—this client is big for me. If the check clears before New Year’s—”
“You’ve been saying that for three months.” His sigh crackled with the same weariness I felt in my bones. “You’re a nice girl, but nice doesn’t pay the boiler. I can’t hold the apartment past the thirty-first.”
The words landed like icy pebbles down my spine. “So that’s it? Christmas, and then…nothing?”
“Not nothing. Somewhere else. I’m sorry.” His tone softened a hair. “Maybe your parents can—”
“I’ll figure it out.” I cut him off before he could say the word “help,” the one that made my stomach twist. “I always do.”
The lie tasted like metal, but it was smoother than explaining that my parents were still clawing their way out from under the debt snowball that had taken my childhood home with it.
“Thirty-first, Emily.”
The line clicked dead. For a second the city sound dropped away, tunnel-vision muting everything but the soft hiss of snow against my coat.
I blinked hard, squared my shoulders under the box, and took one step forward.
And slammed straight into a wall.
Except the wall was warm and smelled like cedar and cold air and something expensive I had no business recognizing. My boots skidded on a slick patch of slush; the box lurched up toward my face. Foam snowflakes took flight in a tragic, slow-motion blizzard.
“Whoa—” A male voice snapped close to my ear.
An arm, solid as the brick I wished it were, shot around my waist, steadying me. The box didn’t hit the ground. It collided with a broad chest instead.
For one suspended heartbeat I was wrapped in stranger and winter and the faint, oddly comforting scent of laundry detergent. Then mortification crashed in, hot enough to steam the street.
“I’m so sorry,” I blurted, fingers scrambling for purchase on cardboard and dignity. “I didn’t see you, I was—”
“Distracted,” he finished lightly. “I noticed.”
He set the box back in my arms like it was made of glass, stepping back. Cold rushed into the space where his body had been and made me instantly, stupidly miss it. I looked up—too fast—and met his gaze.
He wasn’t what you’d call classically handsome; his nose had a slight bump, like it had been broken once and set by someone who loved him enough not to let it heal crooked. Dark hair, a little too long, shoved back like he’d done it with his fingers. Jaw dusted with evening stubble even though it was barely noon. Eyes…
