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H O L I DAY H O M E
BOOK ONE

Jenna Albright
HOLIDAY HOME: BOOK ONE
Copyright © 2023 by Jenna Albright

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,

organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or
locales is entirely coincidental.

First Printing Edition 2023

HOLIDAY HOME
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ALSO BY JENNA ALBRIGHT
 Chapter One
Next Door

I n most cases, hearing that your next-door neighbors of

ten years were getting divorced elicited either
indifference—if you weren’t close to them—or sympathy
—if you were. Most people, even if they knew the match had
been strained for years, nodded somberly upon hearing the
news, maybe muttering under their breath that they’d seen
it coming. In rare circumstances, relief to see a toxic
relationship finally end accompanied the news. Still, no
matter which of these emotions the news sprouted within
someone, they didn’t usually fist pump the air elatedly upon
reading the ill-tidings through a text message.
Liam Carr committed such an act—six raucous punches
over his head—upon reading his mother’s message on
December 4th . The divorce between Tess and Douglas Levine
was finalized. And right before he headed home from his
first semester of college. Christmas could come early.
For any of his other neighbors, he would have
commiserated for the end of a decade-long relationship.
Really. But this one… this one he celebrated. Wholeheartedly
and unabashedly, confusing his roommate as he went
around grinning ear-to-ear during finals week, he
celebrated. His Human Anatomy and Physiology I professor
could have slammed his finals paper on homeostasis and
the importance of organ systems as complete intellectual
sewage, and Liam still would have spent the drive home
singing boisterously alongside the radio blaring through his
car.
For a seventy-thirty split of selfless to selfish reasons, he
figured he was still in the clear to face Tess once he made it
back. On the selfless side, Douglas was an utter jackass. A
man of dark glares and irate temperament, Liam had seen
little of the man growing up, and what little he saw didn’t
lead him to pity the sparseness of their interactions.
He was an overworked actuary for a major accounting
firm, or so Liam thought he remembered. For all the time he
spent evaluating and assessing the risks and likelihoods of
the future for his company’s business decisions, Liam
wondered if he’d foreseen the end of his marriage coming. If
he had, had he weighed his prospects for the future and
decided that letting it end would be for the best?
If he had, he was the biggest fool of all time.
Liam couldn’t fathom how Tess, who was practically an
angel, had ever let the unpleasant scowl of a man slip a ring
onto her finger. As curious as he was, he didn’t imagine it
was a question he should ask until a healthy burden of time
separated her from the freshness of the divorce. Ten days
probably wasn’t long enough.
As he reached familiar neighborhood streets, his car
hummed with the boisterous work of the hot air flooding its
compartment. With it well past six o’clock at the end of his
journey, darkness would have swathed the houses in its
clutches if not for the Christmas lights stabbing colorful light
into the night. Frost glistened on the grass, turning lawns
pallid blue-white. Liam wondered if he’d see any snow over
the break. So long as it didn’t bury him indoors like a nasty
blizzard had two winters ago, he wouldn’t mind waking up
to a winter wonderland.
Taking the slope down into his neighborhood carefully,
unsure if his car beams had seen ice on the asphalt, he
turned off the road for his street after it flattened. Curving
along the street he’d grown up on, he looked from side to
side as he eked toward 4401 Cherry Lane.
He saw Ernest’s lonely haunt, where the physicist
cloistered within had left his home as one of the few
untouched by holiday decorations. A few more down, he
passed Clint’s family home, where memories of roasted
chestnuts and toasty glazed hams filled his nostrils with
their delectable scents. As an adolescent, he’d spent more
Christmases there than in his own home just six houses
down.
His house appeared in view on his right. Unsurprisingly,
though not due to any lack of holiday spirit, it was one of the
few dark splotches on an otherwise colorful street. The
houses to either side radiated bright and colorful, with Gary
sticking enough lights and decorations on and around his
large home to give Clark Griswald a run for his money. By
comparison, Tess edged in the middle of blindingly overdone
and completely devoid.
I wonder if she put them all up herself, Liam thought as
he turned into his driveway. His was the only car there, as it
would likely be throughout the entirety of his winter
vacation.
His parents, dentists both, hadn’t meant to have a
second son sixteen years after having their first—their last,
according to their doctor, who’d told his mother she was
lucky to have borne even one child. With the man retired
years before his unexpected conception, Liam’s parents had
sent him a droll family picture when his mom was in her
third trimester.
Throughout his childhood, he knew it’d pained them to
put their world-traveling plan, ones they’d formed even
before they’d had Charlie, his older brother, on hold to raise
their unanticipated second child. Already nearly fifty when
he was born, he had no complaints about the love and
attention he’d received from them. He didn’t begrudge
them for their desire to travel either.
Once he’d turned thirteen, mainly because he had
several neighbors happy to look after him, they’d spent
more and more months in the summer and around the
holidays off in Rome or Hong Kong or Sydney. They were
carousing through Denmark currently, probably skiing on
slopes or staying warm by the fire in a wooden cabin
surrounded by snow. Liam knew he’d find plenty of pictures
of their trip on the fridge when they finally made it home.
Once he’d parked in his driveway, Liam prepared for the
hectic sprint through the cold, one he’d need to make at
least a few times to get his clothes, laptop, and other effects
all indoors. Finding his winter coat in the backseat and
donning it, after which he retrieved a duffel bag full of
clothes and the backpack that his laptop and various
electronic cords sat in, he shivered in advance, body
anticipating the gelid chill awaiting him. It was all of twenty
steps between his front door and where he’d parked his car,
so he shouldn’t need to spend too long dashing through the
cold. Thrusting the door open, no longer swaddled by the
heat his car had put out during the drive, he made the first
one.
Electing to hurry through the grass, unsure if there’d be
any ice ready to make a fool of him on the concrete path
leading to his front door as he was, it crunched noisily
beneath his shoes. Careful when he needed to leave it so he
could step onto his porch and fiddle with his keys to gain
entrance inside, he shivered as the cold seeped through his
uncovered ears with wicked glee. White clouds puffing in
front of his face, he found the key, inserted it, and shoved
his way indoors.
Brrr.
Shaking his body as if he could banish the frigid cold
like a dog freshly emerged from its bath shaking off water,
he set his things down in the foyer, flipped on his porch
lights, and readmitted himself to its unpleasant touch.
Grabbing his rolled-up comforter and one of his pillows, he
tromped loudly through the grass, making it back inside and
groaning under his breath about the cold. All that remained
was his tv, which he now regretted having brought home
with him. No one else would share the house with him this
winter break, and there were televisions aplenty in it.
In complete dissimilitude from his parents, his older
brother, an English teacher who lived and taught in South
Korea, hated flying. It was something of a minor miracle—
primarily due to his then-fiancé’s insistence—that he’d ever
made it to the peninsula and met her family. And, well, he’d
seemingly been more than happy to stay there. Liam
couldn’t remember the last time he’d come to visit; it was
almost uniformly the other way around, not that he’d
minded visiting Seoul every year or two. Besides, with
sixteen years of separation between their births, he’d been
off to college by the time Liam was learning his first words.
Their relationship was cordial, but they were hardly close.
Alright, once more into the breach, he told himself.
Rubbing the arms of his jacket, he propelled himself back
into the frost and darkness, looking to reclaim his tv, make it
back inside, and forget all about the cold when he cranked
the house’s heating—currently sitting at an unpleasant 66
ever since his parents’ departure last weekend—up to 72
degrees.
He was confident they’d have left the house well-
stocked, so he wouldn’t need to worry about heading back
out for food for a week or so.
As he scraped through his car’s backseats and grasped
cold plastic, he hefted his wide but thin tv. Pulling it free, he
nudged his car door shut with his hip and fumbled for his
keys to lock the door. Fumbled—and then dropped. He swore
under his breath as they clinked loudly on the driveway,
then crouched, holding his tv awkwardly under his left arm,
and scraped his fingertips over the concrete as he swept
them up.
“Hi, Liam,” a silvery voice warmly said. “Do you need any
help?”
His eyes shot up, fingers clutching his keys tightly.
There, standing a handful of paces away, he saw a woman.
She was bathed on one side by the meager light of his porch
lights, what little of it extended this far. What the darkness
kept from him, vivid memories of her indelible beauty more
than filled in the blanks.
She was a walking paradox. As benevolent and
considerate as an angel but as astonishingly beguiling as a
succubus, he oscillated like a pinball hitting every bumper
between adoring her for her warmth and lusting over her for
her irresistible allure. She enticed every part of him each
time she entered his mind, let alone his field of view.
Kneeling in the dark and freezing cold, it remained an
emphatic truth.
“No, I’m good!” He hastily jumped to his feet as if he
was spring-loaded. “But thank you!” he quickly added.
 Hard to see as it was in the dark, he spotted the curving
beginning of a smile. It was the first he’d seen since he’d
come home during Thanksgiving, where they’d chatted only
half as much as he’d hoped. Every second near her was an
iota of bliss stolen straight from heaven.
Seventy-thirty. Seventy percent of it was selfless: Tess
deserved better. Thirty percent of it was undeniably selfish:
he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything.
Impossible as it was, he couldn’t resist fantasizing about a
reality where her startlingly poignant blue eyes lingered on
him. He’d spent much of the car ride home indulging in one
such fantasy.
“That’s…good.” Tess drew in a shuddering breath,
slender arms wrapping around her body as she tried to
shake some warmth back into it. “This might be the coldest
day of the year so far. I’m not made for this kind of weather.”
Nor was she dressed for it. Departing whatever task
she’d been enjoying in the warmth of her home upon
noticing he’d pulled into his driveway, she’d only thrown a
light sweater over her top and some fluffy house shoes on
before coming out to offer her angelic aid. Neither the
sweater nor her fleece leggings—something he’d never seen
her wear before today—could hide her astonishing figure.
She was of medium height and possessed a beguiling
hourglass figure that had titillated him from the moment
he’d hit puberty. She had prominent, shapely breasts,
though she rarely wore blouses or dresses that showed any
cleavage. Though she wasn’t much of a pool-goer, he had a
few precious memories over the years of when she’d come
up to the neighborhood pool in a modest bikini. He knew he
wasn’t alone in that sentiment.
“Yeah, I’m about to crank up my heater like crazy,” Liam
said, resisting an urge to drop his gaze and make as many
memories of her lithe, shapely legs wrapped in leggings as
he could before they parted. As much as his rampaging
libido tried to coax him into giving in, he always felt terrible
about leering at her. She’d draped him in her warmth since
the moment they’d met; it was so, so wrong for him to lust
over her as he did.
“Did your parents leave it low when they left last week?”
He nodded. “It’s not much warmer in there than it is out
here.”
Tess shivered again. “It might take a little while for your
house to heat up, then.” She paused, but only briefly. “If
you’d like, you could warm yourself a door over while that
happens. I could make some hot chocolate, too.”
Either the cold had seeped into his brain, and he was a
goner, or… Tess had just invited him over. Which was a rarer
happening than witnessing her in a bikini.
Liam’s memory of their encounters almost exclusively
occurred outdoors. Whether gardening or going for one of
her daily jogs, or when one of them drove to or from their
respective home while the other was outside, they’d always
chatted for a while. In recent years, one daily jog had turned
into two, and her horticultural interests had also seemed to
expand. Burdened with an understanding of her rocky
marriage, he knew now why she’d spent so much time
outdoors.
Thus, he'd rarely intruded upon her hospitality,
especially given that a glancing eye catch of Douglas was
more of him than Liam ever wanted to see. Chewing on his
thoughts, he found he couldn’t remember the last time he
had. Maybe… after his graduation? No, she’d come over to
congratulate him.
“Liam?”
 Her question zapped him out of his musing. Barring
divine intervention—and it’d better be a doozy, not just a
swarm of locusts or a storm of blood—there was only one
answer he would have ever given her.
“Yeah, I’d love that.”
How much he’d love it, he kept to himself. The smile
Tess favored him with scoured the cold from his body long
before her heater could.
 C h a p t e r Tw o
An Ethical Debate

A fter chucking—almost literally—his tv in with the

rest of his luggage, he slammed his door shut and
sprinted through the cold one more time. This one
time, he didn’t mind it in the slightest. She could have lived
four blocks away, and he’d still have come on foot if he had
to.
Taking the barest second to calm his nerves, though
nothing but death could have stilled his racing heart, he
grabbed her door handle and let himself in—like she’d told
him to do.
The same architect had built both homes, and there
were similarities aplenty in just the first few steps, yet Liam
felt as if he’d arrived somewhere alien and unknown. When
was the last time he’d visited? The nagging question had
returned, and he knew he wouldn’t be rid of it until he
supplied the correct answer.
“It’s almost ready, but just make yourself at home until
then!” Tess called from her kitchen, having heard his entry.
Stopping to take off his shoes and hang his coat in the
entryway, he followed the sound of her earlier shout. She
kept a tidy house, but he couldn’t help but notice all the
empty spots on shelves and end tables where he suspected
photographs had once sat. Tidy as it may be, a peculiar
melancholy draped itself like a thick fog within the house.
He wondered how long the gloom had been here… and how
long it might linger.
“Welcome, Liam,” Tess said as he arrived at her orderly
kitchen. She banished the melancholy attached to him like
spiderwebs with just a radiant smile. “Here you are.”
He accepted the steaming hot mug she offered; it stung
the cold laced to his fingertips. While his body absorbed its
heat relievedly, he gently blew on the liquid’s surface. Tess
did the same with her mug.
Here, where the light shined bright, he could adequately
perceive her stunning beauty without needing the help of
memory. Her brunette hair flowed in gentle waves until its
tide brushed upon her shoulders, which put it at half the
length he’d seen her wearing the past summer. By all
accounts, it suited her, framing the delicate
pronouncements of her cheeks, flowing by her fair skin, and
drawing him in again for another plunge into two deep blue
whirlpools.
He wanted to say as much, but he found his stomach
roiling. His courage diminished, and he left the compliment
about her new hairstyle to die in the dark.
Tess took the first test of her brew. She smiled. “It may
be a touch conceited, but it’s quite good.”
Liam sipped from his mug. Warm cocoa delighted his
tongue, and he quickly agreed with a nod. Tess’s smile
widened.
“Do you want to move to the couch so we can sit down?”
she asked, beckoning toward her adjoining living room.
“Sure.”
He followed her like the disturbed water left in a ship’s
wake. Less than a second after she passed him, he realized
he should have gone first. This time, his defenses faltered.
And once the line broke in one place, its total collapse was
all but guaranteed.
His gaze zoomed toward Tess’s shapely butt in the same
way that a taut workout band snapped back together once
its tension was released. He blamed the cold’s adverse
effect on his mental fortitude, the agonizing length of time
since he last saw her, and her leggings. Most of all, the
leggings. Wow, those leggings.
Her sweater dropped only enough to tantalize him. With
every step she took, it bounced enough that her entire firm
butt—the jaw-dropping kind that required more than just
jogging to create—prominently displayed itself. Her toned
calves and thighs, flexing slightly as she strode ahead,
supported that idea further.
Blood swarmed his groin, and Liam blanched. Shame
pricked him like a thousand hot needles. She’d invited him
over to warm up, not so he could ogle her. Gritting his teeth,
he yanked his gaze from her alluring lower half and swore
he wouldn’t leer at her again. Admonishing himself for his
inappropriate thoughts, he lagged behind her.
Settling into a long couch facing a mounted tv over her
fireplace mantelpiece, she smiled and waved him over.
Smothering his forbidden desires, he focused on becoming a
consummate neighbor—the kind who could get invited over
again in the future, not slapped on the face for his lewdness
and banished forever.
“Was the drive home okay?” Tess asked as he sat down.
He’d left an entire cushion between them.
“Yeah, it was nothing special. The ride’s only about an
hour and a half. I probably should have left earlier and beat
the cold and the dark, though.”
“And how was your first semester?”
 Liam shrugged. “It’s been fine. My grades are good, and
I’ve made some friends. I’m still figuring out what I want to
major in,” he added, recognizing that he was offering the
dullest, most stereotypical spiel of all time.
Tess must have recognized that too, but she smiled all
the same. “Do you have any idea what you’re looking to
become?”
This time, he scrounged together what he hoped was a
more conversational response.
“I know I don’t want to be a dentist,” he said mirthfully.
“Not that Mom or Dad ever tried to push it on me. I’ve been
trying to cast a wide net with my classes. I took an anatomy
and physiology class that I really liked.”
Tess listened with diligent attentiveness like she always
did when they talked. He’d always found her easy to talk to;
she treated whatever he had to say with the utmost respect
and interest, even when he’d been a kid. When she talked
back, she regularly astounded him with her nuanced
opinions and objectiveness—which made sense given her
career path.
“Any humanities classes in your lineup?” she asked.
“Ethics?”
He shook his head. “None this year. I am planning to
take at least one or two, I promise.”
After putting down her cup, Tess pulled her leg onto the
couch and turned her body to face him directly. Still smiling,
she folded her arms beneath her breasts, portraying playful
umbrage.
“That makes me more perturbed, not less—because I
won’t be the one teaching you when you take those
classes.”
“I know… and I’m sure I’d have loved your classes, but I
just didn’t feel like I’d do very well at Bellmore—if I even got
in.”
His diffidence yielded a flat look as a response. “Liam,
your mom shared your SAT scores with me. You would have
gotten in. I’m certain you’d have thrived, too.”
“Maybe,” he said, remaining evasive.
As the local choice, Bellmore College stood as a bastion
of elite higher education. Data scientists, anthropologists,
and, yes, actuaries emerged from its graduating class in the
dozens each year. It would have been the perfect place to
apply if he’d known he wanted to pursue a career in a field
like that. Tess was right: his test scores could have gotten
him in.
But Bellmore College was the college equivalent of a
king cobra. You didn’t go near it unless you knew exactly
what the fuck you were doing.
By comparison, while Perrymont was no garter snake, it
was far less likely to leave him suffering from severe
necrosis and descending paralysis.
“You would have,” Tess repeated, but she let the topic
drift away from the island that was his education.
They talked for nearly forty-five minutes about all
manner of mundane topics, from his parents’ current trip to
Europe to Tess’s recent foray into yoga. She’d summed it up
as a “mentally refreshing” winter alternative to her
gardening, which was her usual avenue of stress relief.
After wringing those topics for all they were worth, he
searched desperately for a new one to keep their
conversation flowing. He didn’t want their time together to
end.
It was the longest Liam could remember them talking
one-on-one in over a year. For the past eighteen months or
so, she’d carried a despondent pall over her head whenever
he saw her. It’d choked the vibrancy out of her eyes, scarring
her expression with unending dourness. She’d hidden it
away whenever she noticed him. Still, in those lonely
moments, when she was gardening and stopped long
enough for her gaze to drop and her body to remain
motionless for sometimes up to a minute, he saw how much
anguish she must have been carrying.
“How are you doing, Tess?” He asked the question
without meaning to; it simply shuffled off his tongue.
Neither shock nor displeasure appeared on the gorgeous
woman’s face. She didn’t smile, but she didn’t frown. Nor
could he tell if she were collecting her thoughts or mired in
unpleasant memories that he’d drummed up with his
directness. Beginning to worry, he frantically scrounged for
another topic starter.
“I am doing all right,” she said faintly, emotion
gathering within her eyes like a slowly draining whirlpool.
“It’s been a mixed bag, though the good far outweighs the
bad. There’s still a lot I’m processing, even months after the
decision.”
“That’s… good,” Liam said awkwardly. “Sorry for taking
the conversation there.”
Tess smiled softly. “Don’t apologize. Your concern means
a lot, and it’s helpful for me when I talk about it.”
This time, the immediacy of his reply didn’t catch him
off guard.
“Then will you talk about it with me?”
Her smile remained. “Your consideration is noted and
greatly appreciated, but I don’t want to bog your return
home down with my sob story.”
He shook his head ferociously. “There’s nothing else I’d
rather be doing than this. If I can help you feel even a little
bit better, I’d gladly stay for hours.”
 He announced it so boldly that he almost blushed, but
he pummeled his body’s flare of heat back inside,
disallowing it from even a minor appearance on his face. He
maintained a focused, steady expression, holding Tess’s
gaze so she could see he meant every word. After a few
moments spent absorbing the ferventness of his feelings,
her smile evolved.
“I am so agitated that you won’t be in one of my
classes,” she said again. “You would have been my favorite
student.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he replied, bolstered by her
response to his earnestness. “It could be a roommates-as-
best-friends situation where you find you can’t stand the
kind of student I am. You only know me as a caring,
attentive, and amazing next-door neighbor.”
“Oh, is that all?” Tess settled more comfortably on the
couch, laying her cheek on one arm as she smiled at him.
“How is it I’m remembered, then?”
Flowing forward on a rare spurt of confidence, he
answered, “As the most compassionate, wonderful, and
elegant neighbor anyone could ask for.”
Tess’s eyes flashed with each compliment, and her
expression broadened into as radiant a smile he could
remember her showing him. His heart leaped into the
stratosphere as if launched by a cannon.
“Elegant, am I? I haven’t heard that word to describe me
in quite some time,” she teased.
“Is that not how everyone talks all the time at
Bellmore?”
Tess rolled her eyes and hid her smile behind the back of
her hand. “Only when they think it’ll impress whomever
they’re trying to show off in front of.”
 Caught red-handed, he finally blushed. While steam
poured out of his ears, Tess closed the gap between them.
She patted him on his forearm.
“I didn’t say it didn’t work,” she clarified mirthfully.
“And… I would like to take you up on your offer, assuming
I’m still able to.”
“Of course,” he immediately said.
Tess glanced toward her mantelpiece at one of the spots
where he’d noticed a vacant spot. “As I said, it’s been a
mixed bag. I suspect it’s the same for all but the worst
marriages. Much of it stems from a belief I developed in my
twenties, in which I began to assume I would never marry.
Pursuing my doctorate consumed most of my twenties;
relationships were tertiary to my lifestyle. I was—I remain—a
driven individual.
“Perhaps I rushed into my marriage. I think I could say
the same from Douglas’s perspective. We met after a friend
of mine set us up on a blind date, enjoyed the other’s mind
and ambition, and decided we’d make good partners
because of it. I do wonder if we might have had a decent
friendship, or at least a cordial acquaintanceship, if we’d
kept romance out of our relationship.”
She paused, chewing on the corner of her lower lip,
seemingly trapped in a spiral of thoughts that he could only
wonder how many times it’d clutched her in the past several
years. Her mouth eventually formed a frown as she realized
she’d grown silent.
“My apologies,” she said.
“It’s all right,” he told her, meaning it. “It can’t have
been easy, leaving a ten-year marriage.”
“It certainly wasn’t, though it’s the lesser of my regrets
to having forfeited several years of my life in a loveless,
passionless marriage. As I said, my relief to be free of
Douglas far outweighs my regret that we couldn’t make
things work.” She breathed in deeply. “I’ve had my time to
process everything. I have been happier these past few
months than I have been in a long time.” She smiled as if to
prove it. “I aim to concentrate on the future rather than
lamenting the past. It’s the best thing for all parties
involved.”
Liam nodded. Questions still burbled within his mind
like a frenetic stream passing over rocks, primarily about
what had finally caused her to realize that Douglas was a
colossal ass, but he forced himself to ignore their presence
and keep flowing onward. Sating his curiosity wasn’t worth
forcing Tess to relive more painful memories. If she was
ready to move on, then all the better. He basically said as
much.
“I’m glad to hear that, and I really hope it will be for the
best.”
“Even for Douglas?” Tess asked, swapping from serious
to teasing in a split second.
“Even… for… Douglas,” he said through gritted teeth.
Tess’s smile fermented into a vibrant grin. “You hesitated
there. A lot.”
“Yeah, because I can’t stand the guy.”
Her smile lasted. “Well, we won’t talk about him
anymore.” She patted him on the arm again before another
silence arrived. However, two noteworthy differences caught
his eye.
The truncated length of this silence proved to be the
lesser of the two differences. It lasted only a few moments,
long enough to notice but not long enough for him to begin
to worry. The greater of the differences ensured that he
didn’t fret.
 A gleam, like spotting a flare light up at the end of a
dark tunnel, seized his full attention. With it so far off in the
distance, he couldn’t make out the details of what
surrounded it, only the sudden burst of pyrotechnics.
However, it massively piqued his curiosity. So did Tess’s next
statement.
“This whole dreadful situation has provided some very
tactile experience for the education I provide my students.
Both in the proceedings of a divorce for a woman and the
aftermath.”
Liam raised an eyebrow. “You plan to share what you
went through with your students?”
“I’m considering it for future classes. I do prefer to
maintain a level of personal distance from them as their
professor, especially given my gender. However, there are
components of my experiences that I feel better capable of
teaching, even if I ultimately don’t elect to share that they
are, in fact, my experiences. Specifically for my sexual ethics
class, this upcoming semester is well-timed with my
divorce’s completion. I am now a newly divorced woman in
her early forties. There is an opportunity for all manner of
ethical debates involving such a topic.”
“Really?” he asked, though he could easily imagine a
few viable topics. “Like what?”
Typically, a flare lasted for its allotted time, growing no
brighter or dimmer during its lifespan. Yet, he watched
breathlessly as the light painting the distant end of the
tunnel suddenly burst with new and enhanced vigor, as if
seeking to illuminate enough of it for him to make out the
details of what awaited him there. Focusing his attention
hastily, he tried to make out the newly revealed thoughts
shimmering within Tess’s eyes.
 Only for the vilest, most insufferable, most wretched
noise to cause her to submerge the flare into a nearby water
basin. As her eyes flew toward her entryway, Liam clenched
his jaw tight enough to crunch gravel between his teeth.
Somehow, someway, he knew he’d potentially missed a
significant opportunity.
All because of a doorbell ringing.
 C h a p t e r T h re e
Ice

W ith their strange and uncertain moment severed

by the accursed ringing of Tess’s doorbell, Liam
swallowed an audible groan. Tess had twisted her
upper half to look toward the path leading to her doorway,
allowing him only to see one side of her gorgeous face. Yet,
he thought he saw an aggravated flex in her jaw. After a
moment, when she spun back around to get up from her
couch, she appeared back in control of her expression,
which she’d parked firmly in neutral.
“That’ll be Victoria,” Tess said. “I’ll be right back.”
Still mildly stupefied by the events moments before, he
nodded dumbly as she trotted out of the room. Seconds
later, he heard her door click open, Tess welcoming her
apparently expected guest, and Victoria’s response. The
door shut, their conversation continued, and Liam waited for
their footsteps to bring them back toward him.
Tess appeared first, leading the way with softer, shoeless
footsteps. Peculiarly, she seemed pensive as she rejoined
him in the living room. Liam didn’t have much time to dwell
on it, though he would later that night. Only a step behind, a
woman in brown leather ankle boots entered the room. She
then became aware of him. And frowned.
 From the moment he’d met her, he’d assumed that Tess
would vastly outshine any woman who dared stand beside
her. It was like comparing the pinprick of light squeezed out
of a penlight to a floodlight pouring out waves of blinding
radiance beside it. No one bothered comparing those two
things because there was no comparison possible.
For the first time in his life, unaware that he’d meet two
more worthy options before the week was up, he found a
comparison was due.
Tess was an angel descended from the heavens; no one
could convince him otherwise. Meanwhile, her friend looked
more like a Black Widow type…or whomever Angelina Jolie
had played in Wanted.
Huh, I can’t believe I remember that movie, Liam
thought.
He also remembered that her character had killed a lot
of people in that movie. Which, if Tess’s friend were so
inclined, might give him a reason to worry. For she looked
none too pleased by his presence on Tess’s couch.
“Victoria, this is Liam,” Tess said, providing a subtle but
noticed elbow bump into her friend’s side upon noticing her
glare. “Liam, this is Victoria. She’s another professor at
Bellmore and a very close friend.”
Victoria stood a couple of inches taller than her friend—
and then a couple more due to her boots. Dressed in tight
jeans that greedily coveted her long legs, she still wore a
thick winter coat over her blouse, though even with its
interference, Liam could tell that Victoria was even bustier
than Tess. A very dark brunette, she had an olive complexion
and a pair of eyes as sheer and severe as ice, so much so
that he could barely make out the hint of blue in them.
Given the sharpness of her apparent displeasure with his
existence in this space, he decided to tread carefully before
he understood just why she looked like she wanted to jam a
pair of icicles into his ribcage for the perfect murder.
“Hi, Victoria,” he said, standing. “Yeah, I’m Liam. I live
next door.”
Victoria’s gaze flicked briefly toward Tess, which further
piqued his curiosity. As her attention returned to him, her
lips, a pair as luscious as he’d ever seen, promised he
wouldn’t find a smile no matter how hard he looked. What
could he have done to earn such vitriol so soon after
meeting the woman?
“Nice to meet you, Liam.”
It was all she said to him. Following those stiff words,
she turned and reappraised Tess wordlessly. As a witness to
their telepathic conversation, he kept his eyes at an
appropriate level, even though Victoria presented him with
a prime opportunity to compare her shapely butt to Tess’s.
Tess met her taller friend’s gaze, and Liam spotted a
recalcitrant burr embedded in her eyes. Folding her arms
and lifting her chin, the two women engaged in a silent
battle for several uncomfortable seconds.
What was the issue here? Liam couldn’t help but
wonder.
“I’m not in the way of anything, am I?” he asked,
breaking the silence before it lingered any longer than it
already had.
Victoria ignored him while Tess sighed exasperatedly.
She broke eye contact with Victoria and faced him.
“We’re movie marathoning tonight,” she explained,
though she thrust a scowl at her friend. “It’s been something
of a weekly ritual for us these past few months. However,
you're more than welcome to join us if you’d like to stay.”
Victoria’s gaze tightened slightly, but she didn’t speak
again—not for the rest of the time he was there. It didn’t
take him long to weigh his options. If he’d been a bit more
stubborn, perhaps a little less concerned about social cues,
he might have taken her up on the offer.
“Maybe next time,” he said, using a look at his phone as
a tool to appear like he hadn’t realized how late it’d gotten.
“I still need to unpack everything.”
Tess’s displeasure swam behind her electric blue eyes,
though he knew she knew this was the better choice.
Whatever was happening here, his presence would only cast
a pall upon the situation while he remained. He didn’t
expect Victoria would warm up to him if he intruded on their
potentially sacred movie night. It didn’t halt his wondering,
but he knew better than to rock the boat further, especially
while he remained uncertain why his presence rocked it for
her friend.
“Okay.” Tess turned her gaze sharply toward Victoria.
“Pick out the first movie.”
Tess stomped off toward the entry hall, leaving Liam and
Victoria briefly alone in the living room. Liam didn’t tarry.
“It was nice to meet you, Victoria,” he said, but they
both knew it was a blatant lie. She didn’t respond with a
duplicate lie. “I hope you two have a fun night together.”
That was less of a lie, though he couldn’t tell if his sincerity
earned him anything from the severe woman. She only
nodded at him, her eyes betraying a shift in her
unhappiness’s foundation, but he failed to identify much
more than that.
Passing by her on his way to the entry hall, he found Tess
standing with folded arms by his shoes. He rushed a mild
smile onto his face and started putting his shoes back on.
“Sorry about her,” Tess said quietly, glancing down at
where he knelt. “She’s… not a bad person.”
 “I don’t think she is,” he said as he finished doing his
laces and stood up. “If she’s your friend, there must be a lot
of good about her.”
Tess wore the pained expression of someone
withholding a secret she desperately wanted to share. Her
eyes flickered toward the living room. She sighed and
opened the front door for him as he retrieved and donned
his coat. Surprisingly, in only her socks, she stepped out
onto her porch. He followed her, aiming a glance at the
living room before he stepped outside and joined the
gorgeous professor in the gelid night temperatures.
She looked at the dark form of his house. “Are you
planning to put up Christmas lights?”
“Oh, um, maybe?”
Swathed in the light of her porchlights, Tess’s eyes
practically radiated light. “If you do, let me know. I’d be
happy to help.”
While he’d always helped his parents, he’d never taken
charge of hanging the lights at his house. He was sure he’d
do a shoddy job of it if he tried.
“Then I will,” he said, staring into Tess’s scintillating
eyes. “I don’t want my house to look like a dark gremlin
between yours and Gary’s.”
She responded to his sudden decision with a smile so
luminous that it could have outshone a star. “Good. Just give
me a knock when you want me.”
He knew he shouldn’t have allowed it, but his heart
skipped a beat because of her word choice. Quickly nodding,
Tess bid him farewell. As he bounded from her front door to
his, he glanced over his shoulder. She remained standing in
the cold, braving its frigid touch to wave at him as he
hurried home. Heart clamoring within his chest with the
boom of a rock concert, he waved back.
 To his dismay, upon entering his home, he realized that
he’d forgotten to turn up the heat before heading over to
Tess’s place.
 C h a p t e r Fo u r
A Searing Memory

T he next day proved no warmer than its predecessor.

Frost sheathed Liam’s front yard in shades of pale
blue, and the meek sun in a cloudless sky selfishly
kept all its heat to itself. Braving the outdoors a little after
nine, he shivered and regretted opening his door for even a
moment. Yet, by the time ten arrived, he’d armored himself
in his thickest clothes and punched through the chill barrier
hovering outside his door.
It did its damndest to see him beat a hasty retreat to his
home’s warmth, which would shake its head at him like a
parent who’d warned him that his silly actions would end
badly but still smother him in a hearty embrace. However,
neither the crunch of the stiff grass nor the shivers plunged
into his bones by the cruel wind impeded his path. The
joints in his forefinger ached as he pressed her doorbell.
While he waited, he danced that little jig that anyone
familiar with standing in the cold would recognize. He
breathed in short, frantic puffs, gritting his teeth as white
plumes gathered before his lips. His eyes turned toward a
frosty Cherry Lane, which was far bluer in the pallid daylight
than last night. At least they’d been spared an ice storm so
far.
 The pale coloration summoned memories of the
gorgeous but disdainful Victoria. He’d combed his mind for
any explanation behind her immediate dislike for him but
came up with nothing. He knew they’d never met before;
he’d never have forgotten her if they had. He couldn’t
scrounge up a memory of Tess mentioning her name before,
either. He lacked even the thinnest lead as to why she’d
glared nothing but daggers at him last night. Perhaps he
could convince Tess to reveal the reason behind her
apparent hatred today.
If she ever comes to her door! his mind whined as he
reaffixed his attention to her door.
The cold savaged him for another ten seconds before
someone appeared at the door. Yesterday, he’d seen a sight
—Tess in leggings—that he’d never imagined he would see.
Today, as her door opened, he realized it might no longer be
such an uncommon sight. Inwardly, he cheered.
Hair slightly damp after a recent shower, Tess had
swapped yesterday’s black leggings for a grey pair today.
Minus a sweater to replicate last night’s look, she shivered
as the cold flooded into her home through the crack she
made when checking who was at her door. Regardless, she
smiled upon finding him there and opened the door further.
“Good morning, Liam,” she said, banishing the chill he
felt with her warm reception.
“Morning, Tess,” he said.
Her electric blue eyes flickered toward his home, and he
saw amusement roosting behind her smile. “Are you taking
me up on my offer?”
He nodded. “I just checked my phone a bit ago, and
there’s supposed to be a big snowstorm coming in a few
days—and it won’t get any warmer before then. So, time is
of the essence if I’m going to get these lights up.”
 The utterly ravishing woman let him bask in further
waves of amusement radiating from her eyes. She opened
her door enough for two fingers to beckon him inside. Taking
her up on her offer, she shut the door and shivered again.
“I’m up for it,” she said. “Just let me go get myself
properly protected against the cold.”
“No rush,” he quickly said, though it was quite the
opposite.
Eyeing him knowingly, she turned and started pathing
up her stairs toward her presumed bedroom. His eyes
naturally followed. They were anything but prepared for Tess
to seemingly spot something lying on one of the stairs
midway up and bend forward to pinch it between her
forefinger and thumb.
As Tess’s belligerently sexy ass strained against her
leggings’ tight fabric, every droplet of blood in his body
sizzled so swelteringly hot that he almost broke into an
instant sweat. His tongue turned into a desert, and his jaw
dropped like a skydiver leaping out of their plane. Not even
to speak of the sudden strain his pants were currently
suffering from.
After a second, picking up whatever blessed catalyst it
was that had caught her eye on the stairs, Tess straightened
and finished her climb. As she disappeared, he barely
tracked the soft impacts as she walked above him. His mind
recomposed itself with the same sluggish, unperturbed
speed with which a freshly overturned hourglass would
empty all its sand into its other half.
Even once it did, the memory Tess had unwittingly
seared into his mind with the same intensity as if she’d
marked him with a white-hot branding iron dominated his
contemplations—if they could even be called that. For the
next several minutes, the primal desire flooding his veins
reduced him from a potentially worthy conversational
partner into a lustful animal. Allowing himself to bask in its
flavor, the gentle thud of a bedroom door’s closing forced
him to scarf down his inappropriate lustfulness before Tess
found him panting like a dog over the memory of her
shapely form.
“I just need to grab my boots,” she explained as she
reentered his field of view, now swaddled in a sweater and
dark overcoat. The damnable latter of those covered her
waist and upper thighs, promising that Liam would likely
receive no further arousing gifts like the one he was still
struggling to recover from.
Nevertheless, time with Tess was time with Tess. In fact,
he shouldn’t be leering at her at all, which he chided himself
over while she fetched a pair of winter boots from a
downstairs closet. With that extra time allotted, he found his
equanimity. Heavenly beautiful as she was, she was also
sophisticated and graceful. The type of woman who wanted
to discuss philosophy and ethics. If she caught him gawking,
what would she think of him? Especially after their
conversation last night about rotten marriages and a rotten
man.
“Ready to go?” Tess chirped, now fully dressed to brave
the shivering cold.
“Let’s do it!”
 C h a p t e r Fi v e
A Shivering Offer

A nd shiver they did. Plentifully. However, first, which

Liam realized he should have handled before he
sprinted over to bother Tess about helping him put
up his Christmas lights, they needed to get his family’s
decorations down from the attic.
So, as they tromped upstairs and he pulled down the
unfolding ladder that led to his attic, he apologized for the
third time since he’d realized his mistake. Only for Tess to
respond with her repeated promise that it was no
inconvenience.
“You can relax until I get it all down,” he said as he
climbed the ladder.
“Nonsense. Just pass the tubs and whatnot down to me.”
She planted her hands on her hips and stubbornly stood at
the ladder’s foot.
“If you’re sure—”
“I am,” she responded, shooing him up the ladder with a
smile. “I’m going to help you pack them all up and stow
them up there when Christmas is over, too.”
Relenting before her determination, he popped his head
up inside his home’s attic space. Even before he was born,
his parents had regularly conferred about its potential as an
extra office space. However, this was possibly the only
project they hadn’t meticulously completed. Left eternally as
a storage space, Liam intruded inside for the first time this
year.
Thankfully, though the attic’s potential remained
untapped, his parents’ scrupulous organization still
extended into the room. Immediately in front of him sat the
two boxes filled with “sentimentals,” ranging from baby
clothes to photo albums to a few marquee school
assignments, like the report on enamel he’d gotten an A+
for in the fourth grade. Climbing up fully into the attic, he
looked left.
Five tubs. Two for lights, three for decorations. Standing
next to them, a five-foot-tall plastic Santa Claus waved
jovially. Beside it, a box taller than he was laid on its side.
This one depicted what the Christmas tree inside should
look like once assembled. Thankfully, that had been put up
downstairs before he got home, with the presents his
parents had bought him already sitting under it.
Popping open the tubs with decorations inside, he found
the one containing the indoor decorations and excluded that
one alongside the tree. Hauling the first of four boxes, he
checked with Tess before he dangled it halfway down the
stepladder and let her take it from his grasp. Fortunately,
none of the tubs were that heavy, and Tess easily handled
them.
“Okay, now where’s Santa Claus?” she asked knowingly
after she’d laid the fourth tub next to its siblings.
“I’m getting him,” he promised.
Hefting the hollow plastic figure by looping his arms
around its rotund waist as if he planned to suplex it over his
shoulder, he waddled toward the ladder and carefully
passed Saint Nick into Tess’s waiting grasp. Once she’d
confirmed she had him, he waited until she moved away
before climbing down. Resetting the ladder into the ceiling,
he and Tess spent the next few minutes sliding Santa and
the tubs down the stairs and carrying them to his front door.
There, they spent the next ten minutes perusing each tub’s
contents, which were as neatly ordered as the attic they’d
come from.
“All right,” Tess said, preemptively shaking her arms to
get the blood flowing. “Bushes and lawn decorations first,
yes?”
“And then we sprint back inside and drink hot
chocolate,” he confirmed.
“A perfect plan.”
As they soon discovered, the shivering cold would rout
them a few times before they finished the easier half of their
work. They managed to hang a wreath on the front door,
situate one of two long garlands around the doorframe, and
line his pathway on either side with strings of multi-colored
lights before the chilliness forced their first hasty retreat
indoors. Inside, they shivered and smiled at one another.
Next, they completed the frustrating task of draping
lights over the bushes, after which Liam heeded Tess’s
creative guidance on where he should situate the smaller
lawn ornaments, such as where he should shove the pair of
crossed candy canes whose, for the life of him, usual
location he couldn’t remember. Once more, they headed
indoors and warmed themselves up while chatting strategy
about the remaining ornaments and lights.
He finally grabbed a ladder from the garage on their
next foray into the chill. As he hung volleyball-sized
snowflakes and icicle lights from his gutters, Tess planted a
sign that would flash Merry Christmas in red and green near
his driveway. With his garage door open, she worked on the
power situation for the lights they’d already put up. Ears
turning blue, he finished attaching the last gutter lights just
as she emerged from the garage with a thumb lifted.
Hauling the plugs from the newly hung lights into the
garage, they fitted them into the necessary surge protector
and spent only long enough outside to see that their work so
far had gone smoothly.
“Back indoors,” Tess said with a shiver, to which he
nodded and happily fled back into the heat.
And then his stomach rumbled. Smiling, Tess suggested
that they take a late lunch break, and Liam, partially due to
hunger, partially due to the extra time he could have with
Tess, and partially due to the frigid soreness in his joints,
happily agreed. While he directed her to the proper cabinets
so she could make them hot chocolate, he scrounged
through his fridge for some bologna for sandwiches and a
pair of oranges. There wasn’t much else for a “quick and
easy” luncheon inside.
“Here we are,” Tess said as she brought two mugs of hot
chocolate, their steam wagging like long flowing tails as she
hurried over to the table.
“Thanks,” Liam said, taking a much-needed set of sips.
Vitality rushed into his core, then spread into his frozen
bones.
“We’re making good progress,” Tess noted as she
cupped her mug in both hands with a plain intent to warm
her palms. Neither of them had thrown on gloves, which was
an oversight they were surely suffering because of.
“Yeah, we might actually get it done before we freeze
out there and become part of the decorations.”
Tess chuckled as she sat down next to him. “If it’s this
cold until Christmas, we wouldn’t unfreeze any time soon.”
 Their mild conversation continued as they warmed their
fingers and dulled the gnawing hunger in their bellies. Just
like last night, Liam experienced the contentment that
accompanied time well spent with Tess. Returning home
from school and finding that their rapport remained strong—
and perhaps it was even stronger—provided the same kind
of balmy pleasure that he suspected lounging on a beach in
Hawaii would. She was his ideal vacation destination.
“So, how come Victoria seemed to hate me so much?”
The question slithered into the conversation without him
meaning to bring it up so cavalierly, and it wasn’t the sort
that could be recalled.
Tess set down her half-full mug. “She doesn’t hate you.”
There was an air of uncertainty that weakened her
emphasis. In fact, she looked downright perturbed and
concerned by whatever thoughts mulled through her mind.
Afterward, an uncomfortable pause further chiseled away at
the support structures of her claim.
“It’s no big deal; forget I said anything,” he hastily said,
eager to let the topic die.
Tess, however, had other ideas.
“She does not hate you,” she reiterated, finally finding
her resolve. “In fact, this is as good a time as any to talk
about last night.”
Liam frowned, spotting a strange glimmer within Tess’s
eyes that slightly unnerved him. From how she spoke, there
seemed to be more beads in the bowl than just the one
involving Victoria’s dislike of him. As Tess scooped her hand
into it and drew forth a wildly different starting topic, Liam
knew nothing except for confusion.
“This, at best, will seem rather unorthodox, but I need
for us to jump back to the conversation we had begun just
before Victoria’s arrival,” Tess said.
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