Landline

The snow came up to the top of Georgie’s calves—she had to lift her feet high to make any progress. Her ears and eyelids were freezing, but after a block of climbing, her cheeks were flushed, and she was panting.

God, she’d never even been able to imagine this much cold before.

How could people live someplace that so obviously didn’t want them? All that romance about snow and seasons . . . You shouldn’t have to make a special effort not to die every time you left your house.

Everything was so quiet, Georgie’s breath sounded thunderous. She looked back, but she couldn’t see the red truck anymore. She couldn’t see any signs of life. It was easy to imagine that every house she passed was empty.

Georgie felt tears in her eyes and tried to pretend it was because of the cold, or the fatigue, and not because of what was waiting for her—or not waiting for her—at the top of the hill.

CHAPTER 36

Neal grew up in a brick colonial house with a circular driveway. His mom was overly proud of it; the first time Georgie visited, a few months after they got engaged, his mom told her the driveway was one of the reasons they’d bought the house.

“I don’t get it,” Georgie said later, after she’d snuck up from the basement to Neal’s room, and he’d shoved her up against the wall, under his Eagle Scout certificate. “It’s like there’s a road in your front yard,” she said. “How is that a good thing?” Neal had huffed a smile into her ear, then pushed the neck of her pajamas open with his nose.

Georgie walked up the drive now, wrecking the postcard perfection of the snowy front yard with her tracks.

She opened the storm door and knocked—the front door pushed open under her hand. Because in Omaha, apparently, nobody even closed their front doors. Georgie could hear Christmas music and people talking. She knocked again, peeking into the house.

When no one answered, she stepped cautiously into the foyer. The house smelled like apple-cinnamon Glade and pine needles. “Hello?” Georgie said, too quietly. Her voice was shaking, she’d tracked in snow—she felt like she was breaking in.

She tried it a bit louder: “Hello?”

The door from the kitchen opened partway, and the music—“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”—swelled. Neal stepped out. Half a room away from her.

Neal.

Milk chocolate hair, pale skin, a red sweater she’d never seen before. A look on his face she’d never seen before. Like he didn’t know her at all.

He stopped.

The kitchen door swung to and fro behind him.

“Neal,” Georgie whispered.

His mouth was open. Lovely mouth, lovely matching lips, lovely dents like handholds for Georgie’s teeth.

His eyebrows were low and stern, and when he closed his jaw, there was a tense pulse in the corners of his cheeks.

“Neal?”

Five seconds passed. Ten. Fifteen.

Neal right there. In jeans and blue socks and a strange sweater.

Was he happy to see her? Did he even know her? Neal?

The door flew open behind him. “Daddy? Grandma says—”

Alice walked into the room, and Georgie felt like someone had just kicked her in the back of the knees.

Alice jumped. Just like kids do in the movies. For joy. “Mommy!” She ran for Georgie.

Georgie’s phone slid out of her hand as she dropped to the floor.

“Mommy!” Alice shouted again, landing in Georgie’s arms. “Are you our Christmas present?”

Georgie held Alice so tight, it probably hurt, and covered the side of the girl’s face with kisses. Georgie didn’t see the kitchen door open again, but she heard Noomi squeal and meow, and then there were two of them in her arms, and Georgie was falling sideways off her knees, trying to hold on.

“Missed you,” she said between kisses, blinded by pink skin and yellow-brown hair. “Missed you so much.”

Alice pulled back, and Georgie tightened her arm around her. But Neal was lifting Alice up and away. “Daddy,” Alice said, “Mommy’s here. Were you surprised?”

Neal nodded and lifted Noomi up, too, setting them both aside. Noomi meowed in protest.

Neal held his hands out to Georgie, and she took them. (So warm in her freezing fingers.) He pulled her to her feet, then let go. He still wasn’t smiling, so she didn’t smile either. She knew she was crying, but tried to ignore it.

“You’re here,” he said without moving his lips.

Georgie nodded.

Neal moved quickly, taking her face in his hands—one on her cold cheek, one under her jaw—and pulling it into is.

She felt relief blow through her like a ghost.

Neal.

Neal, Neal, Neal.

Georgie touched his shoulders, then the back of his hair—still sharp—then the tops of his ears, rubbing them between her fingers and thumbs.

She couldn’t remember the last time they’d kissed like this. Maybe they’d never kissed like this. (Because neither of them had ever almost fallen off a cliff.)

“You’re here,” he said again.

And Georgie nodded, stepping forward just in case he was thinking of pulling away.

She was here.

And it didn’t fix anything. It didn’t change anything.

She still had her job. And the meeting maybe. She still had Seth to sort out—or not. Georgie hadn’t made any real decisions. . . .

But for once she’d made the right choice.

She was here.

With Neal. Whatever that meant from now on.

He kissed her like he knew exactly who she was. He kissed her like he’d been waiting for her for fifteen years.

Alice and Noomi jumped on their parents’ feet and hugged their legs.

There was a dog in there somewhere, and Neal’s mom talking about setting an extra place at the table.

“You’re here,” Neal said, and Georgie held him by the ears so he couldn’t pull away.

She nodded.

BEFORE

Neal parked the Saturn in Georgie’s driveway. He leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel. Christ, he was going to fall asleep.

That would make a great Christmas surprise—Georgie knocking on his window later, asking him if he’d move his car.

He bounced his head on the wheel.

Come on, Neal. You can do this. She might say no, but at least you can ask the question.

He tried not to think of the last time he’d asked this question, when he already knew Dawn would say yes, and he already knew he didn’t want her to.

Dawn would’ve said yes if he’d asked her again this week; he could tell by the way she’d been looking at him.