Chapter Text
It was that time of year again.
Pinebrook looked the same every December: garland looped over the streetlamps, red bows nailed to every available surface, a tree in the square lit up to make the season bright. The cold kept people moving with purpose, heads down, hands full, lives condensed into lists.
Riley kinda liked it that way. Not because it was magical. Because it was manageable.
She parked two blocks from Main and pulled her coat tighter as she stepped out, pocketing her keys. The air had that clean, crisp edge that settled first in the lungs and then spread into the bones.
Inside her pocket, her phone chimed once.
Riley didn’t reach for it right away. She rarely did, having learned that most interruptions weren’t urgent, no matter how insistently they announced themselves.
But it buzzed again before she reached the curb.
She stopped, then thumbed the screen awake.
Abby Holland: Hey. What are you doing right now?
Riley’s eyes darted back to the name at the top of the screen, just to make sure she’d read it right the first time.
Abby hadn’t been here last Christmas. Riley had noticed that immediately, even before Harper said anything. The explanation had come later, folded into conversation like an afterthought: they’d separated, then divorced. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t fresh. It was just done.
Riley hadn’t asked questions. She assumed that if Abby wanted her to know more, she would have told her.
Biting the corner of her lip gently, she considered whether to respond for only about two and a half seconds before doing so.
Riley Johnson: Out running errands. Why?
The reply came quickly.
Abby Holland: Do you have time for a drink between stops?
Riley’s eyes lifted automatically, scanning the street as if her body had already decided the answer before her brain caught up.
Abby didn’t live here. Abby didn’t come here anymore.
Her phone buzzed again.
Abby Holland: I’m in town.
Something in Riley’s chest tightened. It wasn’t panic, but it wasn’t quite excitement either. Disorientation, maybe.
She looked up.
Abby stood across the street near the bookstore that sold overpriced journals and puzzles no one ever finished. Her hair was tucked into a hat, cheeks flushed from the cold. One hand was shoved into her coat pocket; the other held her phone, clearly the focus of her attention until a sigh escaped her lips.
For a moment, Abby didn’t move. Then she looked up.
Then she saw Riley.
She lifted her hand in a small, uncertain wave and paired it with a hopeful smile. It wasn’t shy, exactly, but careful. Like she wasn’t sure what she was allowed to do so casually.
Riley crossed the street without thinking about traffic. Small towns didn’t exactly require that kind of vigilance.
Up close, Abby looked steadier than Riley expected. Not lighter. Not happier. Just grounded. Like she hadn’t shown up on impulse.
“Hi,” Abby said.
“Hi,” Riley replied.
She stopped a few feet away, letting the space between them breathe. Riley was kind of a savant at reading people, but Abby’s open nature made it easy: the familiar warmth of her smile, the way her attention didn’t drift, the absence of an apology for not reaching out more.
“You’re in town,” Riley said.
“Yeah,” Abby said, stuffing her hands into her coat pockets. “I got here about an hour ago and grabbed a room at the lodge.”
Riley waited. She always did.
Abby glanced briefly at Main Street, at the decorations and the people moving through them, then back at Riley. Her focus didn’t waver.
“I didn’t know if you’d want to see me,” Abby said.
Riley’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “You asked me for a drink.”
Abby’s mouth curved, just barely. “I meant at all.”
That landed. And Riley didn’t rush to smooth it over.
Her phone buzzed again in her hand, briefly reminding her that the rest of the world still existed. She turned it off without looking.
“There’s a bar a block over,” Riley said. “It’ll be quiet.”
Relief flickered across Abby’s face, not exaggerated. Just real.
“Okay.”
They started walking side by side, not touching. Riley noticed that Abby didn’t crowd her, didn’t fill the silence, didn’t try to steer the moment anywhere it wasn’t already going.
At the corner, Abby spoke again.
“Thank you.”
Riley glanced at her. “For what?”
“For answering,” Abby said. “And not pretending you didn’t see me.”
Riley watched the crosswalk signal change.
“I wouldn’t do that,” she said.
The one very consistent thing about their inconsistent orbit around one another was that Riley always saw Abby. Maybe even more than Abby saw herself. It was the looking away that had always been the problem.