A Jingle Bell Mingle (Christmas Notch Book 3)

by Julie Murphy

I don’t even know if I believe in marriage anymore, anyway. But I believe in her and I believe in us, and goddammit, I want the whole thing, even if it is bullshit, even if it’s the wrong thing to want. I know it’s our second time around, I know we’re probably too old and too jaded, but I don’t want to be jaded when it comes to this. I want to be fresh and full of hope and give her my whole life.”

the only ice I was interested in was the kind that chilled my beverages. Especially the little pebble kind from Sonic that Bee had introduced me to. How was it so incredibly superior?

I didn’t ask if she sometimes felt like happiness was an impossibly faraway thing, a thin scrap of cloud whispering under the stars. I didn’t ask because it didn’t matter. I needed it just as badly as she did.

And that by the time I’d realized that I needed to find a way to live even though my wife was dead, I’d completely forgotten how living worked at all.

I wouldn’t have minded seeing some ghosts here in the mansion. I thought we’d have a lot in common, since ghosts were supposed to be lonely and preoccupied with death, and I was too!

The real ghost of this mansion was Sunny Palmer, strewing hair ties and phone chargers and half-empty packs of gum all over the place like some kind of hot, ADHD poltergeist. And I was kind of loving being haunted.

Given that I was bisexual and had known it since the first time I saw Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park as a kid—and given that I was part of a famously nontraditional family anyway—it took an embarrassing amount of time before I figured out that Nanny and Carina were together. And had been for a really long time.

“I’m a recluse, Sunny,” Isaac said. “I’m not devoid of culture.”

I typed out as succinct a summary of the angel-postman miracle as I possibly could, given that I was condensing from Sunny Palmer, who told stories with the verbal equivalent of parentheses and asterisks and footnotes.

Working alongside someone but not with them, each of us having our own passions and desires and loving each other for it.

“Is that a Capri-Sun?” Steph asked conversationally. “In fact, are those five empty Capri-Sun packets next to it?” I glowered at her. “These are my creative gloom Capri-Suns.”

“I’ve been reading these letters to Santa,” I said. “They remind me of how simple Christmas used to feel, the straightforward magic of it all. But I can’t remember how that felt without being simultaneously aware of having lost that feeling. You can never go back to seeing Christmas the way a child sees it, you know? You can only catch little glimpses here and there. Moments of what it used to be like. It’s like catching snow—nearly impossible, and then you can never hold on to it. It’s nothing more than a cold memory of itself, in the end.”

“We’ll have to talk to them,” I explained carefully. “And then they’ll talk to us. And then we’ll try to leave, but they’ll keep talking. Do you see it now? The horror?”

“Sometimes the girls who seem like they don’t need anyone or anything are the ones who are the most easily hurt.”

“I don’t think I can do it again. The love thing, I mean . . . that part of me died with Brooklyn. But I hope that whoever I meet, they’ll know that it’s not their fault. And that missing Brooklyn doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with them any less.” His words filled my lungs. It was beautiful, really. Tragic, of course. But the intense devotion he had for Brooklyn only made him all the more equipped to share his love with somebody else one day, even if he couldn’t believe it yet.

“I know it doesn’t make things less hard, Isaac. But also it doesn’t cheapen your grief to be happy once in a while.”

“Wine coolers? Did you steal them from your mom’s stash?” “Her mom is dead, actually,” Isaac said. And for the first time in her life, I’m sure, Steph D’Arezzo looked completely mortified. “I’m—I’m so sorry. I didn’t—” I couldn’t keep a straight face and wheezed with laughter. “The dead mom card,” I said. “That was so good.”

“It’s called productive procrastination,” I told him. “A classic sign of ADHD and my preferred form of amusement.

Sometimes, stories bring the people we’ve lost back to us, you know? Even if it’s just for a few minutes, even if it’s only for one. It could be a kind of gift, getting to tell someone. Getting to remember out loud.”

“Oh, she didn’t die of old age,” the receptionist said. “Moose accident on the way to the store to get more vape cartridges. You have to be careful with the moose, because their eyes don’t shine in the dark—” “Because they’re too tall!” Sunny finished for her, and then gave my shoulder a little shake. “I told you!” “But at least she died doing what she loved,” the receptionist concluded.

Love can make someone flare back to life like a lit match, and even after the match sputters and dies, you remember its warmth and its light.”

“We have many hearts inside us,” she went on, “and so much room to grow new ones. It didn’t mean that they loved Ronald any less because they forged ahead without him; in fact, maybe it meant they loved him more. They did what he would have wanted them to do: led long lives, full to bursting.”

there had always been a disconnect between how they made my body feel and how they made my heart feel. But with Isaac, both of those things were in sync for the first time . . . ever.

“I love you. I love you so much, Isaac Kelly, that it aches. I love you big.”

I’ve forgotten about my parents’ death day a few times too, and I didn’t spin around and point fingers at the people I was with so that I could blame anyone but myself. Instead, I took those days as a fucking blessing. A sign that even though the ones I’ve lost are irreplaceable, at least I’ve found people and a life worth living for. Because that’s the greatest way I could possibly honor my parents.

“I want to take care of you, Sunny, and I’m going to spend every day proving it to you. I want to be your cloud when everyone else wants too much of your sunshine. I want to help when you don’t know how to ask for it. I want to be closer than your shadow when you need me. I want to keep you as safe as you make me feel. Will you let me do that for you?”

Sometimes when you were the happiest person in the room, no one bothered to check in and see what might be brewing under the surface. No one thought to anticipate what you might need when you didn’t appear to need anything at all.