Snow Place Like Home (Home Sweet Holidays)

by Laura Pavlov

Ace Bonetti. My brother’s lifelong best friend and the best man at the wedding.

Goldie Sunshine Jacobs. She was that girl. Her name fit her well. Beautiful, funny, thoughtful, smart, and kind. I’d never once crossed the line with her, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it. A couple hundred times. Fine. Maybe thousands.

And Goldie was always the girl I’d compare everyone else to. Sadly, no one compared to her.

“Are you going to beat up everybody who takes a shot at me, Ace?” “Always,” I said as she wrapped a hand around my bicep and we made our way inside. And that is the fucking truth.

But every time I searched the room, I found her. Sunny. My eyes always managed to find her in a crowded room. It had been that way for as long as I could remember. And apparently, nothing had changed.

“Because when you told me that you broke up with the asshole and were moving back home, I knew it’s where I wanted to be,” he said. “You’re really moving back here?” “Yep. It feels like home. And there’s a girl I’m crazy about who happens to live in White Cap Mountain. And I hear she’s finally single.” My fingers moved to the scruff on his peppered jaw. “Kiss me, Ace.” And his lips crashed into mine.

A wide grin settled on her face, and she nodded. “I know what I want, Ace, and I’m looking at him.”

“I want you. All of you,” I said, my voice gruff.

I scooped her into my arms and carried her down the hallway to her bedroom. It would definitely go down as the best Christmas I’d ever had. But the truth was, it felt like so much more than that. It felt like we’d just found our forever. And I was never letting go.