The Grumpy Side of Paradise (Love in Paradise Valley, #1)

by Brittany Larsen

Winters are for family, fires, and candlelight. Hygge at its best. Few outsiders understand this. They think they do, which is why more and more people want to come to Paradise year-round. But they don’t. Very few people can slow down and be still long enough to fully embrace the Danish concept of well-being.

The only logical reason is that singing sad songs always brings up emotions in me. That’s why I play them. That’s what they should do for everyone who hears them. People need to be seen in their pain.

I’m just a guy, standing in front of a girl, trying not to make a fool of myself. And it’s probably already too late for that.

The girl at the register—her name tag says Mekylie, and I don’t know what that spells—greets her with a smile.

lol Idaho

but there’s nothing that can draw my attention away from the what’s happening right in front of me. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Reparation. Those words are all familiar to me. I heard them a million times as a kid in Sunday School. When I still believed. But I’ve never seen them until now. And, for the first time, I realize each is a process, not a one-time thing. So, maybe I still have something to believe in?

“No.” I wave my hands to erase every dumb thing that has come out of my mouth. “I mean yes.

Abs will disappear. Integrity and empathy won’t.

My dad isn’t totally wrong about the uselessness of staying mad, but I don’t think I believe anymore that anger doesn’t fix anything. Maybe sometimes it helps fix things if we’re willing to let it go once we’ve let it out. There’s no use letting it out on a leash, only to be pulled back in and used over and over.