"Stay," he said. "Not forever. I'm not that kind of reckless on a first cocoa. Just—after closing. Walk with us. Mansfield under snow is stupidly pretty, and I have leftovers that are almost a meal if you squint and believe in cheese."
Elena hesitated. Alone had been the plan. Alone was safe. Alone did not ask her to want, and wanting was the dangerous sport she had been avoiding since the bus cancelled and left her with too much night.
"What kind of leftovers?"
"Claire's lasagna. I was supposed to return the pan. I am a criminal of the casserole variety."
"Theft of lasagna is my favorite crime," Elena said, and the smile that followed felt like stepping onto the wood again. "Okay. After closing."
While Jake's ankle cooled its temper, they watched Mikey enter the snowflake contest with the solemnity of an Olympic athlete. He held up his orange-glitter creation. The DJ, who had seen too many contests to be unkind, declared every child a winner in a different category: Most Sparkle, Most Symmetry, Most Likely to Survive a Mitten Pocket. Mikey won Most Unexpected Color, which he accepted as a Nobel. Elena clapped until her palms stung. Jake whistled. Dot handed out candy canes like medals.
Between the contest and closing, Elena and Jake traded more of the quiet truths that nights like this unlock. She told him about the afternoon she had almost said yes to moving to Texas, standing in the diner walk-in freezer with a crate of lettuce, crying because cold made it easier to pretend the tears were weather. He told her about the first time he skated backward in public after the injury, how his hands shook, how an old regular had clapped and said, "Still got it, Brennan," and how that sentence had kept him alive for a month. They did not say love. They said see you after closing, which in the dialect of Christmas Eve lonely people was adjacent.
Closing came with "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and the slow dimming of the colored bulbs, as if the room itself were going to sleep with one eye open. Dot handed Mikey a candy cane "for the road" and winked at Elena as if she had seen this plot before and approved the casting with a small, private stamp. Outside, the snow had thickened into a soft curtain. Starlight Roller Palace's neon sign buzzed pink against the white, the letters humming like they were trying to remember a song. Jake carried Mikey partway because the kid's legs had decided to become noodles after science, contests, and sugar. Elena walked on his other side, faux fur bright as a small moon, skates laced together and hung over her shoulder, red wheels knocking gently against her hip.