The mid-December night was alive with holiday cheer. Manning had wanted to take a cab to the hotel, but I’d insisted we walk. I loved to see the bell-ringing Santa Clauses, steam billowing from manholes—and hot chocolate cups—and the lit Christmas trees and menorahs in people’s windows. Or maybe I just needed time to come to terms with where we were going. Having Manning in my apartment had felt like a dream, but going to a hotel with him evoked the same uneasiness I’d gotten when he’d offered to help me with my rent, as if I was his mistress.

Manning kept his eyes forward. With our elbows linked, the tension in his body was evident. New York wasn’t like Orange County. We passed loud-mouthed street performers, tripped on uneven pavement, and avoided brushing against beady-eyed men. There was something to see everywhere we looked, and though I found it exciting, I wasn’t sure Manning did. To him, more things could go wrong here.

Whatever Val had said to him, he’d been brooding ever since. He’d fussed with my scarf and coat outside the apartment before insisting he walk closest to the curb. Admittedly, it hadn’t been the best time for Val and Roger to burst in. I thought back to Manning’s confession about his dad and squeezed closer to him.

“Cold?” he asked.

“A little.”

“We’re almost there.”

Had I known Manning was trying to reconcile his own desires for me against his father’s for Maddy, would I have done anything differently? I couldn’t be sure, because I didn’t see things the way he did. What Manning’s father had done to a nine-year-old girl had nothing to do with love or attraction. Manning and I had never so much as kissed. Just because he’d felt something for me when I was under eighteen didn’t mean he was a sexual predator or some kind of innate monster. I saw it clear as day, but Manning had always struggled to see himself as I did.

When I glanced up, I caught Manning half-turned, doing a double take at a church with massive wooden doors decorated with wreathes and bows. “What is it?” I asked. He looked forward again, silent. He’d never struck me as the religious type, so I couldn’t fathom what had crossed his mind. “What are you thinking about?”

He took a few moments to respond. “Marriage.”

With one night left, that was the last thing I wanted to talk about. His marriage had nothing to do with me. Everybody involved had known going in what Manning and I had, but they’d chosen to pursue the relationship anyway. Manning had made his own decisions, and so had Tiffany.

We were quiet so long, we passed another church. This one had tiny white lights strung along its staircase railings and an enormous stained glass Jesus that looked upon us.

Manning’s cell rang, and he took it out of his pocket before silencing it. He hadn’t looked at me in blocks. “Who was that?” I asked.

We turned a corner and sidestepped a man shoveling the sidewalk outside a bodega.

Manning stopped. “I need a cigarette before we get to the hotel,” he said. “And then I think we should talk about the logistics of what comes next. I know it’s unpleasant, but it is what it is.”

The clerk placed his shovel against a wall and followed Manning inside. I turned my back on them, on the harsh light streaming from the store onto the sidewalk. I didn’t see what there was to talk about. I’d thought the plan was for him to come back as soon as possible. I didn’t need to hear the horrible details of how it would happen. We were about to do an awful thing, and if we could stop ourselves, we would, so what was the point in beating the topic to death?

A woman passed me, the toddler attached to her hand pulling the opposite direction, trying to get to the fresh pile of snow the shop clerk had created. The boy managed to wiggle free and jump into the heap with both boots. She picked him up, playfully rolling her eyes at me as she hauled him off. I smiled at them. I hadn’t seen snow fall until I’d moved to New York, but in the four and a half years I’d been here, I’d never just played in the snow like that. I’d been forced to grow up fast, to fend for myself. Since Manning had arrived, I’d finally started to feel light again. I wasn’t ready to let go of that. Of him.

I felt Manning’s eyes on me, a sixth sense I’d developed from being unable to communicate with him any other way when I was younger. I looked back at him leaning between the shovel and a display of poinsettias and miniature Christmas trees. He stuffed a pack of Marlboros in his pocket, watching me as he cupped a hand around his mouth and lit a cigarette. “If this was easy,” he said, “we would’ve done it long ago.”

“If what was easy?”

“You and me.”

“Can’t we talk about it tomorrow before you leave?” I asked, sighing. I wanted to go back to that day at the ice skating rink when we’d done nothing but wander, kiss and touch, eat and make love. “Watch this.” I turned to face him completely. With a sly smile, I walked backward a few steps and planed my arms. “Ready?”

“What for?”

I leaned back on my heels until my balance wavered, then fell into the snow with a crunch. Winging my arms and legs like jumping jacks, I grinned. “Look,” I said. “I’m making a snow angel.”

“I see.”

I froze right through my cheap coat, the ends of my hair wetted, but I got up on my elbows and smiled at him. “Come make one with me.”

“I like watching you do it,” he said, pinching the butt of the cigarette, amusement in his eyes.

“If you won’t make one, I’ll have to think of another way to get you over here.” I balled up some snow, packing it tightly while he raised his eyebrows at me—a warning I intended to ignore. When he didn’t make a move, I threw the snowball at him, narrowly missing his shoulder.

He didn’t even flinch. “Have to work on your aim,” he said, winking.

“Fine. You win.” I stood, bending at the waist, brushing snow off my pants. I pretended to fix my socks while stealthily forming more ammunition. Peeking to make sure he wasn’t looking, I straightened up, much better poised to hit him. I launched the snowball and it smacked against his chest so hard, his cigarette fell from his mouth onto the sidewalk.

I stifled a laugh at the way his nostrils flared. We stared at each other a few tense seconds before we both broke into a run. Halfway down the block, he caught me by the waist and lifted me into the air. Even as I gave in to a fit of laughter, I struggled against him, making it as hard as I could for him to carry me.

Right before the entrance to the W, he tossed me into another pile of snow and fell down beside me. “Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean you win,” he said, spreading out on his back like he had that night at the pool in Big Bear. I scooted over to make space for his impressive wingspan. Manning made what had to be the largest snow angel in history, then held his hand palm up for me. I took it, letting him pull me over to him.

I rolled onto my stomach, resting my chin on his broad chest. Before Serious Manning could ruin the moment, I asked, “What’s your favorite color?”

“That’s easy. Blue.”

“I should’ve guessed,” I said. “All boys like blue.”

“Not the shade I’m thinking of. It’s more of a baby blue, or turquoise water—”

“The ocean. Why?” I asked. “Is that your favorite place in the world?”

“Nah.”

“Where would you be if you could be anywhere?”

“Where would you be?”

My instinct was to say the beach—it was my home, or it had been once. Was I even that girl anymore, though? Wasn’t it normal for tastes to change over the years? “Here, I guess.”

“Don’t sound so sure,” he teased, reaching up to brush sleet from my hair. “It’s okay if it isn’t New York, Lake.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? My friends are here. I’m building a career. I even have a hairdresser I like.” I pursed my lips. “I’ve made a life here.”

“But it’s not like you left Southern California because you didn’t like it there. If New York felt like the only option . . .”

I wanted to argue just to prove him wrong, but the truth was, I sometimes felt out of place in the city. I’d grown up playing barefoot in sand and salt water, with the sun turning my gold hair white. Not that I didn’t love it here, but I sometimes wondered if the city would ever feel like my true home. “What about the mountains?” I asked. “I’ve never seen you as happy as you were in Big Bear. Is that where you want to be, somewhere with nature?”

“I want to be where you are,” he said. “New York can be your dream home, but mine is you.”

I shivered beneath a coat of goosebumps. Manning rubbed his hands over my back, but it was his words, not the cold, that got under my skin. I sat up, throwing a leg over his lap to straddle him. “I want to live on a mountain,” I said from above him, “just like this. With my great bear.”

He grabbed me by the waist with a throaty growl. “So, Goldilocks thinks she can tame a wild animal?” he asked, shifting me on his lap so I could feel how untamed he was. “She should be careful what she wishes for.”

“She wishes to try, even if it takes a lifetime.”

“Close your eyes,” he said. “Picture a time you were happiest.”

Maybe it was all the bear talk, but my mind went back in time, right to Young Cubs Camp, sneaking peeks at Manning across the cafeteria, or during counselor hour after the campers had gone to bed, or before breakfast, when we were supposed to have our eyes closed for Reflection. I’d forgotten that the morning Manning had been arrested, he and I had shared a moment right before the cops had shown up. After the night in the truck, our eyes had met during Reflection, electricity buzzing between us as if it were the beginning of something.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s making you smile?”

“Camp,” I said. “I loved being around you all week. And riding the horse. That was fun.”

“It was.” He ran his hands up my thighs. “Is that your happy place? What about memories that don’t involve me?”

I traveled back again, this time to playing board games at night during Christmas break, Tiffany screaming when she won, screaming when she lost, and my dad struggling not to lose his temper and ruin Christmas. One morning when I was seven and Tiffany was ten, we’d woken up and found a Labrador puppy under the tree. We’d named her after Daphne from Scooby-Doo, but she’d gotten sick within six months. Seeing how much Tiffany had loved that dog, Dad had shelled out thousands of dollars in vet bills, but it hadn’t saved her. Tiffany had been devastated. I opened my eyes and started to get up. “I don’t want to play this game anymore.”

Manning sat up, watching as I brushed snow off my pants. “It’s not a game, Lake.”

“I don’t know why you’re doing this. What’s the point of forcing me to look at what I’m giving up? Are you hoping I’ll change my mind and tell you not to leave her?”

“No. I just want you to understand what lies ahead. Once I talk to Tiffany, there’s no turning back.” He held out his hand to me. “Come here.”

“No.”

“Then help me up.”

I took his hand, but after a short-lived battle of strength, I found myself in the snow again, stubbornly holding in a laugh as he feathered his fingers up my waist. “What’s your middle name?” he asked. “You never told me that day on the wall, and I’ve wanted to know ever since.”

“You could’ve asked any member of my family over the years,” I pointed out.

“I wanted you to tell me.”

“Dolly,” I said, “and I hate it.”

“Dolly.” He kissed my cheek. “Lake Dolly Kaplan.”

“Manning Raymond Sutter.”

He looked surprised. “How do you know that?”

“I saw it on some of the paperwork for your arrest.”

“Come on, Lake Dolly Kaplan. My goldilocks, my little bird.” He stood, holding out a hand to pull me up. “Your locks of gold are all wet and your wings, too.”