Love at Frost Sight

Love at Frost Sight A Holiday Novella Torie Jean Sunset and Camden Creative Copyright This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author. LOVE AT FROST SIGHT TORIE JEAN www.toriejean.com Copyright © 2023 by Torie Jean All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the publisher or author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or post. Cover design: Torie Jean Copy Editing: Kristen Hamilton at Kristen's Red Pen For information on subsidiary rights, please contact the author at www.toriejean.com Dedication Adam, “This page, in fact, this book is dedicated to you.” I’m still bitter that you killed cloud factories for me, but because of you, I believe in faerie tales. Thank you for being my soulmate. Author’s Note and Trigger and Content Warnings: Oh, well, hi, there! Thank you so much for picking up this winter novella. I appreciate you so so so so much. Before we get going, here are a few things to keep in mind. If something doesn’t sound to your taste or might be triggering to you, remember mental health first always! Put this down and find something else. It’ll be here if/when you’re ready. No hard feelings. Like me, Maddie has a disease called endometriosis. Endometriosis is a chronic illness where tissue similar to the lining in the uterus grows wherever it wants throughout the body. This disease is both painful and chronic, so while this is a silly love story, for some, that aspect may be heavy. Please keep in mind that millions of people live with this disease daily; as one of those people, those elements are my life. In the end, you do you, boo! Love at Frost Sight has fantastical elements that require the reader to suspend their disbelief a smidge. It’s a project I did to get me through some doctors’ appointments, and the story doesn’t take itself too seriously. Still, I hope it can be a bit of a happy escape for y’all. Content and Trigger Warnings: Love at Frost Sight contains: Endometriosis representation which includes significant pain, taking narcotics, isolation of hiding a chronic illness, interactions with ableism, off-page vomiting, difficulty with intimacy, and nausea. A character with an anxiety disorder An accident between a pedestrian and a car that happened in the past Manipulation and bullying History of neglectful and abandoning parental units This book also contains the following: On-page intimate scenes, including fingering, oral, and penetrative sex. Adult language. If you would rather not read swear words, this one will not be for you. Chapter one The Shop Around the CornerMaddie“You’re the villain, right?” A pair of feline eyes narrow on my face, unflinching behind the weathered pine counter of this bookstore my boyfriend Connor and I wandered into. Thick bifocals slope down the store clerk’s turned-up nose, obscuring the unnatural chartreuse hue of her stare, unblinking and unsettling in its assessment of me, as if she’s seen past the outward appearance I’ve put so much effort into perfecting, straight into my soul where I’ve buried Marshmallow Maddie Finch as deep as she will go. Nervously, I shift my weight onto my opposite foot and stare at the dusty floorboards. People seeing the regrettably soft part of me is something I avoid at all costs.With a collecting breath, I dig my long nails into my palms, grounding myself in our stand-off. The first rule of Mean Girl Fight Club is not to let on that you’re bothered.I am calm. I am cool. I am collected.I should stop staring at the ground.Lifting my gaze, I meet her eyes, and a kaleidoscope of repeating patterns swirls enchantingly within her stare instead of the previous scrutinizing glare.“Girl, I said—you’re the villain, right?” Ellie, if the nametag pinned to her cardigan covered in garland and jingle bells is to be trusted, drums her fingers against the dated countertop, waiting for an answer to what I assumed was a rhetorical question.“Excuse me?” I ask. Maybe I didn’t hear her right over the whir of the table fans rescuing us from a late-summer-like heat wave.Ah, winter in Texas.Hot. Demoralizing. Suffocating.Gorgeous.A time where, if it wasn’t for the mammoth Christmas tree dominating every outdoor shopping center and Wham’s Last Christmas whining over this store’s speaker, I could ignore the nauseating merry hell December promises to be.“No. No. That’s not right. You weren’t supposed to be,” she says with a twitch of her snub nose and a narrow of her cat eyes to slits. “You reek of Jack.”And wow. Okay, Madeline. Time to move away from the eccentric bookstore owner before you’re stabbed. This isn’t a contest worth winning.I hazard a glance around the store, searching for Connor, the man responsible for my unfortunate presence here on an otherwise perfect Sunday. Imposing bookshelves loom overhead, filled to the brim with jewel-colored tomes, obscuring my sight line and Connor’s presence. With a sigh, I accept my fate. I don’t trust giving Ellie my back when she’s primed for a lunge and murder scenario, so this conversation, however irritating, will have to continue. “No offense,” I say, with laser-focused attention on my nails. “But are you sure you’re not smelling whiskey on your breath?”“Not Jack Daniels, girl.” Ellie slams her hand down on the counter. Change rattles with the drub. I jump—my pulse skitters. The whole commotion is unnecessary. “Jack Frost. He thinks he’s being clever with his spite when he ruins one of my carefully crafted stories. But you’re the one paying, having a heart of frost in someone else’s tale when you should have a beautiful story of love and healing all your own.” She shakes her head. The