We both pull back to see Mark from the hardware store standing there with red cheeks, looking extremely embarrassed to have interrupted the two of us.
“Mark? Is everything okay?” Emma says as she takes a step back.
Mark scratches his head and scrunches his nose. “Well, I mean, I guess that depends on who you ask, really? Uh… there might be a bit of a disagreement happening over by the bar area.”
Emma freezes, her eyes going wide as panic floods her face. “Shit,” she curses, then brushes past Mark.
I follow after her, throwing a sorry over my shoulder.
The scene is apparently only beginning to unfold as we both stop in front of the bar. Jensen and Dad are having words with Mr. and Mrs. Worthington, and I can feel the tension escalating heavily in the air.
Fuck. I was hoping this wouldn’t happen.
“Yeah, well, it seems like you got exactly what you wanted, then, doesn’t it?” Emma’s dad snorts, turning his nose up even higher if that were at all possible, and I do not foresee this ending well.
Jensen shakes his head before retorting, “Right, like we had something to do with the twenty-five-year-old furnace going out. That thing hasn’t been used in years, and trust me, I’m pretty sure I can speak for everyone in my family when I say that we want you here about as much as you want to be here.”
Emma stiffens as we move our gaze from one side of the argument to the other.
Her dad’s face is turning redder by the second, and even Mrs. Worthington trying to placate him is not helping. “Wouldn’t surprise me if you sabotaged it, just like your family has for years! Don’t act like this is the first time one of you has done something just to spite our family.”
“And your hands are clean?” my dad adds, questioning in his tone. I think he’s trying not to fuel this argument, but his words are terse and his lips flatten into a line as he bites his tongue.
“Cleaner than yours,” Mr. Worthington says. “I mean, if it wasn’t for your son, then my daughter wouldn’t be forced to put this entire thing together or end up in jail or with a damn criminal record!”
The band has completely stopped playing, and the entire room has gone eerily quiet. Not only are our families having a fight in the middle of a party Emma and I have worked our asses off to make happen, but the entire town has a front-row seat to our drama. Again.
“Daddy!” Emma cries.
Her father holds his hand up, silencing her as he drags his gaze back to Jensen and Dad. Now, Jude, Josie, and Jameson have joined, standing behind them.
I’m not even going to insert myself into this conversation. If he wants to believe that I’m the sole reason that this shit happened, then that’s on him. Arguing with him in front of the entire town is not going to change that, and I’m not going to hurt Emma that way.
“This has been going on for years. Your family is always trying to sabotage us, to spite us, to do whatever you can to make sure that our party isn’t successful,” Mr. Worthington says. “Not only did you steal our party tradition, but over the years, you’ve stolen Christmas lights from our yard, flipped our decorations upside down, filled our mailbox with coal, toilet papered our outdoor fir trees the night before our party. You should be ashamed of yourselves for your unruly behavior.”
Ma walks over, standing in front of my dad with her chin raised high and a finger that’s pointed directly at Mr. Worthington’s face. “Now, that is enough. You are just as guilty in this silly feud as we are. I think we can all admit that we have done things that we shouldn’t have, things that we are not proud of… but you cannot live in glass houses, Mr. Worthington. Placing blame on us means accepting the very same blame for yourself. If anyone should be ashamed, it’s you for creating this entire spectacle that is neither the time nor the place!”
“How about you keep your little… ugly sweaters and your disgusting gingerbread cake, and we can leave. As simple as that. We want no part in this farce of a party,” Mrs. Worthington says. “It’s clearly all about your family getting what you wanted, and we were never welcome in the first place.”
I see Emma’s frustration, her sadness, her disappointment start to boil over. Her fists clenched at her side, she storms forward and steps between our families.
“Enough!” she says so loudly that it echoes off the wooden walls of the barn. “God, look at all of you. Fighting in the middle of a damn Christmas party over who has done what. You’re pointing fingers, saying things that are hurtful and absolutely not true. This has gone on long enough, and it ends. Right here. Right now.”
“Emma, with all due respect, I don’t think you have any right to speak to my family right now,” Jameson says with a sneer.
Nope. Fuck no.
I walk directly over to Emma, facing my family and my brother who’s clearly lost his goddamn mind speaking to her that way, and I grab her hand, lacing her fingers in mine, showing a united front.
“Brother, with all due respect, the next time you disrespect her that way, we’re going to have our own problem that we’ll have to resolve outside.”
Josie’s jaw drops in shock, but she recovers quickly, plastering on a grin, then giving me a sneaky thumbs-up.
“Look, Emma is right. This stupid godforsaken ‘feud’ has gone on for years, and it’s honestly fucking exhausting. Give it up. Do you even remember what started this? Why are we even fighting? Why has this gone on for as long as it has? Genuinely, can you even tell me that?” I look back and forth between my family and hers.
Her father works his jaw, then rolls his eyes. “Of course I do. Your family decided after moving to town that you were too good for our annual party. The Worthingtons have been hosting the town for Christmas practically since the town was founded—it’s a respected institution. Yet when the Pearces came to town, you never bothered to respond to the invitation. Oh, but even better! You decided the following year that you’d throw your own party. On the same day. And didn’t bother to invite our family. You tried to steal our family’s legacy!”
“What?” Ma says, her brow furrowing. “You invited our family to your party?”