"Well, thank god for small favors," Michael grunted, crouching on my other side and offering me a hand. I took it and hauled myself up, Nolan supporting my other shoulder and dusting snow off my coat.

"Thanks," I muttered, swiping at the snow on the seat of my pants.

"Are you okay?" Nolan asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I was just – " I looked up then, guiltily, and both young men were watching me.

"Glad you're okay," Michael said conversationally. "You can't have seen anything very clearly before you tripped and fell, huh?"

"Michael," Nolan began warningly, but Michael held up a hand.

"And you wouldn't want to trip and fall again because you were trying to tell someone about anything you did think you'd seen, would you?" he continued.

I stared at him for a minute and then burst into laughter.

"Oh, lord," I said. "Michael, are you threatening me?"

"Apparently not very," he replied, face falling.

"No, it's fine, don't worry," I said, looking between them. Nolan looked worried, but Michael looked terrified. "Boys, honestly. I know I talk a lot, but I know when to keep my mouth shut."

I grinned at Michael and wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, shaking lightly. "I guess you aren't as bothered by the gossip that's out there now as you would be by this, huh?"

"It's nobody's business," Michael said, shrugging out of my grip.

"Relax. I don't care," I answered.

"Lots of people do," Nolan murmured.

"Well, they're fools."

"We're moving to Chicago," Michael blurted. "Soon as I help my dad with the spring crop."

"And there will be fools in Chicago, I promise you," I answered. "Still, you might have a point. Tell you what, come by the shop in a few days. I'll get you some guidebooks," I said. Nolan gave me a strained, grateful smile. "All right?"

Nolan nodded. Michael didn't.

"Michael, all right?" I asked. He narrowed his eyes and glanced at Nolan.

"All right," he said.

"Good. So. Let's go in, it's almost midnight," I said, opening the door and stepping inside. "They're going to think you were dunking me in the snowbank – HEY, WHAT'S THE TIME?" I called across the crowd.

Most of the eyes were on the cafe's single clock – not perhaps the best timepiece in history, but at least one they could all agree on. I looked around for Lucas but didn't see him; after a few seconds I was swept up in counting-down to the New Year and the melee of inappropriate affection that usually follows things like that.

I glanced around and saw Nolan and Michael drifting casually to opposite sides of the room. Young men moving on, moving up – moving to Chicago in the spring, where there was a little more acceptance and a lot more people, and if someone saw you holding hands it wasn't all that likely they'd even know who you were.

It's hard to find a place you fit, sometimes. I felt oddly grateful for mine.

There was the usual ten or fifteen minutes of jubilation, of course, followed by a sort of expectant feeling that nobody quite knew what to do with. I always think that secretly everyone wants to turn to their companions and ask, "What now?" before they make the hesitant decision to leave.

Plenty of people were headed for the hotel, preferring to sleep there rather than risk freezing to death on the walk home or crashing their cars on the road. As excellent as the cold was for sobering people up, there was no point in being reckless.

I helped get some of the more recalcitrant party-goers to the hotel and then turned back towards my shop, waving to others as they left the cafe and exchanging the usual lame jokes – seems like it's been a year since I've seen you and the rest.

When I finally reached my front walk, the cafe was turning out its lights, but the streetlamps were on and the snow almost glowed against the dark wood of my porch. The contrasts made the world seem flat, almost unreal, and the alcohol probably didn't help. I blame it all for not noticing anything unusual sooner.

By the time I saw the animal huddled on my porch step, I was so close to the door that I almost tripped over it. There was a yelp and a scrabble of claws on wood in the dark, and then there was a large furry shadow pressing itself up against the green door in surprise.

"Hey, now," I said unsteadily, pausing on the step and leaning forward, bracing myself on the railing-post. I peered into the darkness and held out my other hand. "What's there?"

I thought for a second it might have been a wolf, but they're pretty rare even in our part of the country. It was too big for a coyote, much too big for a raccoon or a possum. A dog, then – large, with long powerful legs and a wide chest. When he hesitantly nosed forward, the first thing I saw was a pair of luminous eyes set in two dark patches of fur with an almost comical pale stripe between them. A sled dog of some sort, with eyes that arctic blue.

"Hello," I said, turning my hand over for the animal to inspect, but he trotted past it and sat down facing me, nose barely half a foot from mine. He had short, bristling fur that was a uniform pastel gray on his back, blending into white on his legs and belly. The only dark patches were on his muzzle and around his eyes. "Who belongs to you, eh?"