Chapter 7: A Dance Under the Stars
721 Words
Nicholas had made a mistake.
He should never have danced with her.
He should have walked away like he always did, burying himself in work and cold detachment. But instead, he had let himself get drawn in—into her warmth, into the way her laughter softened the sharp edges of the night, into the way she looked at him like he was something more than just Santa Claus.
And now, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The way her hand had fit in his.
The way her breath had hitched when he pulled her closer.
The way, for just a moment, it had felt like the world had paused.
Nicholas Claus did not let people in.
But somehow, Alina had slipped past every defense before he had even noticed.
And that terrified him.
The ball had ended hours ago, yet Nicholas found himself still awake, pacing the snowy paths outside the workshop. The sky stretched endlessly above him, filled with stars that shimmered against the icy darkness.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
Or maybe it was just that his thoughts were too loud.
He needed to shake this feeling, to push it away before it grew into something he couldn’t control.
But then—
“I thought you hated the cold.”
Nicholas turned at the sound of her voice.
Alina stood a few feet away, wrapped in a thick cloak, her cheeks pink from the crisp night air.
Nicholas exhaled sharply. “I do.”
She smirked. “And yet, here you are.”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the sky.
Alina stepped beside him, following his line of sight. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Nicholas frowned. He had never thought of the stars that way. They had always just been there, distant and indifferent—just like him.
“I don’t really notice them,” he admitted.
Alina hummed softly. “That’s a shame. They remind me that even in the darkest nights, there’s still light somewhere.”
Nicholas glanced at her. “That’s very poetic.”
She grinned. “I have my moments.”
A pause stretched between them, filled only by the soft crunch of snow beneath her boots as she shifted slightly.
Then, quietly, she asked, “Why do you hate it?”
Nicholas stiffened. “Hate what?”
“The cold.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
How could he explain that the cold had never felt like just a temperature to him? That it had always felt like something deeper—something inside him rather than around him?
“It’s isolating,” he muttered at last. “The cold… separates things. It keeps people apart.”
Alina was silent for a moment. Then, softly, she said, “Not always.”
Nicholas scoffed. “Name one good thing about it.”
Alina smiled. “It brought us here, didn’t it?”
Nicholas hesitated.
She wasn’t wrong.
Without the cold, without the North Pole, without this strange, magical world they both belonged to, he wouldn’t be standing here, having a conversation he shouldn’t be having.
And he certainly wouldn’t be looking at her the way he was now.
“Still,” he said, forcing his voice to stay neutral, “I’d take a warm fire over this any day.”
Alina chuckled. “You really don’t belong here, do you?”
Nicholas frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “You don’t seem like someone who wants to be Santa Claus.”
Nicholas’s chest tightened.
That was the one thing no one ever said out loud.
That maybe he wasn’t meant for this role.
That maybe he had never wanted it at all.
“I don’t have a choice,” he muttered.
Alina’s expression softened. “You always have a choice, Nicholas.”
He looked at her then, really looked at her—at the way the moonlight reflected in her eyes, at the way she always seemed to say exactly the thing he didn’t want to hear but somehow needed to.
Nicholas Claus had spent his life keeping his distance.
And yet, in that moment, standing under the vast winter sky, he felt closer to someone than he ever had before.
And that scared him more than anything.
- Writer
