The words hang between us, soft but heavy. My pulse stutters. It’s been nine weeks since my last period—something I’ve blamed on stress, on sleepless nights, on everything but what it might really be.
My breath catches. I look at him, at the way he’s watching me like he already knows what I’m thinking.
I shift, sliding closer until I’m straddling his lap again, my hands braced on his chest. His eyes flicker from surprise to warmth as I lean in, kiss him deeply.
When I pull back, my lips brush his ear. “Okay,” I whisper.
10
WILLOW
“Damien!”I squeal, twisting in his arms as he pins another sprig of mistletoe above the archway. My hair brushes his shoulder and I swat at his chest, laughing despite myself. “You can’t keep putting these everywhere!”
He only grins, all smug charm and dimpled mischief. A strand of twinkling lights hangs across his shoulders like a royal sash, the bulbs flashing red and gold against his dark sweater. “Sure I can,” he says, stepping back to admire his handiwork. “Christmas rules, Willow—mistletoe in every doorway. Encourages family bonding.”
“Encourages chaos,” I shoot back, ducking out of his reach as he tries to hang another one above the kitchen entryway. “You nearly made Vincent walk into one earlier.”
“That was the point,” Damien says, unrepentant, his smile stretching wider. “Man hasn’t smiled properly in a week. Figured a little seasonal harassment might help.”
Across the room, Vincent looks up from the box of ornaments he’s unwrapping, one brow arched in warning. “I heard that.”
“You were supposed to,” Damien fires back, not even pretending to look sorry.
The twins dissolve into giggles from where they’re kneeling near the base of the tree, sorting ornaments into piles labeledbreakableandprobably breakable.Rose has glitter in her hair; Theo’s sweater is already smeared with fake snow and cookie frosting.
The house hums around us, every inch of it alive. Fairy lights loop along the banister and across the mantle, throwing soft gold flecks over everyone’s faces. The faint scent of cinnamon rolls drifts from the kitchen, where Nana is humming along to Bing Crosby. There’s ribbon everywhere—draped over chairs, trailed across the floor, tangled around the dog’s tail.
It feels like the house is breathing again—warm and messy and whole.
Elise is curled up on the rug with Penny, their heads bent close together as they untangle a line of tinsel that looks determined to knot itself forever. Theo keeps sneaking candy canes off the coffee table when he thinks no one’s watching, and Rose has abandoned ornament duty to dance in front of the fire, twirling with a string of popcorn like it’s a ribbon wand.
Cast sits cross-legged by the tree, his dark hair dusted with fake snow from one of Damien’s “decorative” mishaps. He’s threading popcorn with Rose between her twirls, his long fingers deft and sure. Every few minutes, she pops another kernel into her mouth instead of onto the string.
“Rose, baby, those are for the tree,” I call over my shoulder, trying not to laugh.
She looks up with wide, guilty eyes, cheeks puffed full. “The tree won’t mind,” she mumbles.
“She’s got a point,” Cast murmurs, not looking up.
I cross my arms. “You’re both impossible.”
“Impossible,” he repeats with a wink, “but charming.”
“Barely.”
The laughter that follows ripples through the room, light and easy, smoothing over the edges of the last few tense days. Even Vincent’s face softens a little as he crouches beside the twins, his fingers steady as he helps Theo hook a red glass ornament onto a lower branch.
“Careful,” he murmurs. “That one’s from when I was your age. If you break it, I’m blaming your mother.”
Theo gasps, scandalized. “That’s not fair!”
“Life rarely is,” Vincent says, his tone dry but his mouth tugging at the corner.
“Vincent,” I scold, trying to hide my grin. “You can’t threaten the kids with ornaments. It’s Christmas.”
He glances up, and for a moment something lighter flickers behind his eyes—a real smile, faint but there. “I’m kidding,” he whispers.. “Mostly.”
The tree glows before us, nearly finished—tall and full, branches heavy with strands of golden lights and ornaments that glitter like tiny memories. There’s the cracked snowflake Penny made in kindergarten, the paper stars from the twins’ first art class, one of Cast’s old hockey medals that Elise insisted was shiny enough to “belong.” Every piece of it tells a story, uneven and chaotic but utterly ours.
