My stomach flips over. His love for his girls is overpowering. If he ever looked at me like that? I’d be done for. Last night was intoxicating, but having someone stare at me in that tender way would be my undoing.
The girls chatter about what Santa brought them in their stockings as we all settle in to eat. Pretty soon we’re all sitting around the tiny table, and I have to pull my legs back to make sure they don’t brush Chad’s.
“You get to go first, Miss Ivy.” Scarlett leans on her elbows and watches me with bright, excited eyes.
“Yay!” I use my fork to stab two on the top and pull them onto my plate. “I think we’re pretty good friends now, right?” I say when I reach for the light, golden-colored syrup in a jar with a handmade watercolor label. “I think it would be okay if you just call me Ivy.” I look over at Chad, asking with my eyes if this is okay. He nods.
“Okay!” Scarlett moves to her knees on her chair and bounces. “We can bebestfriends, Ivy, can’t we?”
“Absolutely.” I pour a generous amount of syrup over my pancake. Chad starts helping the girls, and I ask them which syrup they want. Chad has provided three different options—maple pecan, lavender lemon, and vanilla butter, which is what I chose. I give Chad a little smirk as I douse the girls’ pancakes as well. “It’s Christmas,” I say with a little shrug.
He shakes his head. “Sure, they probably won’t get very much sugar the rest of the day either,” he says in a dry voice.
“Was that a challenge?” I quirk an eyebrow at him.
A flash of awareness crosses his face, and it’s all I can do not to lean across the table and take the kiss that we almost started last night. “The girls will have a sleepover withyoutonight if you feed them sugar all day.” Then he leans closer to me and every inch of my skin reacts to his nearness, despite the fact that he’s not even touching me. Goose bumps rise on my arms, and a shiver runs down my spine. “You don’t have to eat the pancakes,” he says in a low voice. “The girls wanted to be the ones to make you breakfast. They insisted on doing it themselves. And I did supervise, but …” He tilts his head towards the stack.
“I’m eating the pancakes,” I say. An itch crawls up my throat, warning that I won’t be able to keep hiding my emotions. “They’re just like my mom’s.”
He laughs. “Sure.” Then he pauses, probably because henotices the wetness in my eyes, since I can feel some of it spilling over. “Ivy?”
“She was a terrible cook.” My voice is wobbly with both the tears and laughter. “She just used a mix, but she made pancakes every Christmas, and they were always terrible. My dad and I never told her. We just ate them.” I saw off a bite and put it in my mouth, hoping the time to chew will give me a moment to settle the wave of missing her that’s rising higher and higher—but not in a bad way. I feel closer to her than any Christmas before, when me and my dad would pretend like nothing was wrong.
Chad reaches over to take my hand, and for the first time in the last couple days, I don’t even try to resist how I feel. I tangle my fingers in his. “I’m sorry,” he says in a low voice.
I shake my head. “Don’t be. Please. This is the best Christmas I’ve had in so long. I didn’t know I needed these pancakes until I saw them, but … this is amazing, Chad. Really.”
A bittersweet ache does start finding its way through me, but not just for my mom. For this. For moments with someone that are filled with love and caring and thoughtfulness.
Not just someone.
Chad.
“Why doesn’t your dad make you Christmas pancakes?” Chad asks, pulling his hand away. I drop mine into my lap, embarrassed. I don’t know what happened last night. What was just us reacting to the physical attraction between us, and what’s real?
“My mom was the one that made Christmas a big deal. She wanted to do the big breakfast and made the—” I cut myself off, remembering the two little girls at the table. “Santa stuff,” I mouth, “really important. She did the tree and the decorations. All of it.”
He squints at me, confusion in his eyes. “And it’s too hard for your dad?”
“I don’t know. He just never did it. Christmas became another day, except we got each other gifts. I spent a lot ofChristmases with Law’s family during and after college.” I grimace. “Which is not that much better, to be honest.” Law’s mom is … intense. She’s a United States senator and focuses a lot on the family’s image. It’s exhausting for Law.
Chad snorts. “I can imagine.”
I swirl my fork through a pool of syrup on my plate and then lick it off. “I feel kind of guilty that it’s harder feeling like I’m losing Law than it is to spend Christmases away from my dad.” I think we texted last week, and he’ll probably call sometime to wish me a Merry Christmas, but Mom was the glue between us. Our relationship is shallow, and that’s why my friendship with Law has always meant so much to me. It’s why the distance between us, even though I’m over the moon for him to have found Carlie, is hard.
Chad reaches for my hand again, but this time I content myself with letting him wrap his hand around mine. “I don’t think there’s anything I can say to make the shift in your friendship with Law easier.” He shrugs at me, and I have to smile. He likes solutions.
“It’s okay. I knew our friendship would change when one of us met someone. Guess I was hoping I’d be first.”
“Well,” he goes on, giving my hand a squeeze, “I’m glad you’re here with us instead of spending it like a regular day somewhere. I was worried about how this Christmas would go. It’s why I brought the girls here for the game, to make sure there was something different so we could ignore what was missing.”
“I’m really glad I’m here too.” I don’t say the rest of the things filling up my brain, that after six months of journaling and goal workbooks, being here with Chad has reminded me what I want from a relationship. That I want love like the kind Chad gives his girls—more than the heated chemistry I can’t ignore between us. Someone who cares so much about my well-being they’ll go any extra mile. The small extra miles like pancakes on Christmas, and the bigger things like promising tolove me forever and then spending every day doing what it takes to keep that love.
“Daddy!” Zoey shouts, making me start with surprise. “Can we open the presents now? It’s after breakfast.”
Chad and I have barely finished half of our pancakes. “Of course. If you and Scarlett are both ready.”
Scarlett’s response is a cheer. I smile, and turning to Chad to share it is almost automatic. I get lost in the moment again, staring at him and feeling the swell of rightness ofthis. Of him and me.
