I cover for her by grabbing at random weather small talk. “Storm seems to have fully missed the peninsula, though, eh?”
“We got some fresh flakes this morning, but nothing since then. And the temperature is supposed to go up above freezing tomorrow. Should be a good skating day.”
That is genuinely good to hear, I wasn’t looking forward to freezing my ass off. But as long as there’s a chance I’m going to be stuck helping with the Minelli Christmas Eve tradition, then I might as well have some homecooked food to fuel up. “And I think we’reboth hungry, yeah.”
As soon as her mom leaves, Rory stands up and crosses to me, her eyes wide, her cheeks pink. “Thank you,” she whispers under her breath. “I owe you.”
Fuck. That look on her face pretty much seals the deal. Time for me to make myself comfy in my ex-girlfriend’s childhood bedroom, pretending to be the boyfriend I haven’t been for eight months.
“Probably no chance in actually having privacy to talk about this until everyone else turns in for the night, right?”
She winces. “Sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“Garrett...”
“I know,” I say. Because I do.
I know what she needs even when she can’t say it. I know when she needs space, and I know when she needs company. I know when she needs me to run interference, or to stand back and let her have a go at something.
I have spent almost fifteen years studying Aurora Minelli’s every mood, every whim, every dream, and every despair.
Even if we fell out of love, I can’t forget all the ways I consumed her when I did love her with all of my heart.
Because even when we’re not together, I’m still hers. Even if it goes against every act of self-preservation I have left.
Fuck.
Tonight is going to be alongnight in this little room chock full of memories, because there’s two of us and only one bed.
Chapter 9
Rory
I’m feeling shell-shocked as we sit down to dinner. Cassie has begged off, claiming she can’t bear the thought of food, and has headed over to work at the Christmas tree sales stand.
Minellis burying their feelings under a mountain of work is pretty par for the course.
Dad went with her, so it’s just Mom and Garrett and me.
“Nice to have a moment of quiet with just you two before the hordes descend on us tomorrow,” she says.
Garrett chuckles. “Do you mean the skaters, or your sisters?”
Christmas Eve is always a busy day for our farm. Growing up, my parents would discount the remaining trees to get them all sold before my mom’s sisters and their families all descend upon us.
A couple of years ago, my dad added a skating trail that winds through the forest, and he charges a small entrance fee. Throughout the month of December, families come for a skate and a hot chocolate before they grab a tree to takehome. But the day before Christmas, the skating trail is free admission—and he’s found that this is a better selling feature than discounting the trees ever was.
Usually, he’s sold the last of the trees by lunch time, and the rest of the afternoon is just the hot chocolate stand and maybe some impromptu wreath sales with left over boughs of greenery.
It’s my favourite day of the year. There’s something magical about it, a real sense of festive community.
Then my aunts arrive and we have a huge feast, followed by everyone “watching Christmas movies” but they’re really just background noise as we read books we’ve swapped with each other. Which is the perfect way to cap the perfect day.
“I mean the skaters,” my mom teases right back to Garrett. “I can’t wait to see my sisters.”
Like us, my mom is one of three girls. Like me, she’s the oldest. Unlike me, she loves being the oldest and most responsible. My Aunt Mara is an artist who has one daughter, Glory, who she’s raising by herself by choice. And Aunt Tabitha waited until she was in her forties to have kids, so she has two pre-school boys who are hell on wheels.
