His eyes met mine and held my gaze, so intense and honest it made my heart squeeze. “Okay.”
“My pinky promise to you,” I said, holding up our hands, still joined by our pinkies. “Is to make you as happy as you make me.” Then I remembered. “Oh, and about our Christmas gifts. I had an idea.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DEACON
The lineof poetry I sent to Winter at eight o’clock wasn’t the one I really wanted to send him.
But it was Christmas Eve and the line ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse’
It was cliché, yes, but it was relevant for one day of the year.
It was fitting and wholly appropriate, which meant the one quote I wanted to send him would just have to wait.
Like he’d said, we had all the time in the world.
Even though what I felt for him sometimes was a balloon inside me that would expand so much it could burst.
Love was such an immeasurable thing.
I’d read countless books and poems and quotes about love. I’d read those words then, as if reading any fiction; words on paper that held little meaning because I’d never experienced it.
Well, I understood it now.
I’d been watching my parents my entire life. I knewwhat love could be. I’d see them laugh and cry together, cook together, read together, be happy to be together. I’d always wanted that depth of understanding for myself.
Never once thought it’d be a reality for me.
But now . . . now maybe it could be.
I really wanted to hold Winter’s hand.
I liked it. Not with anyone else—never with anyone else—but Winter was patient and understanding. He didn’t mock me like the kids at school had, and he hadn’t pressured me like the guys at college had tried to.
Winter let me be me.
On my own terms, in my own time.
And that trust unlocked something in me.
Something small, like a tiny seed that, with the right conditions, could sprout.
I wanted to try, anyway. Small steps.
The fact I’d held his hand at all was huge for me, but Winter seemed to understand the gravity of it.
He didn’t dismiss me or hurry me. He wasn’t disappointed or impatient or frustrated.
He’d looked at me in wonder, as if he were amazed and proud.
We’d made a pinky promise.
An actual pinky promise, like the kids in elementary school did, like I never could.
My promise to him was to try.
And with him, I felt like I could try a whole world of things. One measured, carefully thought out, over-analyzed step at a time, of course.
