What even is life, actually?
Brian winks, taking the seat on the couch next to me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “There was snow in the forecast, and it’s Christmas Eve. You like cookies when it snows, and it’s practically sacrilegious to have Christmas without cookies.”
“I would have made them.” I reach forward and grab one, biting in, and holy shit, this is a good fucking cookie.
Brian grins at my low hum of pleasure. “I know you would have, but you cook all the time. Literally a week ago you catered a party for, like, a thousand people, and in a week, you’re going to Italy where you’ll be cooking nonstop for six months. I’m not an Olivia Sullivan caliber baker, but I can hold my own in the kitchen. Besides, the football scheduling gods smiled on us this year and the Renegades have a five-day break, so work is quiet this week.” He reaches out a hand and runs his knuckles down my cheek. “And most importantly, I like to take care of you.”
“With cookies?” I ask.
He smiles, lacing his fingers with mine. “With everything you need. I’ll always give you everything you need.”
“How are you even real?” I mutter. “Better question, how did no one snap you up before now?”
“Because I was waiting for you.”
He says the words so simply, so matter-of-factly, that my heart leaps into my throat. “You think?” I manage.
The look on his face turns serious. “I know. Nothing rational can explain the way I felt when I first saw you. The way I understood in my bones that you were meant to be mine, before we had even spoken words to each other. I’ve never felt anything like it before in my life. It was magic, Liv. A deep kind of knowing. Like my heart recognized yours and understood that it had found its match.”
His eyes bore into mine. Plead with me to understand what he’s saying. What he means. And I do, because I’ve never felt anything like this before either. The way I can look at him and see my entire future stretching out in front of me. “It should feel crazy,” I say slowly. “It’s only been a month. But it doesn’t feel crazy at all. It feels right. Like this is the way it was always meant to be.”
“It is.” The certainty in his voice warms my chest at the same time as it has a kind of heaviness settling over me when I think about leaving him. “This is exactly the way it was meant to be. I have something for you,” he says, running his thumb over mine.
“A Christmas present?”
He nods. “Growing up, my mom always let me open a present on Christmas Eve. I haven’t…” He breaks off, looking away for a second, and I see a kind of sorrow in his eyes that I recognize immediately. The ever-present grief that comes with celebrating yet another holiday without one of the people you love most in the world. “I haven’t opened a present on Christmas Eve since she died. I like the idea of bringing back that tradition with you.”
I squeeze his hand, my throat tight. “I like it too.”
Standing, he walks to the tree and grabs a couple of boxes, sitting back down and handing me the first one. It’s big and flat and wrapped in sparkly green paper that I tear off immediately. Lifting the lid, I gasp, taking in the gorgeous, framed picture of the Pittsburgh skyline at sunset. “It’s beautiful,” I say, my eyes glued to the buildings, the rivers and bridges that are home to me more than any other place ever has been.
Home to us.
Brian tips my chin up so our eyes lock. “I thought you could take it with you. So you would have a little piece of home even when you’re across an ocean.”
I blink at the tears that burn my eyes, wanting to see him clearly. “It’s perfect,” I manage. “And it’s also kind of funny,because…” I reach behind me and lift up one of the presents I brought over, handing it to him.
He opens it and is quiet for a long moment, staring down at the framed picture of us. It’s from a couple of weeks ago when we left the stadium around sunset and played tourist in downtown Pittsburgh, taking the Incline up to Mount Washington. At one of the overlooks, we asked someone to take our picture. Brian’s arm is wrapped around my shoulders. I’m laughing up at him, and he’s looking at me like I’m everything he’s ever wanted. The city rises up behind us, the very same view from the picture he gave me.
“Home,” he says quietly, finally lifting his head to look at me, his eyes swirling with emotion. “We gave each other home.”
I nod, understanding him completely. “Home has been a weird concept for me since my parents died. Gabe was amazing, and he made sure he gave all three of us love and family and memories even without our parents. But as hard as he tried, our house in San Francisco never felt like home again once our parents were gone. I think Gabe and Amelia felt the same way. Then I lived in D.C. for college, and I loved it, but that was just a place. I always knew it was temporary. It was only once I came to Pittsburgh that I started to understand what home meant again. At first, it was because this was where Gabe was, and the life he was making with Molly was so beautiful I couldn’t help but want to be a part of it. And then it was because I fell in love with the city.”
“And now?” Brian asks, taking my hands in his, lifting one and pressing a kiss to my palm that makes my stomach swoop.
“Now I think it’s home because this is where you are. No matter where I go, this is always the place I’ll want to come back to, because I think home is you. And I don’t want to leave,” I whisper.
Brian smiles softly. “I know, and I don’t want you to go. But, Liv, this is what you’ve been working for, dreaming of, for so long. The thing about home is that it’s always here for you. I’ll be here for you. So, you’re going to go and have an amazing adventure, and I’ll be waiting for you when you come home.”
“Promise?”
He squeezes my hands. “Always and forever.”
Letting one of my hands go, he reaches down and gives me the other gift he took from under the tree. Unwrapping it, I find a pretty wooden box, one a little bigger than a shoe box, and when I lift the lid, there are two rows of sealed envelopes. Picking one at random, I seeDay 15written on the front. And another.Day 164.Day 58.Day 123.
“There are going to be one hundred eighty-seven days where I don’t get to hold you,” Brian says. “Touch you. Look into your eyes and tell you that you are my most important person in the world. There’s an envelope for you to open on each one of those days, plus one for the plane ride home. I’ll be thinking of you every single day, and lucky for us, your brother invented a phone with the best video calling app in the world, and I’m pretty sure it works in Italy.”
I laugh, feeling a lightness spread over me because god, this man. I can’t even imagine how long it must have taken him—during the busiest time of his year—to do all of this. He’s the best person in the world. And he’s mine. “If it didn’t, the second I told him I was going to Italy, he would have figured out a way to make it happen. Nothing gets in the way of Gabriel Sullivan calling his sisters.”
