Jacob felt himself blushing for the four-hundredth time. “No. We can watch in your room. It’s warmer there. Under the covers.”
“Technically, it’s our room…at least, until the courthouse reopens,” Connolly teased.
Jacob did his best to laugh, but for some reason, the idea of undoing this fake marriage left him feeling hollow in his stomach. “Yeah, at least until then.”
He turned his attention back to his cookies, mixing his ingredients and lining the cookies up on the baking sheet, doing his best to make sure each one was perfect. Connolly got the tree upright and straight, then began to string colored lights around it. At some point, Christmas music began to stream from Connolly’s phone, filling the room, creating a cozy pocket of warmth. It was like he’d woken to find himself in a Hallmark movie.
Cookies finished, Jacob put them on a plate to cool before wandering over to help Connolly with the decorations. Unlike most decorations, these were all unique. There were no brightly colored plastic baubles covered in glitter. There was a glass blown angel, several glass bulbs shaped like tear drops, each in green, gold, and red. There was a Christmas tree made of popsicle sticks with ornaments drawn with markers in a childish script.
“My sister made that in kindergarten,” Connolly volunteered when Jacob held it up. “She is a much better dancer than she is an artist.”
Jacob smiled, handing it over for Connolly to put on the tree. Next, was a reindeer made out of pompoms and pipe cleaners. On the back, it said, Killian 1988. “Who’s Killian?”
Connolly looked down at the silly ornament and snorted. “That would be me.”
“So, Connolly is your last name,” Jacob said.
“Yes, and technically, it’s yours now, too. Unless, that’s too old-fashioned for you.”
Jacob knew he was teasing him again, but he couldn’t stop from saying, “I like old-fashioned.”
That earned an appraising look from Connolly, but he didn’t really know what it meant. “So, why does everybody call you Connolly?”
The older man shrugged. “They started calling me Connolly in the military, and I guess it just stuck.”
“Well, I like Killian. It suits you,” Jacob said, giving him a smile.
Connolly caught his gaze, the soft look on his face making Jacob feel hot all over. “You can call me Killian if you want to.”
Jacob looked away, trying to hide his ridiculous smile. Connolly made him feel like a dumb teenager experiencing their first crush. He occupied himself with looking through the ornaments. He found a white porcelain disc with a picture of a baby in the manger and an angel overlooking it.
Above the picture, the words ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ were painted in red script. As he held it up, it began to spin.
“Was this yours, too?” Jacob asked. Before Connolly could answer, it slowed and Jacob saw the back. Chloe, 2009. His gaze cut to Connolly’s, hands trembling, unsure whether he should put it back or keep holding it. “I-I’m sorry. Should I…”
Connolly gently took it from Jacob’s hand and dropped down beside him on the floor. It was so unexpected, Jacob could only stare at the man.
“She was so small when she was born,” he said with a sort of bemused expression. “I swear she practically fit in the palm of my hand.”
Jacob swallowed the lump in his throat, leaning closer to look down at the ornament.
Connolly rubbed his thumb over the name. “She was an accident. I barely knew her mother. Back then, I was still trying to convince the world I was straight. Got drunk at a bar, took a girl home. Eight weeks later, she finds me at a match with a positive pregnancy test. I have no idea why we got married; we couldn’t have been more different. But I was hardly around, so it really didn’t matter.
When we were together, it was always about Chloe. We tolerated each other for her sake. But when she turned four, her mother met somebody else, and that was the end of us. A year later, the accident happened and she was gone.”
Jacob wrapped himself around the arm closest to him, wishing he had some magic words that could make something that awful somehow better. “What was she like?”
When Connolly looked at him, there were unshed tears in his eyes. “I don’t think anybody has ever asked me that before.”
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to. She was smart. Like, scary smart. Way too smart to get it from my side of the family. She was funny. She would say these things that were just so beyond her years, talking in this world weary way that made her sound like that old drunk at the end of the bar doling out sage advice.
We used to joke that they forgot to restore her soul back to factory settings before she was reborn so she didn’t know she was supposed to be a little kid.” Tears rolled down Connolly’s cheeks, but he didn’t seem to notice. His tone held so much sorrow, Jacob couldn’t help but cry, too. “She was my cartoon buddy. I’d bring her here when it was my weekend, and we’d eat cereal in our pajamas out of the box. She was good at ballet, like my sister. I think she could have been a professional, too…if she’d had more time.”
“She sounds amazing,” Jacob said, sniffling.
“She was.” Connolly cleared his throat, wiping his face with the back of his hand before looking at Jacob and thumbing the tears from his cheeks as well. “Come on,” he said, standing and pulling Jacob onto his feet. “Help me put the rest of these up so we can eat cookies and watch Die Hard.”
