“A good one,” he says, matter-of-fact. “You’ll need it from day one.”
Antonio raises his glass. “To day one.”
“Day one,” Ryan echoes, knocking his mug against the air as if we’re toasting on a ship. “Look at Russo investing in our girl. Big gesture. Big, big gesture.”
“Ryan,” Meghan murmurs.
“What? I’m applauding.”
Janice is discreetly dabbing at her eye. Mom hands her a tissue and pinches my knee, the secret little squeeze she reserves for moments she wants me to feel in my bones. Dad lifts his mug in quiet approval. Leo takes a slow sip of his shake and says nothing.
Then Nate stands and slips a smaller box from his pocket.
My heart trips. No one else seems to notice the way the air changes. A few people track the movement because it’s jewelry, and jewelry always earns a chorus, but no one knows where this is headed but me.
He opens the lid and tilts it so only I see. A silver pendant rests on dark velvet: a small compass, edges softened to a smooth glow. There’s engraving on the back. He doesn’t make me read it later in private; he wants me to see right here, right now. He turns it in his palm, shows me the word carved there.
Home.
The word blurs. Home. He’s not talking about a place. He’s talking about what we are when no one else can see.
“Oh, pretty,” Janice chirps, clapping again. “Jewelry on Christmas. My heart.”
Ryan’s satisfaction is back. “Careful, Russo. That’s a gateway gift. Next thing you know?—”
“Ryan,” three women say in unison.
“—she’s got you doing porch lights and tree removal,” he finishes, wounded, and everyone laughs.
I don’t. I can’t. The pendant sits in Nate’s hand, small and simple, and my chest aches in that sweet, crushing way that tells me I’ll remember this exact breath twenty years from now. He’s telling me something without a speech, without a scene. He’s handing me a word we bothunderstand and letting me decide what it means on my skin.
“May I?” he asks, quiet enough that it’s only for me.
I nod, because nodding is all I can do.
He steps behind me. The room keeps moving around us. Paper rustles, kids shriek, Janice scolds. But all I feel is his fingers at my nape. The brush of chain across my collarbones. The quiet click when the clasp catches. He lets his knuckles rest at the curve where neck meets shoulder, that tender place he claims just by touching, then he leans in, mouth near my ear.
“Merry Christmas, Trouble.”
The words land everywhere they shouldn’t in public. My lashes flutter. I keep my expression gentle, practiced. It probably reads like gratitude. It isn’t just that.
“Beautiful,” Janice declares. “Eden, turn. Let me get your picture.”
I obey. She snaps three, then two more for luck. Somewhere in there she captures Leo in the background, arms folded, expression hard. The storm hasn’t broken yet, but it’s there in the weather of his face.
“Alright, swap,” Antonio calls, breaking the moment. “Meghan, your turn. I have utilitarian wrapping, but what’s inside is excellent.”
Presents keep moving. Socks, gloves, cookbooks, a sweater Dad will wear every Sunday for the rest of winter. I give Mom a delicate scarf she drapes on immediately, and she gives me a look that says she knows there’s more wrapped around my neck than silver. Ryan opens a set of grill tools and declares himself King of Meat.
In the swirl, Nate settles back into his chair. The castle is complete; the small foreman has taken a bow and run off to conquer the living room with a plastic knight. Nate lets hishead tip to the cushion, watching me over the rim of his glass. When his mouth curves, it’s the dangerous smile—the private one—which makes me straighten my spine and pretend I’m unaffected while my pulse does the exact opposite.
The compass warms against my skin. The weight isn’t heavy; it’s precise. Every time I move, it taps a tiny rhythm at the top of my sternum, a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to me.
“Eden,” Mom says gently, “you didn’t open this.”
She passes me a small package with her tidy handwriting on the tag. Inside there’s a linen-bound planner and a fountain pen, both beautiful, both unnecessary in the way that makes them exactly right. She smiles when I lift them out. “For all your clients,” she says. “All your appointments. All your yeses.”
“Yeses.” My throat tightens again. “Thank you.”
