19
amber
It was surprisinglyeasy to fall into a routine with Tate. He worked on getting the village ready and I helped out here and there. Mostly I wrote music and helped my mother with decorating for Thanksgiving.
She was ready to Christmas-fy the house, but my dad was adamant about waiting until Thanksgiving was over before he let her pick out a tree.
This time, we were waiting on a tree from the famous Brothers Three Christmas tree lot.
Regardless, she kept me busy with baking for the cookie exchange she did with her friends. I also stopped into the bookstore a few times as promised with my book recommendations. I ended up helping Courtney with a whole display and even got a few of my fellow musical friends to participate as well.
It blew up on her BookTok account and ended up becoming a feature in the store. People came in to make videos with the display and even caught me in the store a few times. I was usually reticent to actually show myself in videos with fans, butthese seemed innocent enough until my fans started stalking the store and put an end to it.
But like clockwork, the evenings were filled with reading, music, and cooking with Tate. I even helped him decorate his place for the holiday. Since the village was becoming a testament to Christmas, it was bleeding over into his house. I was allowed to be creative director as he crawled around on the roofline to hang lights. And because Tate was a child at heart, he bought some ridiculous light show kit so the whole house would be a freaking concert.
He loved the holiday so much I couldn’t help but find the joy in it as well.
The beginnings of a song started percolating in my brain as well. I tried to push it out, but it was no use. Once the kernel of a song started, it had to happen. Whether it actually became a song I recorded remained to be seen.
Clothes and my acoustic guitar found its way over to Tate’s place as well. I found that the new surroundings inspired me, but I had a feeling most of it was the man himself.
When I ended up with a handful of songs, beyond the holiday one that was trying to kill me slowly, I put feelers out to a writer friend of mine to see if she was good for a Zoom call.
I didn’t expect to hear back from her until after Thanksgiving, but I got a random call back while I was helping Tate with another set of lights for the front of his house.
“Are you sure you want to do that line way up there?”
Tate looked down from the extender ladder. “If I wrap them around the attic windows it can look like eyes.”
I bundled into my parka and stomped my feet against the whipping wind. “You’re crazy,” I yelled up to him.
“Yeah, but you like my crazy,” he shot back.
He was right.
Unfortunately the designer who was helping him create the Haven Wonderland of Lights gave him too many ideas for his own place. He was like a kid in a candy store when it came to the various components that could be programmed for a house. If I didn’t put my foot down about turning off the display at ten in the evening, he’d have the house strobing until dawn, and my parents would kill him.
As he finished up string number eleven for the evening, I felt my phone rumble in my jacket.
I kept an eye on him as I pulled out the phone, surprised to see it was a Facetime.
Jamison DuCaine’s icon filled the screen. I hit accept and her angular, stunning face filled the screen. “Hey, Sparkles, what are you up to?”
I laughed. “James, I didn’t even know you knew how to use Facetime.”
“Oh, I know how to do all the things, it’s more of a fuck that situation.” She waggled her jet black eyebrows. She leaned in. “Where the hell are you?”
I swung around to show off Tate’s handiwork. “Hanging lights with my...” Boyfriend seemed such a weird word for what we were. “Guy.”
James whistled. “Hey there hot handyman. I have gutters that need tending.”
I laughed. “Back off, woman.”
Tate glanced down with a questioning face.
“Tate, say hi to Jamison DuCaine. James, Tate Reynolds.”
Tate gave me a sharp look. He quickly slid down the ladder in a way that made my chest seize. “Are you kidding?”
