Tom managed a neutral noise. She set the cushion just so, as if it mattered in this over-stuffed room, and he stepped forward, catching her hands before she could adjust anything else.
Her fingers were tacky with dried craft glue. Her wedding band at least felt smooth and solid against his skin, and he tried to concentrate on that.
His wife—his soft, cozy, Christmas-sweater wearing wife—looked up at him, cheeks flushed, hair escaping her bun to frame her face.
She was his favorite person. If only she’d stop drowning herself—and him—in tinsel.
“You don’t need to go to all this effort,” he said, giving her hands a squeeze. “Christmas is just one day.”
She squeezed back as she gazed up at him. There was a dreamy softness to her expression. “That’s why it’s so special.”
She lifted up on tip-toes and pressed a kiss to his lips—warm, promising—and then she was gone again, fussing with some grotesque Santa figurine on the side table.
Tom exhaled, stretching the tension from his shoulders.
Christmasshouldbe simple. Understated. One small tree, a decent meal, a few appropriate gifts from the mall. That was all it needed to be.
He groaned at the reminder. The mall.
Crowds packed shoulder to shoulder under tinny carols, kids screaming, shoppers jostling past with armfuls of junk no one really wanted. Perfume in the air thick enough to choke on.
A last-minute scramble for a pointless gift—same as every year.
He glanced toward his wife. Lauren was humming to herself, the lights catching gold in her hair.
He wished they were going to his parents’ place for Christmas—it would have been easier that way. Having them comeherewas always embarrassing. Lauren never seemed to notice what they thought of her DIY crafts. Not that he blamed them. Their housewasa joke. The tacky wreaths, the glitter, the homemade ornaments—it was all way too much.
If only Lauren would give this Christmas bullshit a rest.
CHAPTER 3
Lauren
Two more daysuntil the necklace was hers. Two more days of pretending she didn't know, of acting surprised when Tom gave it to her in front of his family. And she would have something just as good for him.
Lauren spread the finished quilt across her craft table, smoothing her palms over the patchwork squares. A pattern of memories, stitched into reality.
Each one had taken hours. Sketching the design. Choosing fabric. The slow, careful appliqué that made each image recognizable. Every scene an important moment in their lives.
It was amasterpiece.
Not because it was perfect. But because itwasn’t.
Years of making ornaments, wreaths and table runners had honed her hands into steady, confident tools. She’d learned crafting at her mother’s knee. It was as instinctual as breathing.
But this… this was the first quilt she had ever made.
She’d learned as she went. Online tutorials, library books, trial and error. The first seams were noticeably wobbly, the stitches uneven. The early squares looked clumsy beside the later ones. But she liked that. It was honest. Life looked like that too—practice, mistakes, improvement.
And she was proud. Quietly, fiercely proud.
This was her Christmas gift for Tom.
Her fingertip traced the quilted lines.
Two coffee cups, steam rising in careful French knots—their first date.
A red door on a narrow apartment building—the first place they’d shared, cramped and happy.
