“You already feel like home,” he whispers, pressing a gentle kiss to my head.
CHAPTER 27
Summer
It’s Christmas Eve and the kitchen is absolute chaos, in the best way.
Lily is basting a roast the size of my torso, Penny is elbow-deep in bowls of salad, and Grace is showing Mia how to pipe tiny frosting snowflakes onto cookies.
I’m at the counter shaping the cake batter into a Christmas-tree mold when Mia’s voice rings through the kitchen.
“Mommy, look!”
She’s holding up a reindeer cookie with pink glitter antlers. Her eyes shine with so much pride I could melt faster than butter on the stove.
“It’s perfect,” I tell her, and she beams.
Grace leans in conspiratorially and whispers to Mia,“Want to know a secret? I once ate so much cookie dough I threw up on my brother’s boots.”
Mia bursts out laughing so hard her icing bag squirts a line straight across Grace’s sweater. Grace gasps, slaps a hand to her chest, and deadpans,“Well. I guess I deserved that.”
The entire kitchen erupts in laughter.
The men are somewhere in the living room“preparing something,” which only means trouble. Or glitter. Or both.
Suddenly strong arms wrap around my waist from behind, warm and familiar, and Ethan’s sandalwood-and-winter-spice scent surrounds me.
“I missed you,” he murmurs against my ear.
I snort.“You saw me half an hour ago.”
“Thirty minutes,” he says, nuzzling the side of my neck,“is torture.”
I turn toward him, catch those green eyes that undo me every single time, dip my finger behind my back into the whipped cream bowl, and swipe it across his lips. Ethan’s lips curl; he licks the cream off slowly, then kisses me, warm and sweet.
“Hey! Get a room!” Grace hollers. A dish towel sails through the air and smacks Ethan in the head. Mia giggles so hard she falls sideways into Penny.
Ethan doesn’t even turn, he just leans to my ear again, voice sinful.“Bring some of that whipped cream upstairs tonight.”
My face heats instantly. He pulls back with an innocent smile that fools no one.
Everyone is already in the pajamas Lily bought, Ethan in green PJs covered in tiny reindeer, me and Mia in matching red snowflake onesies. Santa hats, reindeer headbands, jingling elf slippers… the whole thing looks like Target and the North Pole had a love child.
Christmas music plays loud enough the walls hum.
“Come on,” Ethan says, tugging my hand.“We’re ready.”
“For what?”
He just grins.
We step out of the kitchen, and the second I walk into the living room, I gasp.
Mia outright squeals.
The entire place has been transformed into afull-blown Christmas wonderland, the kind of over-the-top magic youonly see in movies and Pinterest boards created by people who definitely run on peppermint lattes and holiday spirit.
A thick blanket of softfake snowcovers the floors, crunching lightly under our slippers. Fairy lights twist around every ceiling beam, dripping like golden icicles. Hundreds of paper snowflakes hang from invisible threads, swaying gently as if a winter breeze lives inside these walls.
