My heart is still racing from dinner — from the chaos, from the reveal, from the way Cyrus didn’t even hesitate to put himself between me and everyone’s questions.
From the way he looked at me like he already chose a side, and it was mine.
I wrap my arms around myself and breathe in the cold air.
Behind me, the door opens.
Cyrus steps out carrying a ladder and a tangled mess of lights like he’s preparing for round two.
“You’re decorating,” I say, even though the evidence is right there.
“Yeah.” He leans the ladder against the porch, unwinds the lights with a focus that tells me he needs busy hands. “Figured if the whole clan is staying for dessert, I should make the outside look less… bleak.”
“Cyrus.”
He pauses but doesn’t turn.
“Come on,” I say softly. “You don’t have to pretend nothing happened.”
He exhales, long and slow, then finally looks back at me.
The porch light catches on the line of his jaw, the mess of his hair, the storm-soft exhaustion and something warmer in his eyes.
“I’m not pretending,” he says. “Not anymore.”
I step closer. “You sure?”
He nods once. “I meant what I said last night. And this morning. And at dinner when I didn’t throw Blake into a snowbank even though I wanted to.”
“He deserved it.”
“Absolutely.”
I let out a shaky laugh.
“Cyrus… everything tonight got messy. And loud. And somehow emotional in ways it wasn’t supposed to be. But I keep thinking about earlier. And last night. And the fact that we both spent months believing the other one didn’t care.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “We both screwed that up.”
“But we’re here now.”
He watches me like he’s memorizing something important. “Yeah. We are.”
I reach for the strand of lights in his hand and gently tug him closer. “So what do we do with that?”
He swallows, throat working. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”
I step into his space, close enough that our breath mingles in the cold air. “I came home because Molly needed me. Butalso… because I didn’t know where else I belonged anymore. And tonight I kept looking at you and thinking… maybe I’m not as lost as I thought.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, then back up. “You’re not lost.”
“No?”
“I’ve got you.”
My breath catches. The words settle somewhere deep and warm and terrifying in the best way.
“Say it again,” I whisper.
