When I finish, I drop the cloth and reach for the shampoo. He makes a noise of protest when I nudge him forward. “Youdon’t have to do that,” he says, voice still soft, but I can hear the shy note in it.
“I want to.” I pour a little into my palm, working it into his hair, fingers massaging his scalp. He hums under my touch, it’s a small contented sound that makes my chest ache in the best way.
“Feels nice,” he mumbles.
“Good.” I lean down and kiss the shell of his ear. “You deserve nice things.”
He laughs quietly. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” he says, turning slightly so I can see the curve of his smile. “That’s what makes it worse.”
“Worse?”
“Yeah,” he says, and there’s that soft honesty again. “Because it makes me want to fall for you even more than I already have.”
My hands go still in his hair for a second. He doesn’t look away when he says it, and something about that, about how open he’s being even when he’s scared, undoes me.
I rinse his hair gently, letting the suds slip away into the water. “Then fall,” I whisper against his skin. “I’ll catch you.”
He’s quiet again, but this time it’s a good quiet.
When we’re both clean,I reach over and pull the plug, watching the water swirl down the drain. Caleb stays where he is, back pressed against me, until the water level drops low enough that the cold starts to creep in. I nudge him forward and climb out, grabbing a towel, and then help him up, wrapping him in one before I take another for myself.
He looks small like this—barefoot, damp, eyes soft and glassy. I can see the faint bruises already forming along his neckand hips, the constellation of everything we did written on his skin. I cup his face in my hands and tilt his chin up. “You sure you’re okay?”
He nods, a slow smile tugging at his lips. “Better than okay. Just… tired. But the good kind.”
Changing into our pajamas, me in my black joggers and a matching thermal and Caleb in his festive red and green flannel pants and a white thermal. I dry his hair before leading him out of the bathroom.Going to bed with wet hair in this climate is just asking to get sick.The air outside the door feels cooler, the fire in the living room still glowing low and orange. We settle back onto the couch, wrapped together in the same blanket from earlier.
Caleb tucks himself against me, his head over my heart. His fingers trace absent patterns on my chest, slow and lazy.
“Do you ever think,” he says after a while, voice muffled, “that maybe this,us,it’s too good to last?”
I brush my fingers through his hair, keeping my voice steady even when my chest tightens. “Not that it’s too good to last. But maybe more along the lines of something happens and we grow apart. Or that it might get really hard, but then I remember good things don’t come easy, you have to work for them. I’m not letting go of you just because it might get hard.”
He tilts his head up, eyes glassy in the firelight. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
For a while, neither of us speaks. The snow outside falls heavier, coating the windows in white. The world feels small, just the fire, the blanket, and the steady rhythm of his breathing against me.
Then Caleb breaks the silence, voice thick with sleep. “You know what tomorrow is, right?”
“Christmas Eve.”
He hums. “I’m gonna miss Mom’s cinnamon rolls.”
I chuckle, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “You and your food. There’s always next year.”
I stare into the fire, my hand tracing slow circles on his back, and think—yeah. Maybe this is too good to last. But for tonight, I’ll let myself believe it can.
“I’m gonna go get the bed ready. Be right back.” and I plant a kiss on his head, then head back upstairs. The loft still smells faintly of sex and sweat, of us, and I grimace at the sight of the tangled sheets. Caleb deserves to sleep in something clean, not the wreckage of what we just did to each other.
The bed’s a mess. Pillows thrown halfway to the floor, the duvet twisted like we’d tried to strangle it, and tinsel pieces everywhere. I strip everything off and grab the spare set from the cedar chest under the window. It takes me a minute to make it right, hospital corners, smooth sheets, duvet fluffed. My hands are steady even though my head’s still buzzing from earlier.
I should be tired. But I’m not. I’m restless, wired from too much want and too many feelings I can’t shut off.
