Then we stumbled again, this time into the doorframe.My hand shot out to steady her, palm pressed against the wood just over her shoulder.She looked up at me, a smile lingering on her lips, and then froze.
I followed her gaze.
Above us, nailed crooked into the molding, hung a sprig of mistletoe.Old, faded, brittle from some long-ago holiday I’d spent ignoring.I must’ve walked past it a thousand times without noticing.Now, with her eyes locked on it, it might as well have been burning.
The song on the record player crackled on, but the rest of the world held still.My breath came sharp and uneven, chest tight like the room had tilted under me.
I shouldn’t.God help me, I couldn’t.
But the way she looked at me—open, steady, no fear in her eyes, no hesitation—undid every wall I’d built.
I bent my head slowly, testing.Waiting for her to flinch, to step back, to remind me who I was and what I wasn’t allowed to want.
She didn’t.
She tilted up, closing the space, her lips brushing mine like a secret offered.Tentative at first, soft as snowfall, but when I didn’t pull away—when she realized I wasn’t going to—she pressed closer.
Heat surged through me, burning away the cold I’d lived in.My hand, scarred and ugly, found its way to the small of her back.She didn’t push it off.She leaned into it, into me, until the kiss deepened into something that stole my breath and gave it back all at once.
Pain, desire, fear—they tangled in my chest until I couldn’t tell one from the other.It felt like sin.It felt like salvation.It felt like something I didn’t deserve, and yet in that moment, I couldn’t make myself let go.
When we finally broke apart, the record was spinning to its end, the last notes fading into static.She was smiling up at me, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, breath coming fast.
And I felt like I was drowning.Drowning in light, in the impossible weight of hope.
I tightened my hand into a fist against the doorframe, trying to anchor myself to the solid wood, to anything but the pull of her.But her smile stayed, warm and relentless, and I knew I was already lost.
She was still so close I could feel her fingertips against my chest, light as moth wings but steady enough to burn through me.Her lips parted, her breath warm when she whispered, “Will you take me to see the Christmas lights in town?”
The words slammed into me harder than any bullet I’d ever taken.
Christmas lights.Town.People.
I hadn’t set foot in the center of Holly Ridge in years.Not once.Not for parades, not for carolers, not for tree lightings or the holiday auction.I’d built my silence on avoiding all of it—the stares, the whispers, the pointed way mothers pulled their kids closer as I walked by.Crazy vet.Dangerous.Monster.
My first instinct was to refuse.To cut her off with a flat “no” and send her back to her safe, sweet world where the worst thing she had to worry about was tangled lights and spilled cocoa.That was what made sense.That was survival.
The refusal was right there on my tongue when I made the mistake of looking at her.
Really looking.
Her eyes were wide and hopeful, soft as candlelight, but steady too—like she believed I could.Like she wanted me there, with her, in that world of twinkling bulbs and laughter.
And suddenly, the thought of saying no felt impossible.
Because what was I really refusing?Not the lights.Not the town.I’d be refusing her.
I realized, with the kind of clarity that knocks a man off his feet, that I’d walk through any fire she pointed at.I’d face down the whole damn town, every whisper, every ghost, if it meant keeping that smile on her face.
The knowledge gutted me.Terrified me.And yet—it awed me too.
My chest ached, sharp and relentless, like something inside me had cracked open after years of being soldered shut.
I was gone.
Gone in a way I hadn’t let myself be since before the fire, before the betrayal, before I learned that loving someone meant giving them a blade and trusting they wouldn’t use it.
But here I was again, blade already in her hand, and I didn’t care.
