He goes still. Not angry. Not surprised. Just… still. Then he nods once, slow and steady, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead.
“I hear you.”
I swallow hard. “It’s not that I don’t love you. I do. More than I should. More than is safe. It’s just—” My voice trembles. “Everything is too much.”
He closes his eyes, resting his forehead against my temple. “I’ll wait,” he whispers. “If waiting is what you need.”
The kindness in that nearly breaks me. I touch his cheek, thumb brushing where tears once ran on a different night. “I’m tired,” I breathe.
“So am I.”
He pulls a blanket over us, wrapping me into his chest like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip even an inch.
“Sleep, my dove,” he murmurs. “We’ll sort the rest in the morning.”
I close my eyes. For the first time all night, my heartbeat slows. Cillian’s breath warms the back of my neck. And even though I don’t have an answer for him… I let him hold me anyway.
Morningcomessoftandgolden. The fire burned low sometime in the night, leaving only embers and the faint smell of smoke. I blink awake to a warm, heavy arm across my waist and Cillian’s breath against the back of my shoulder.
We fell asleep on the rug. Together. Wrapped in the same blanket, in the same mess of limbs, in the same tangle of feelings I still haven’t sorted. Outside, faint bells are ringing—distant church chimes signaling Christmas morning.
I shift slightly. Cillian stirs with a quiet groan, tightening his hold like he’s trying to pull me back into his dreams.
“Morning,” I whisper.
He presses a soft kiss to the curve of my neck. “Merry Christmas,mo chol.”
The words do something to me— a little ache, a little warmth, a little wish for a world simpler than ours. We sit up slowly, the blanket slipping from our shoulders. The living room is cold, butcozy in that winter-morning way, the kind that makes everything feel a little more precious.
Cillian stands and offers me his hand with a crooked smile. “Stay here.”
He disappears for a moment, returning with a small wrapped box—dark green paper, tied with a thin velvet ribbon.
“For you,” he says softly.
My chest squeezes. It’s so small it can’t be extravagant. Which makes it infinitely more terrifying. I take it carefully and undo the ribbon. Inside, nestled in black velvet, is a charm a tiny gold treble clef, delicate and warm in my palm, the back engraved with a single phrase:Mo stor.
My breath catches. “Cillian…”
He kneels in front of me, fingers brushing mine. “It’s not a promise you haven’t chosen yet,” he murmurs. “It’s just a truth. You’ve always been my treasure.”
Tears prick my eyes before I can stop them. I take a shaky breath and stand. “It’s your turn.”
His brows rise as I cross the room to my suitcase. I pull out the small envelope tucked into the side pocket. Cream paper. Sealed with wax from a hotel I stayed in during a Paris tour.
“And no,” I say, handing it to him, “it’s nothing explosive. Lower your blood pressure.”
He smirks, tearing it open. Inside is a single photograph. A candid taken years ago— me and him sitting on the old stable roof as teenagers, legs dangling, him mid-laugh, me mid-eye-roll, the sunset behind us turning everything copper and gold.
On the back, I wrote:For when you forget who you really are. For when you forget who you’ve always been to me.
His jaw flexes. His eyes soften. Then go glassy.
“Jesus Christ,Siobhán,” he whispers.
I shrug, pretending my heart isn’t unraveling. “Merry Christmas.”
He cups the back of my neck, pulling me into a kiss that’s slow and warm and unbearably tender. When he pulls back, the moment settles between us—quiet and fragile and too full.
