“About love,” Tyler says in a theatrical swoon, then ruins it by choking on smoke.
“About yourselves,” Mari amends, far kinder. “We’ll go around.”
Around the flames, truths hop from mouth to mouth like sparks: I’m afraid of my contract year. I can’t sleep on game nights. I fake a British accent when I cook pasta. I keep the hospital bracelet from the day my daughter was born in my wallet. The goalie’s wife says she wants a second baby, and her husband, startled, says “Okay,” like it’s a gift he never thought he’d deserve twice.
When it’s my turn, I look into the flame and say the smallest, largest thing. “I thought I had to be useful to be loved,” I confess. “I was wrong.”
Quiet. Not for long—these are people who can’t tolerate quiet—but long enough that I can hear the truth settle. Triston’s thumb strokes the back of my hand under the blanket like a seal pressed to wax. “I thought I had to be invulnerable to be worth anything,” he offers, voice low. “I was wrong.”
We do not clap. A fire crackles, the dog snorts, someone says “damn” with sincerity. The night leans in and stays.
Inside, the TV says 11:37. Time speeds up and slows down the way it always does when you decide to care.
Shots appear like magic on the kitchen island. I take one and smell it, and Triston switches it with his when I make a face. “Too sweet,” he diagnoses.
“Too dangerous,” I counter.
“Same difference,” he says, tossing it back and grimacing theatrically enough to earn a chant from the rookies. He hands me sparkling water with a slice of lime while they argue about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie and Mari declares the conversation banned for the year.
In the living room, someone has commandeered the aux and is playing power ballads like we’re obligated to feel feelings before midnight. We do. People sing badly and mean it. The goalie slow-dances with his wife while a toddler—of unknown origin, belonging to a neighbor perhaps—spins in circles until he falls and laughs like a drunk adult. I dance with Triston and also with the dog, who is insulted by our romance and demands respect.
At 11:58, the energy changes. Phones come out, cameras switch from parties to countdown feeds, someone passes around cheapparty hats that look excellent on millionaires who get their noses broken for a living. Glitter sticks to everyone’s eyebrows. The room tightens and brightens, expectation coiling like a spring.
Triston steps in front of me, blocking the room with his shoulders the way he blocks a line change. His hand finds my jaw, his eyes steady, present.
“You ready?” he asks.
“For what?”
“For the first New Year where we don’t apologize.”
I forget how to breathe for a beat. Then I remember. “Yes,” I say. “God, yes.”
The chant swells. Ten. Nine. Eight. Time is an obedient dog again, coming when called. I think of the hospital bracelet in the goalie’s wallet. Of Andrew’s Polaroid over the mantle. Of my father’s whistle on the entry table and the way his mouth softened for one breath when he saw me happy. I think of this man in front of me, ridiculous and brave, and my body decides, without input from my mind, that it knows what home is.
Three. Two.
He cups my face.
One.
Midnight detonates. The room erupts—cheers, confetti, the party moose sweater blaring a battery-powered “Auld Lang Syne” that should be illegal. I don’t hear any of it. His mouth finds mine right on the zero, and the rest of the world becomes frosting on a cake I was already eating.
The kiss is joyful. That’s the best word. Not defiant, not desperate. Joyful, like laughter learned the shape of lips. I rise onto my toes and tug him closer by his lapels. He grins into the kiss and I feel it, the smile, ridiculous, contagious. People whoop. Someone pops a confetticannon that will haunt this house well into March. Tyler yells “CAPTAIN!” like he’s submitting a highlight reel to the gods.
We break for air and I’m laughing like a person who has survived on dark humor and finally got offered light. Triston bows, silly, hand on his heart, and then kisses my knuckles like a knight from a book that would have bored me last year.
“Happy New Year, Sammie,” he says against my skin.
“Happy New Year,” I whisper back. “Tris.”
He stills at the nickname, something soft and permanent passing across his face. He steals another kiss because he can, because I let him, because the room is happy for us and I can feel what that does to my blood pressure.
“Resolution?” he asks, forehead to mine, the party whirling around us like a galaxy we decided to inhabit.
“Stop apologizing for wanting what I want,” I say.
“Copy,” he says solemnly. “I’ll stop letting you.”
