There was a silence then — not the soft kind that used to curl around us like a warm embrace, but a sharp, heavy quiet. Like the moment right before stepping outside into a blizzard.
So I did the only thing I could.
I got up, tugged my sweater back over my head, and grabbed my keys from the counter.
“Where’re you going?” he asked, shifting to face me fully.
I forced a smile. “Just… to my car. I brought something. And since it’s… apparently the twenty-fourth.” I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck. “I kind of forgot it was Christmas Eve, honestly.”
His eyebrows lifted, and I could see the question in his eyes. “You brought... something?”
I hesitated, then crossed the room to him and leaned up just enough to whisper, “A tree. Just a little one. A second-hand thrift store tree.”
He blinked.
“It’s in my trunk,” I continued, cheeks warming with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to. No, yes I did. I forgot about it, honestly.”Stop rambling, Cole. “I thought I’d decorate it alone. Y’know. Quietly. To… make the place feel less empty.”
A beat. Then another.
And then he smiled — slow and genuine anddevastatinglyfond. “Cole…” His voice was low. “Can I go and get it for you?”
I searched his face, then nodded, heart full and aching.
“But first,” I said, “did you know it was Christmas Eve?”
He shook his head, eyes soft on mine. “Didn’t have a damn clue.”
“Me neither,” I whispered. “Time got away from me.”
And suddenly the room felt warmer again — even with all the lights on.
He didn’t evenhesitate.
One minute I was blurting something about the sad little artificial Christmas tree in the trunk of my car, and the next he was already shoving his feet into boots and shrugging on his coat.
“I can get it,” I’d offered weakly, because my brain had short-circuited somewhere around him in flannel, rolling up his sleeves to helpme.
He didn’t even look at me. “Stay here. I’ve got it.”
I watched him through the window as he trudged through the snow, tall and steady and looking wildly out of place carrying a scraggly plastic tree in one arm and what appeared to be a deflated wad of thrift-store garland in the other.
He looked ridiculous.
And heartbreakingly kind.
By the time he came back in, snowflakes melting in the dark waves of his hair, my throat was tight. I tried to hide it by busying myself with the boxes of ancient ornaments I’d scavenged from the thrift shop’s 50% off bin, but he saw right through it.
“What?” he asked, setting everything on the table with exaggerated care.
I shrugged, ducking my head. “Nothing. It’s just… kinda stupid, I guess.”
“What is?”
“Bringing a Christmas tree to a cabin I rented alone.”
He paused. Then — in that low, gravel-soft voice that always made me feel a little bit flayed — he said, “Doesn’t look stupid to me.”
My head snapped up.
