He wasn’t looking at the tree. He was looking atme.
And that was somehowso muchworse.
“You know,” he went on, stepping closer to untangle a string of lights, “I can’t believe we forgot it was Christmas Eve.”
I blinked. “Yeah?”
He nodded without a flicker of irony. “Deadlines’ll do that to you. Life gets small. Quiet.”
That ache bloomed in my chest again. That dumb, fragile tree blurred in my vision for a second before I blinked it away.
"Well," I said, reaching out to help as his hands brushed mine around the lights, "let's make it loud, just for tonight."
His lips twitched. “Loud, huh?”
My cheeks flushed, I tried not to sputter. “Mm. Wildly festive. Jingle-bell chaos.”
He huffed a laugh, barely there, but it still hit like a crack in his armor.
“Alright, Colette,” he murmured. “Lead the way.”
It was a tiny tree. Three feet tall, maybe, with a base as wobbly as my sense of self-worth some days. The fake needles were bent in wrong directions, half the branches sagged, and the string lights looked like they’d last seen electricity in 1994.
Silas set it on the old wood table like it was fragile — like itmattered.
“It's a little…” I searched for the right word. “Sad?”
He shrugged one shoulder, his mouth curving just a little. “It’s a tree. Saddest things in life usually just need someone to give a shit.”
And somehow, in that moment, something in my chest teetered.
I reached for the box of thrifted ornaments, but my hand brushed against his. His hands were rough, warm, steady. I thought about how he’d used them earlier — on my body, in my hair, bracing himself over me — and I had to look away before I started making sounds that didn't belong in a tender Christmas moment.
"Lights first?" I asked, startled at how normal my voice sounded.
“Always.” He took the string from me, still plugged into nothing because we weren'tall the wayback into the world yet, not fully. He started carefully looping them around the branches, and I couldn’t help staring at the way his forearms flexed with the movement, the way the tops of his ears went a little pink when I caught him noticing me watching.
“Hold this,” he murmured, brushing past me to lift a branch toward the top.
My hands closed over his for a second too long. He didn’t pull away.
God, I was in so much trouble.
We kept decorating, slow and messy. The ornaments clinked, a few fizzled with glitter, some looked like they’d belonged to families long gone. I hung a crooked snowman and pretended I didn’t notice his breath warming the back of my neck.
He hung a tiny wooden star and pretended he didn’t glance at me to see if I approved. “I like this one,” he said suddenly, holding up a ceramic heart. It was chipped at the bottom, the red paint cracked like it had gone through its own rough life before winding up here.
“Of course you do,” I teased. “It’s damaged.”
That earned me a look. And not justalook. “The best things in life always are,” he said quietly.
I lost air for a full second.
We didn’t speak after that. Or we did — but not about anything that mattered. And yet, everything felt like it did.
You want sugar cookies shaped like mittens or sad little stars?
Don’t insult the stars.
