Too fast.
Too soon.
Instead, we’ve been more or less inseparable for a full year now. She rearranged a few shows so she could hit the red carpet with me for the two movie premieres I had the first half of the year, and otherwise, I’ve followed her wherever she’s gone.
“You have any more problems with her family?” Davis asks me.
He’s having a holiday kombucha while the two of us watch everyone else having fun. Last year we got a blizzard. This year it’s unseasonably warm and we’re partying outside.
Weather, man.
“I think they got the message,” I reply.
“Good.”
Getting to know all of Aspen’s secrets has been an exercise in restraint. The more she tells me about how she grew up and some of the situations she found herself in once she left home, the more I want to go complete caveman on anyone who so much as looks at her wrong.
Most days, though, giving her my family and friends to have as her own and supporting her in expanding the small circle she’d started in the music industry before she moved into my pool house has felt like the more important part of my job when it comes to her happiness and well-being.
Watching her relax and be herself more and more with all of them has also been one of my biggest sources of joy.
She deserves so much better than what she grew up with, and now she’s getting it.
She laughs again, this time so hard she hiccups.
I’m on instant alert, worried she’ll hurt herself, but she’s fine. It’s just Aspen being about as happy as I’ve ever seen her.
And she was pretty fucking happy the past week while we recreated our snowed-in experience over last year’s holidays.
The only time I’ve seen her not happy was when I told her we’d skip Beck’s New Year’s party.
You’re giving up the rest of your holiday for my ridiculous insistence on holding on to old memories. We’re not skipping Beck and Sarah’s New Year’s party.
She knows they moved the date to New Year’s from the week before Christmas to accommodate her, which she told me was unnecessary.
But she also hugged Sarah tight and told her thank you.
And she played her viral holiday hit from last year for me every day that we were out in the cabin, where wedidn’tlose power this year, and where we did have enough food, and where we celebrated the fact that my lady is no one-hit wonder.
Every last one of her singles landed near the top of the charts, with her last two hitting number one. Her career is exploding, just like we all predicted.
She insists we’re spending next year with my family at Christmas,no matter what. BecauseI love you enough to get over myself for you. She also tells me every day that even if it all goes away, she’s enjoying this ride for exactly what it is.
“Cash! Cash, come see what Zoe taught Commander Crumpet,” Aspen calls.
She doesn’t have to ask me twice.
Not for anything.
I head over and join their little circle where Zoe orders the hedgehog to go to sleep as she’s holding him.
Instead of sleeping, the little creature throws his hands out in the air and sticks his tongue out.
Everyone watching cracks up and praises the little guy for obeying orders.
Aspen slips her arm around my waist and goes up on tiptoe to press a kiss to my cheek. “Have I told you how much I love your family?”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t say it around them. They might get big heads.”
