Boone doesn’t look up from assembling some complicated rocking chair he refuses to admit is defeating him. “It’s festive, man. Let people have joy.”
“Joy has a date,” I shoot back. “It’s in December.”
Roxie curls against my shoulder, eating pickles, then nudges me. “You’re the only person in this house acting like the Grinch. Joining us would be much easier because you aren’t gonna beat us.”
“I’m not a Grinch,” I grumble.
Dillon snorts from where he sits cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by eight open baby-care books, three laptops, and at least twenty tabs of best crib mattresses of the year open. “Dude, you’re two complaints away from living in a cave and yelling at carolers.”
“I don’t yell,” I say.
Roxie raises a brow. “Baby, you absolutely do yell.”
I glare at all of them, but the next thing I know, I’m grinning. I can’t help it, because the truth is that I like the lights and the music. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any reason to look forward to the holidays, but this year, it feels like everything we’ve ever been missing is finally within reach.
As the days tick on, the nursery becomes our collective obsession. We aren’t ready to paint yet, but that doesn’t stop us from having very intense, deeply stupid arguments about color palettes.
“We need something classic,” Boone says firmly. “Like navy and white. There’s a reason it’s always been popular.”
“No, what we need are cognitively stimulating colors, like soft greens and neutrals,” Dillon says. “I’ve read at least three articles about how color psychology can determine the twins’ entire personalities.”
“You’re all wrong,” I say, crossing my arms as I stare them down. “It should be yellow. A nice, bright sunshiny yellow.”
“Yellow is too aggressive,” Dillon says without looking up from a developmental chart.
“It’s not aggressive,” I fire back. “It’s happy.”
“It’s blinding,” Boone adds helpfully.
Roxie sits on the rug, folding the tiny clothes she ordered online that were delivered a couple of days ago. “You’re all insane. Besides, we don’t need to make the decision today.”
As she says it, she’s smiling like she loves us all the more for it, and I stride over, bending down to plant a kiss on top of her head. “Yeah, we know, but it’s a nice distraction, don’t you think? Also, might I remind you that you’re currently folding clothes you ordered for babies that won’t be here for another six? We’re not the only ones jumping the gun.”
She laughs, her eyes sparkling as she glances up at me. “Sure, but I’m going to be the size of a whale by then, and I probably won’t be able to sit and fold them by then. I’m being practical.”
“And we’re not?”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “You ordered three cribs because no one could agree.”
“But we only kept two and returned the other one.” I wink at her. “Unless Boone stashed it in the basement just in case.”
Aside from the nursery, Dillon joins six different parenting forums under fake usernames. Boone helps him assemble an unnecessary number of baby gadgets while pretending he knows what half of them are. I read baby books when no one is looking.
Every night, as I lie beside Roxie with her back pressed to me and her belly warm under my palm, I feel that same tight, glowing in my chest that isn’t fear or nervous anticipation. Instead, it feels like hope.
I’m not complaining about it, even though I keep loudly insisting that the town putting up wreaths in November is borderline illegal. Christmas really is coming, though, and for once, I’m actually excited.
I’m feeling pretty damn good when I leave the house to go grocery shopping. Roxie has been glowing, Dillon has finally stopped lecturing us about sleep cycles, and Boone has let me win an argument about crib placement.
Small miracles everywhere.
The town is fully decked out now with twinkling lights on every lamppost, wreaths with big red bows on just about every doors, and plastic reindeer on half the roofs. I shake my head as I walk across the snowy parking lot of the market, juggling too many bags of groceries.
Approaching my truck, I glance up and instantly go still.
Tucked into a row of salt-stained pickups and beat-up SUVs is a car that does not belong. Sleek. Black. Untouched by snow or gravel.
It’s the kind of vehicle that doesn’t come from around here. Hell, it doesn’t come from within a hundred miles of here. It’s too polished and too expensive. Just wrong.
