I watch her go, and eat my s’mores, and fuck me if they aren’t delicious.
I groan. “What the fuck does this woman do to food to make it taste so good?” I ask Motor as he stares up at me, drooling. “She’s a culinary fucking wizard.” I point at him. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
He licks his lips.
While Ella is upstairs, I wrap her present, and it suddenly feels fucking pathetic to give her this. Silly, even. Asher would try so hard to give me something he knew I’d love, something that would make me smile or laugh. He’d remember the smallest comments I’d make, from books I thought sounded good, to snacks I’d become obsessed with.
I go to the bottom of the stairs. “Ella, I’m just gonna walk Motor.”
“Okay!” she calls back.
After pulling on my boots and coat, I go to the back patio door. “Come on boy. Let’s get a fucking Christmas tree for Gibson.”
Turns out,chopping down a tree and hauling it across the snow isn’t as easy as I thought it’d be. It didn’t help when Motor got hold of the other end and tried to play tug of war with it, either.
But somehow, I make it back.
I’m sweating and breathless and stressed the fuck out by all the pine needles on my living roomfloor, but I manage to do it all without disturbing Ella. I even get Asher’s old Christmas decorations from the attic.
It brings back good memories and bad, but I do it. I do it because it matters to her.
Then I get to the good bit—vacuuming.
I’m cursing every pine needle under the sun by the time I’m finished and switch off the vacuum to admire my work.
“You got a Christmas tree.”
I whirl. Ella is standing on the stairs, her eyes wide and shining. She’s in a blue jumper that brings out the color in her eyes, and a pair of dark jeans, and something about the moment has my heart stopping. It slams to a halt in my chest, an almost violent sensation, something I’ve never experienced in my fucking life.
As she slowly descends the stairs, all I can do is stare.
And it hits me all at once.
A thousand memories with this woman.
All amounting to this very fucking moment.
And something Asher said that I never understood.
“I know you better than you know yourself.”
He knew, didn’t he? He knew even before I did. That the annoyance, the sniping, the constant thinking about her … it was never hatred. Not even fucking close.
Shit. How long have I cared about this woman? How did Asher not hate me for it?
It makes me love him even more, makes me hate myself tenfold, because he stood by and watched me fall for her and never held it against me. He was such a good man. So much better than me. And now he’s gone, and she’s here, and I don’t deserve her. I fucking don’t.
She comes to stand by my side, her eyes aglow with Christmas lights, her smile brighter than any of them.
How did this happen to me?
How did she do this to me?
What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
“It’s beautiful,” she says, smiling up at me.
You’re beautiful.
