This Kelsey hadn’t worn real pants in three days and was seriously considering making it a New Year’s resolution.
From the kitchen came the unmistakable sound of Teddy moving around—cupboard doors closing with unnecessary force, the coffee maker beeping, his low grunt when he bent to get something from a lower shelf.
Living with him had always been a little like cohabitating with a bear. Not in a dangerous way, but in the sense that he took up space unapologetically, moved through the world with a kind of lumbering confidence that occasionally resulted in knocked-over coffee mugs and cabinet doors left hanging open.
I’d spent years trying to domesticate that wildness, to smooth his rough edges into something that fit better with my vision of what our life should look like. Funny how it had never occurred to me that maybe I was the one who needed smoothing.
The kitchen went quiet for a beat, then Teddy emerged carrying a plate of gingerbread cookies in one hand and two mugs of coffee in the other. The jeans he’d thrown on when we finally emerged from thebedroom rode dangerously low on his hips, revealing a V of muscle that had no business existing on a fifty-three-year-old man. His hair was pulled back in a messy low knot, and he hadn’t bothered with a shirt because why would he cover up all that.
If my ovaries hadn’t been decommissioned, they absolutely would have given a standing ovation.
I’d spent two years at the gym trying to reclaim some version of my body that I’d lost to pregnancy and three decades of stress-eating and yo-yo dieting, and here he was looking like a Calvin Klein ad for the AARP crowd.
It felt like a tragedy that we’d spent the remainder of the morning and most of the afternoon sleeping like the dead and not having a sex marathon.
“You’re staring,” he said, a knowing grin spreading across his features as he set the coffee and cookies on the table beside the couch.
I planted a hand on my hip and scoffed, “You’re half-naked in my living room, Theodore. Where else should I look?”
His tongue clicked against his teeth. “Yourliving room, huh? That was fast.”
“You’re the one who invited me to move in approximately—” I bit the inside of my cheek, squinting to read the clock on the oven. “—what, eight hours ago? I’m just practicing.”
“Practice makes perfect, baby.” He set the mugs on the coffee table and dropped onto the couch with an emphatic groan.
“Need your Life Alert, Grandpa?” I asked cheekily.
He shot me a look that could have melted steel. “Keep it up, Kels. See where that smart mouth gets you.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” I turned back to the tree, fighting the smile threatening to break free.
I felt lighter than I had in years. Like someone had taken the forty-pound weighted vest I’d been wearing since Levi died and finally let me shrug it off. My shoulders didn’t ache. My jaw wasn’t clenched. The constant background hum of anxiety that had been my companion for so long had quieted to something manageable.
“Careful with that one,” Teddy rumbled as my fingers moved back to the angel. “Lost her halo and almost took my eye out last time youhandled her. Starting to think maybe she’s not as angelic as advertised.”
When I glanced over my shoulder, he was watching me in the way only someone with three decades of context could—equal parts fondness and exasperation.
“Maybe she was just tired of being perfect,” I’d said it jokingly, but the truth was, I was tired of being perfect. Exhausted by it, actually.
“Maybe she was,” he agreed softly.
I ran my index finger over the crack in the wings, ostensibly to give the angel one final adjustment, but really because I needed a second to collect myself.
I’d spent most of my life scared of being anything less than perfect. Because perfect meant safe. Perfect meant no one could criticize or find me lacking.
A damaged ornament never would have made it onto old Kelsey’s tree. I would have spent hours ensuring everything was perfect and matched that year’s color theme.
The old me would have been up since dawn, meal-prepping something elaborate and Instagram-worthy. She would have been counting the carbs in those gingerbread cookies, calculating how many miles she’d need to run to burn them off. She would have been frantically checking in with the girls and mentally cataloging everything that still needed to be done before the holiday could be properly enjoyed.
Matching pajamas.
Raspberry-cream cheese Danishes made with crescent rolls and shaped into candy canes.
Christmas newsletters where I made our life sound like a Hallmark movie when the reality was anything but.
Perfect meant doing everything and still never feeling like it was enough.
The leather on the couch creaked as Teddy got up and crossed the living room. He came up behind me, banding both arms around my shoulders and pulling me back against his hard body.
