“Why?”
Teddy shrugged. “Guess some part of me never stopped hoping. Even when I was convinced we were over, even when I was drinking myself stupid and picking fights with anyone who looked at me wrong, some part of me knew. Knew that if you ever gave me another chance, if we ever found our way through all the shit and pain and mistakes, I wanted to have it.”
The box opened with a soft squeak, revealing a ring that stole what little breath I had left. Not a diamond—he knew me better than that. The stone was a deep green; darker than the emerald I’d worn for three decades. It reminded me of a forest, with a vintage-gold setting—Art Deco, maybe—and tiny milgrain details.
“Tsavorite garnet,” he explained, taking a step closer. “Jeweler suggested it, said they’re formed under extreme heat and pressure that would destroy most things, but instead…” He lifted the ring from the box, twisting it to catch the tree lights. “Instead, it creates something that can last forever.”
Teddy’s eyes met mine again. “We’ve had more pain than any two people should have to carry. Lost more than...” His voice caught, and he had to stop, jaw flexing with emotion. “Lost our boy. Lost those babies that never got to be. Lost each other for a while there.”
The other pregnancies. The ones we never talked about, that ended almost as soon as they began. Just one more thing we’d buried under silence and Perfect Kelsey’s carefully maintained surface.
My throat felt tight, all the words I wanted to say stuck somewhere between my heart and my mouth.
“We did thirty years the hard way, baby,” Teddy continued. “Fighting ourselves, fighting each other, fighting against what we both knew was true—that we’re better together than apart. Like to try doing the next thirty different.”
He reached for my hand, and at the last moment, I pulled back, unable to keep the smile from tugging at my lips even through tears. “Was there a question attached to that speech, Theodore?” I asked,
The side of his mouth tipped up. “Don’t ask questions I already know the answer to,” he said, gruff and certain. “You’ve been mine since I was seventeen, Kelsey Dawn. Ring’s just making it official. Again.”
“You’re not getting down on one knee either?”
He stared at me for a long moment before shaking his head. “Baby, think we both know what would happen if I got on my knees right now,” he said, his voice dropping low.
I playfully pushed against his chest, and he caught my hand, sliding the ring onto my finger before I could pull away. It fit perfectly, and I held my hand up, watching the way the stone caught the light, throwing tiny prisms across the walls.
He pulled me in for a kiss that started soft and turned heated within seconds, his hands tangling in my hair, mine grabbing at his shoulders. I could feel thirty-four years in that kiss—every first, every last, every moment we’d convinced ourselves was an ending when it turned out to be just another beginning.
We eventually migrated toward the fire, with Teddy making a quick detour to the liquor cabinet.
“Just one glass?” I asked when he returned with only one tumbler of whiskey.
“You plan on sitting across the room from me?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Then we’re sharing.” He settled into the leather armchair near the fireplace before patting his thigh. “Come here.”
I curled into his lap without hesitation, like I had a thousand times before the weight of the world convinced us we were too old for such things.
His arm came around me automatically, hand settling easily against my hip. The whiskey glass rested on the chair arm, within reach but forgotten for the moment.
My gaze drifted to the pile of presents beneath the tree. Wrapped in paper that hadn’t come from the same roll. The ones I’d brought had elegant gold stripes. Others were wrapped in birthday paper and what appeared to be newspaper, decorated with a marker by someone—likelyTeddy.
“I don’t have anything for you,” I said softly, guilt needling at me. “I didn’t think about it. Didn’t know any of this would happen.”
Teddy’s arm tightened around my waist, pulling me closer. “Baby, I got exactly what I wanted for Christmas.”
“But—”
“Got my whole damn heart back,” he continued, his voice a low growl against my shoulder. “Don’t need anything else.”
He paused, taking a sip of the whiskey before offering me the glass. I took it, letting the smoky caramel liquor warm me from the inside out while the man I’d loved since before I understood what love really meant watched me with a soft smile.
“Want you to understand something. I don’t want you because we’re trying to save something that’s already broken. Don’t want you because I feel obligated or because it’s familiar or because we’ve got history,” he said, his eyes holding mine.
“Want you the way I did when we were kids, Kels. Just because. Because you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted. The only one I’ll ever want. And if that makes me sound like some obsessed teenager instead of a grown-ass man, then so be it.”
We slipped into a comfortable silence, passing the glass back and forth. Sometimes he’d take a drink and kiss me immediately after. Once, I missed slightly, and a droplet clung to my bottom lip. He caught it with his thumb before bringing it to his mouth.
