1
AXEL BLACK
Christmas Present…
Family.
It’s a foreign concept.
Never had a real one.
Not the picture-perfect version the world loves to sell.
I’ve got Theo and Taylor. Twenty-five years deep. My ride-or-dies. The only people I’ve ever trusted to stick. That’s as close to family as I’ll ever get.
Which is why I’m here on Christmas Day, trapped in Theo’s disgustingly serene beach house, a beer in one hand, a fist in the other. This place is too damn bright.
Bleached wood. Dainty fabrics. Coastal colours. Too much glass. You get the picture.
And now it’s decked out to the eyeballs in peace, joy, and goodwill to all: the kind of stuff I’ve never tasted, let alone felt.
My soul’s made of darker stuff. Black by name. Black by nature.
Broken beyond redemption.
And right now, it’s taking an extra beating as I sit wedged onto Theo’s oversized, overpriced sofa with half a dozen people I share no blood with, drowning in more goddamn tinsel than any man should ever have to face. While Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ blares like it’s got a personal grudge, and everyone across the room laps it up.
Theo’s mum – known to all these days as Granny Anna – coos over Lottie, Taylor’s three-year-old niece, like the kid just parted the rolling sea beyond the glass.
Sadie – Theo’s girlfriend, Taylor’s sister, Lottie’s mum, keeping up?–is in full turbo-elf mode, waist-deep in the tree that ate the living room, digging through branches for gifts, while Theo tries (and fails) to talk her down from her present-slinging high.
And Taylor…
Christ. Taylor.
She’s behind Lottie on the sofa, reindeer headband sliding sideways in that glossy dark mane of hers, laughing. And not her usual sharp, sarcastic bark she throws at me and Theo on the regular. A soft laugh. One that punches out the gold in her hazel eyes and tugs at her mouth like it’s happening without her knowledge.
She leans forward, the draping neckline of her festive red dress dipping open… Yeah, I notice. My mind launches straight to the top of Santa’s naughty list – not that I’ve ever been anywhere near the nice one.
But then she kisses Lottie’s blonde curls, her palm settling on the kid’s back: warm, instinctive, gentle. No performance. Just love.
And the sight cuts deeper than the dress ever could.
It stirs something low in my chest.
Something I don’t like.
Not because it hurts.
But because it feelsright.
Seeing her like this. Soft. Unguarded. Quietly maternal. Like this side of her has always existed, just beneath the steel-and-suit exterior. The career-driven, don’t-get-close, keep-it-cool front she’s always worn.
And it scares the hell out of me.
Because like this, she’s not just the woman you fantasise about in the dark. She’s the kind you imagine a future with.
A life with a wife, a kid, a home…
