“She’d have told me to stop being soppy and say something funny” he murmured against her neck.
They laughed—soft, broken, but real. Tears mixing with the sound.
Then they walked to the car together—hand in hand, the weight of the day still heavy, but shared.
Ready for whatever came next.
???
Chapter Thirty-Five
Aria
Christmas morning arrived without fanfare.
No clatter of Nan’s slippers on the timber floor. No radio playing old carols too loudly while she wrestled with the oven. No sharp, fond “Jaxon, get up, love—the cream won’t whip itself” drifting down the hallway.
Just soft grey light filtering through the curtains, the distant hum of cicadas, and the faint smell of last night’s rain on the frangipani outside.
Aria woke first. Jax was still asleep beside her—face slack, one arm thrown across her waist, breathing slow and deep. She watched him for a long minute: the faint lines at the corners of his eyes that hadn’t been there last Christmas, the way his lashes rested against his cheeks, the small scar above his eyebrow from a karting crash when he was fifteen. She traced it lightly with her fingertip. He didn’t stir.
She slipped out of bed carefully, pulled on one of his hoodies—too big, sleeves falling past her hands—and padded to the kitchen.
She’d wanted to do this right. Wanted to give him something normal, something Nan would have recognised. So she’d planned Christmas lunch the way Nan always had: roast chicken (because Nan insisted turkey was “too American”), roast potatoes, gravy made from the pan drippings, steamed greens, and—most importantly—pavlova. Nan’s pavlova was legendary: crisp meringue shell, soft marshmallow centre, whipped cream, kiwifruit and passionfruit piled high. Last Christmas she’d watched Nan make it—helped a little, memorised the rhythm. These past few days she’d studied YouTube obsessively: tips on sugar, temperature, cooling. She’d wanted to get it right. For him. For Nan.
She could do this.
She couldn’t.
The egg whites refused to stiffen properly. The sugar clumped. The oven temperature was wrong—too hot, then too cool. The meringue cracked when she tried to spread it. The chicken skin burned while she was distracted rescuing the pavlova. Smoke alarms shrieked. She waved a tea towel at them frantically, swearing under her breath in Korean and English. The potatoes stuck to the tray. The gravy split.
By the time Jax appeared in the doorway—hair mussed, eyes still heavy with sleep—the kitchen looked like a war zone: flour on every surface, burnt bits in the sink, smoke still curling lazily from the oven door.
Aria stood in the middle of it, shoulders hunched, staring at the collapsed, weeping pavlova on the bench like it had personally betrayed her.
She looked up when she heard him.
“I wanted to—” Her voice cracked. “I wanted it to be like hers. I wanted you to have something normal. Something… good. Today. And I ruined it.”
Tears welled fast—embarrassment, grief, exhaustion all crashing together. She swiped at them angrily.
Jax crossed the room. He didn’t look at the mess. Just looked at her.
Then he laughed—soft, warm, surprised.
She stared at him. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because you’re standing here in my hoodie, covered in flour, glaring at a meringue—and all I can think is how much I love you.”
The words landed like stones in still water.
Aria froze.
He stepped right into her space—thumbs brushing the fabric of the hoodie.
“I love you,” he repeated, quieter now, eyes locked on hers. “I’ve loved you for a while. A long while. I was just… scared. Scared you didn’t feel the same. Scared if I said it, you’d confirm this whole thing was still something fake. That I was still just the guy you used to make Min-Jae jealous, and you were still just the girl I used to clean up my image for the team. I was terrified you’d look at me and remember it was never supposed to be real. That I’d lose you the second the cameras stopped flashing.”
Aria’s breath caught. Tears slipped free again—this time not from failure.
