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But today he’s catapulted himself to an elusive category of men that are increasingly impossible to find: the all-around good guy who’s not just trying to get into your pants.
I really think he might be the only one on that pedestal, a category made up of only him, because no one else I’ve ever met in life comes as close to perfection as he does.
Perfect.
It’s the only way to describe him.
We’ve been outside in the cold for hours, but he’s unfazed. He hasn’t lost the spring in his step or his megawatt grin. It’s still in place as we go house to house, bearing presents and holiday cheer.
There’s no press or cameras. There’s no one to put on an act for; it’s just me, him, his dad, a rotation of family members joining us throughout the day and Christmas music blaring from the speakers of the truck. I’ve never heard someone sing “Jingle Bells” so loudly in my life.
I’m not sure he even brought his cell phone with him. I saw him leave it on the foyer table before we left, and I don’t think he ever picked it back up.
He’s thorough with his time and considerate to every family we meet. He stops to take photos and sign jerseys, the hometown guy who made it big showing up on their porches with a sack full of gifts. One kid made Shawn wait while he dug out his rookie season trading card, and Shawn was speechless.
He dipped his chin and wiped his eyes after.
I’m in the stadium with him for every home game, but I’ve spent almost two seasons only knowing him as a coach. The guy who makes the play calls but isn’t actually out on the field. I forget he’s had this whole other life with his career, years in the league and giving his heart and soul to his team.
Today is the first time I’ve truly been immersed in how well-known and well-liked he is.Millionsof people look up to him, and it blows my mind he never acts like he’s better than anyone else just because his name is printed on the back of a jersey and he has a hand full of Super Bowl rings.
“Ready?” Shawn asks from behind the wheel. He gives my knee a squeeze and taps the denim of my jeans. “There are only ten houses to go.”
My feet are sore from the miles of walking. My muscles ache from the stairs we’ve climbed. My arms hurt from carrying the boxes of gifts as carefully as I can, not wanting to drop a single one. My cheeks are pink from the wind and the cold, and I stopped feeling my toes an hour ago.
Still, there’s a hum in my chest. The quiet swell of a wave in the cavity behind my heart. The urge to want to keep doing more, as if the first two hundred and ninety houses we visited weren’t enough. A smile on my lips that bleeds into an ear-splitting grin as he puts the car in park and turns off the ignition.
Shawn’s dad hops out of the backseat, the spot he valiantly claimed when we started our day seven and a half hours ago, refusing to switch places with me when I pleaded with him to take the front.
I see where Shawn gets it from.
Maddening, delightful Holmes’ men.
“I’m ready.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and adjust the annoyingly festive necklace I’m wearing. It’s made up of two dozen bulbs, big Christmas lights that twinkle and flicker and change colors when you click a hidden button on the back. “This is the best day of my life.”
“Mine, too.” He tugs on the strand around my neck and I lean forward, right up in his space. I can see the flicker of the lights in his eyes, a rotating rainbow that repeats itself again and again. “Can I kiss you, Lacey girl?”
I blow out a breath, and the cold from outside begins to seep into the car. “You’ve never asked to kiss me before.”
“I know. But before my dad and half the city weren’t watching.”
“I’m yours, right?” I ask, and his throat bobs.
“Right,” he says, and his voice is hard around the edges but soft in the middle with the single word. “You are.”
“Then you should know you can kiss me whenever you want. Audience, no audience. The answer will always be yes,” I whisper, and the air leaves my lungs when he captures my mouth with his.
It’s sweet and tender, both palms on my cheeks and his body heat mixing with mine. I tilt my head to deepen the kiss, to bring him closer, because every time Shawn kisses me, I lose a little part of myself.
That small, insecure voice in my head that tells me I’ll never find anyone good enough begins to fade. It begins to take the shape of the man beside me, down to the tattoo of a cactus on his right hand—a drunken night in Vegas when he was twenty-six, he told me last night—an image that’s startlingly sharp and clear.
My heart knows he’s become more than a friend. More than a fuck buddy. More than someone I can sleep with once—or six times—to fill a need and then walk away from. He’s worked his way into my life, and I don’t ever want him to leave.
He’s taken the spot I’ve left vacant for years, the tiny crater I’m not sure I’d ever fill, and made it his own. It’s different than how I imagined; it’s a little flawed. A little messy. A little loud and chaotic and uncertain, but I’m learning I like messy.
I like messy withhim.
How did we go from casual and light tohere?My heart in my throat as I think about tomorrow, and the next day after and the next day after. A thousand more days, and I could have them all with him.
