"What are you hiding over there?" Thane asked. His voice carried that familiar note of amusement that seemed to appear whenever he caught me overthinking something.
I pulled the bag from the drawer and held it against my chest for a moment. "Nothing."
"That's the least convincing thing you've ever said."
A laugh escaped me despite myself. "Considering I've known you for a week, that feels statistically unlikely."
"Trust me. I've got a good feeling about this."
I held out the bag.
Thane accepted it carefully and pulled back the tissue paper. The tiny wooden cottage fit easily in his hand. He turned it over once, studying the carved details around the windows and roof. Then his attention shifted to the tag.
First Christmas.
My stomach immediately tightened.
Suddenly, I wasn't thinking about the ornament anymore. I was thinking about the moment I'd picked it up. About why I'd bought it. About how much meaning I'd accidentally attached to a piece of painted wood.
Thane traced a thumb across the roof before lifting his gaze to mine. "You want to remember this."
It wasn't a question. The understanding in his voice made heat creep into my face.
I looked down at Mr. Maple instead of meeting his eyes right away. "Maybe." The answer came out quieter than I'd intended.
For a moment, Thane simply looked at me. Then he set the ornament carefully on the blanket beside him and reached for my hand. His fingers threaded through mine. "Thank you."
The words were soft, but they landed with surprising force.
I looked up. He wasn't smiling. "I love it, Kieran."
For a moment, I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Thane lifted my hand and pressed a kiss against my knuckles. "I'm going to hang this on my tree every year."
My breath caught slightly. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
His thumb brushed across my skin. "So that next Christmas, when I hang it up, I can remind you that you were sentimental first."
Eventually, however, my stomach reminded me that sentimentality was no substitute for breakfast.
The refrigerator was stocked exactly the way the owner had promised. Eggs. Bacon. Fruit. Orange juice. Milk. There was pancake mix in one of the cupboards and enough supplies to keep two people comfortably fed for several days.
"You realize this is entirely too much food."
Thane glanced over his shoulder. "You say that now."
"I'll say it later, too."
For a while, we moved around the kitchen together with an ease that still surprised me. While Thane set a frying pan on the stove and started on breakfast, I found a saucepan and a couple of packets of hot chocolate. The scent of bacon soon joined the smell of melting chocolate.
"Pretty sure this is what Christmas is supposed to smell like," I said.
"Give me another ten minutes, and it'll smell even better."
I laughed and leaned against the counter while he flipped a strip of bacon. The scene shouldn't have affected me as much as it did. There was nothing remarkable about it. Just Thane standing in a cozy kitchen on Christmas morning, cooking breakfast. Maybe that was the problem. It felt comfortable. Dangerously comfortable.
"You're staring." Thane never looked away from the stove.
