Lila leans in, squinting like a tiny librarian. “‘Fate + Dallus’ with a smiley face.”
I choke.
Dallas goes very still.
Lila beams, proud of herself. “I made it.”
Dallas’s gaze flicks to mine, warm and sharp and so full of love my ribs ache.
I swallow around it. “That’s… very sweet, Lila.”
“I know,” she says, completely unbothered. “Okay, we have to fix love now.”
Dallas reaches for another heart, hangs it carefully on the opposite side of the tree, then gestures with his chin. “You want the honors?”
I take the heart Lila hands me, a tiny, messy cutout withLOVEwritten in marker, and hang it high on the branch Dallas holds down for me.
My fingers brush his for half a second.
Electric.
Simple.
Enough to make my stomach flip like I’m a teenager and not a grown woman who has filed restraining orders and survived hell.
Dallas lets the branch go slowly. The heart sways. The tree looks… balanced.
Love is restored.
Lila nods approvingly. “Okay. Crisis solved.”
Then she darts off toward the cocoa station again like she has eight more emergencies scheduled.
Dallas stays.
He watches me for a beat, eyes flicking over my face like he’s reading me.
“You did good today,” he says.
It’s so simple it nearly knocks me over.
I laugh softly, because if I don’t, I might cry. “I did, didn’t I?”
He steps closer, close enough that I can smell him. “You looked like yourself.”
I swallow. “I feel like myself.”
That’s the part that still surprises me. Like I’m waiting for someone to take it away.
But no one does.
Instead, Dallas’s hand slides around my waist, warm through my coat.
“Come here,” he murmurs.
He kisses me right there under the lights, in the middle of town, with snow drifting down like confetti and the Love Tree swaying beside us like it approves.
When he pulls back, my breath is shaky. My cheeks hurt from smiling, and my chest feels full in a way that used to scare me.
