Now the house is finally quiet.
Mom and Rose are in the kitchen packing up leftovers, whispering over containers. Boone has taken Ellie and Wyatt back to the guest house, promising Lila hot cocoa tomorrow and a new game she "has to learn." Nash and Clay disappeared the second the cleanup started, which is about as predictable as snow in December.
Lila’s asleep already. Christmas will do that to a kid. She fell asleep on my chest, fingers tangled in my shirt, book still clutched loosely in her other hand. I carried her to bed and stoodby the door for a long minute afterward, watching her breathe, trying to let the steady rhythm calm the last of my nerves.
It didn’t work.
Now I’m heading down the hall, mug of coffee in hand, trying to decide whether knocking on a guest bedroom door at nearly ten at night is crossing some line.
But Faith is awake.
I can feel it.
Her door is cracked open an inch, a thin strip of warm yellow spilling onto the floor. Inside, something rustles. Fabric, maybe. A soft exhale.
I raise my hand and tap once.
“Faith?”
The door pulls open because she’s right behind it. She’s barefoot, still in those sweatpants from last night, and now drowning in one of my old sweaters, sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Mom must’ve dug it out for her sometime this afternoon.
Her curls are down, her face scrubbed clean, cheeks a little pink from the heat of the room.
She just looks at me.
Then, quietly, says, “Hey.”
There’s something about that one small word that hits me in a place I don’t deserve to feel anything anymore.
“Hey,” I say back. “You doing all right?”
She huffs a laugh and leans a shoulder against the doorframe. “Define ‘all right.’”
I lift my coffee mug, tipping my head toward the living room. “Want some company?”
Her eyebrows rise a little. She wasn’t expecting me to ask.
“Yeah,” she says after a moment. “I think… I think I’d like that.”
She follows me to the living room, where the fire is low, the tree lights still blinking in soft colors. She wraps her arms around herself as she sinks onto the couch, tucking one foot beneath her.
“This house hasn’t changed,” she says. “Not even the mantle decorations.”
“That’s because Mom would fight God Himself if someone tried to rearrange her Christmas setup.”
She smiles faintly. “I used to love this place. More than my own house, honestly.”
I sit in the armchair across from her, though part of me wants to sit beside her, close enough to catch the scent of her hair. Bad idea. Very bad idea.
“It was good having you here today,” I say instead.
She lets out a breath. “It was… overwhelming. But good overwhelming. Your family is a lot.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “They don’t exactly come with a quiet mode.”
“I like it,” she says softly. “The noise. The madness. It feels… warm.”
She trails off, eyes drifting to the fire. Emotion flickers across her face. Sadness, maybe. Or loneliness.
