Page 87 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas

I awakened just after dawn in the cottage. Last night’s embers in the hearth were a low, shimmering crimson, and a gentle wind blew the first icy breath of the day through the eaves. I left Jake asleep, bundled under quilts, splayed like a starfish on his belly.

Have you ever heard silence? You’d know it if you have.

When I walked in these woods for the first time with Jake last December, I mistook quiet for emptiness. But this quiet is full. Expansive. It creates space in my mind. And as someone approaching their thirties who’s only just discovered comfort within their own internal monologue, that space is a gift.

A thin filigree of ice covers the surface of the cold mud, and it crackles underfoot with every step. My flowered wellies are faded now, weathered by rain and snow and salt from big-city pavements and the pathways of New York City parks. I like to imagine that they realize I’ve returned them to their natural habitat here in this forest. And I’ve brought myself along, too.

Jake knew, when he brought me here last year. He barely knew me then, really, but he saw me. He saw my need for stillness inside my own mind. I love New York City, but it never stops demanding something of me. Here, the only demand the land makes of me is that I rest.

Since Jake came to me last New Year’s, we’ve been living in New York. It was a definitive answer to the tenacious cynical part of me that still wondered if what we had was real, rather than some kind of festive, cinnamon-scented magic manufactured by Christmas in London. I’m not ready to retire my inner skeptic quite yet—it’s what makes me a good journalist. But now, it’s forever silenced when it comes to Jake and me. This love is absolutely real, and it’s the same, regardless of time zone.

He still texts me hints about where he’s planning to take me when we go out.

Jake got to meet Maddie, and she took full credit for our relationship. I let her have the win, because—fair. Not only was she the reason I met him in the first place, she’s the one who engineered our reunion last New Year’s Eve. He also got to meet Claudia, and the hateful little gremlin adored him. Of course she did.

I’ve done a lot of writing over the past year. Mostly about the environmental plight of the Cotswolds as a consequence of increasing over-tourism. I sold a few pieces, but it hasn’t yet been the freelancing windfall I fantasized about when The Juniper let me go. But I’ll get there.

Together, Jake and I founded a nonprofit to preserve and restore natural green spaces in cities. The process took the better part of a year, and we plan to expand with a sister organization in London once we get our footing. Jake still does the pro bono work he’d been doing while trying to break away from his father, too.

Juno helped us with some pro bono work of her own, taking a meticulous look at Jake’s fifty-page partnership agreement with Frost, Acton, and Isaacs. She agreed that there was no deemed withdrawal clause—no specification that Jake was required to come to work in person to remain employed by the firm. It meant that they couldn’t claim he’d resigned by not showing up to work. For a firm that makes much of its fortune on legal loopholes, it was an embarrassing oversight on the part of his father’s own in-house team. It meant that Jake could continue to maintain the benefits of employment without having to do anything his father wanted. It took six more months for Jameson to officially fire him.

I round a bend in the trail to reach a clearing that overlooks all of Marleigh. The narrow road embroiders gently sloping pastures like a ribbon. In the center sits the farmhouse where Jake spent most of his childhood, its roof scattered with frost, caramel-colored stone glowing like a topaz in the mist.

Behind it, nestled in a thicket of hazel and dormant wildflowers, sits the cottage. The little fir we bought last year at the supermarket is planted outside, decorated with oversized vintage bulbs that wink and shimmer at me, despite the distance and the weak morning light.

There’s a thin curl of smoke rising from the chimney now.

He’s awake.

I make my way back down the trail. Quickly, this time.

It feels like I’m going home to him, even though Jake has never made me feel like it was a foregone conclusion that we’d build our life together in England. That he gave my beloved Queens a fair shot is yet another reason I adore him. When I boarded the plane to Heathrow last Christmas, I truly couldn’t have imagined a world where I’d live anywhere outside New York.

At the time, I also couldn’t have imagined a world where a man like Jake Frost existed.

And now, I can’t imagine a world without him.

* * *

The warmth of Jake’s fire meets me the moment I open the door to the cottage. He’s shirtless at the worktop in the little kitchen, putting the finishing swirl of steaming water on a pour-over that fills the entire space with the nutty scent of fresh coffee. Festive green and black plaid lounge pants sit slung low on his narrow hips, giving me an indulgent view of the subtle dimples just north of his waistband. His hair is a chaotic tumble of soft waves that bob gently over his brow as he turns to face me.

“Good morning, my little wood sprite.” The words are slow, still rough with sleep.

He’s switched on our Christmas decorations in anticipation of my return. Glowy, muted fairy lights twisted with a garland along the small staircase’s baluster and banister, chunky candles stacked along the mantel. Even a kitschy ceramic Christmas tree with multicolored lights, just like the one my aunt used to have. He found it in an antique shop in Brooklyn in the middle of July. We brought it here in its own suitcase, padded with bubble wrap like it was a priceless anthropological artifact.

The moment I shrug out of my coat and unloop my scarf, he bends to press his mouth to my neck, just below my ear. He smells like toothpaste and balsam-scented soap, and the sweet, earthy scent that comes from a night spent next to a hickory-burning hearth.

“I don’t love waking up without you here,” he murmurs against my skin. He traces my jaw with whispered kisses, then lets his mouth hover above my lips. “But I do love it when you come home to me.”

Now, there’s a real bed set up in front of the hearth. We don’t bother pretending anymore that we need sofas and coffee tables and entertainment consoles. We read, we write, we talk.

We love.

Jake drops to a crouch in front of me, gently lifting my leg with a hand behind my knee. He slides my wellies off, one at a time, and I’ve got my arms raised straight overhead by the time he stands again

He lifts me into his arms to carry me to the bed. Over his shoulder, I see the two mugs of coffee he’s prepared for us sitting on the worktop, with lonesome little wisps of steam rising slowly into the air.

Some things are more important.