Page 147 of End Game

“I’m fine.”

My eyes meet Ronan’s.

His eyebrow lifts slightly.

Cami takes a deep breath, unlocks her phone again, and looks around at all of us. “So… Christmas.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dex mutters with a laugh.

“No, seriously.” She looks at each of us. “What if Christmas morning is ours?”

We all seem to exhale simultaneously.

Griffin tilts his head. “Ours?”

“The five of us.” Her confidence slips a little as she looks between us. “We’re all going different places. Micah has his family. Griffin has his. I have conversations I need to have. Ronan has… all of that. Dex—”

“I have no obligations,” Dex interrupts. “I’d like to say I’m incredibly unpopular, but really everyone knows they can’t rely on me to be anywhere.”

I elbow him in the side.

“Ow.”

Cami mostly ignores us. “But what if Christmas morning belongs here?”

Swallowing, she looks at us all again. “Nobody schedules over it. Nobody leaves until after breakfast. Griffing gets home, we do coffee, food, and presents… whatever. Just us.”

I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat.

One morning.

Protected.

Not borrowed from somebody else’s tradition or squeezed into whatever space is left between everyone else’s expectations.

Something that is just ours.

“I want that,” I tell her.

Dex turns his head toward me, and something in his expression softens.

“Yeah,” he says, quieter than before. “Me too.”

Griffin nods. “I’m in.”

“Yes, me too,” Ronan says without hesitation.

Cami smiles.

Not the careful one she uses when she’s trying to figure out whether she’s asking for too much.

It’a full face grin.

Christmas lights reflect in her eyes, and for one second she looks like she might actually glow.

Okay.” She starts typing into her phone. “Christmas morning is ours.”

Dex immediately leans over her shoulder. “Did you really put it in the calendar?”