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We stayed like that for a while with her draped across my chest, my hand tracing lazy patterns on her bare back, neither of us in any rush to move.
Until we finally heard the sounds of her family moving around downstairs.
Sam pressed a kiss to my chest and looked up at me with a kind of lazy contentment I’d never seen on her face before. “I guess we should probably go downstairs and be social.”
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved.
She grinned and then buried her face in my chest before pressing a kiss there and then getting up. We showered and then got dressed while stealing glances at each other, and her smile made my heart race every time she threw it my way.
“What’s on your family’s agenda for today?”
She looked up at the ceiling like she was trying to remember. “I think it’s the Argosy Christmas Ship Festival tonight. It’s one of the Twelve Days things Mom always does, and it’s pretty with the boats all decorated in lights sailing across the Sound. It won’t be until tonight, so we probably have most of the day to do whatever we want.”
“Want to grab some coffee at Mira’s place?”
She looked up at me with a hint of surprise followed by another one of those smiles I was a sucker for on her face.
“Sounds like a date to me.”
It was about damn time.
TWENTY-TWO
The next night I was walking through the Bellevue Botanical Garden with thousands of LED lights turning the trees and pathways into something out of a fairy tale, with my hand interlaced with Harry’s. As terrifying as it was to admit, I felt happy, truly happy, for the first time in longer than I could remember, which was so far from what I’d expected to feel when I’d first agreed to come home for Christmas.
Every few steps I’d catch myself sinking into the moment—the cold air on my face, his thumb brushing across my knuckles, the way the lights shifted from blue to gold as we passed under a canopy of illuminated branches—and then some part of my brain would tense up and brace. Like happiness was a setup for pain and punishment. Five years of conditioning didn’t just evaporate because a man you thought was far too good for you told you he loved you.
But I was trying. That had to count for something.
Harry glanced down at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just…” I searched for the right word. “Adjusting.”
“To what?”
I leaned into him, resting my head on his shoulder. “To being happy.”
He squeezed my hand but didn’t push for more, and I loved him for that. He never tried to talk me out of what I was feeling or rush me through it. He just stayed. He’d been my rock for longer than he probably knew. But considering his confession the other night, maybe it had all been on purpose. Harry saw everything—it’s probably what made him such a killer goalie—so maybe he knew I needed someone who was stronger and steadier than I was.
Maybe Harry and I had been inevitable from the very beginning and I’d been kidding myself thinking I could stay away.
Eric was a few yards ahead, photographing a massive LED dragonfly with wings that shifted between blue and green. Jordan and Dad had wandered toward a tunnel of arched lights, Jordan with his hands in his pockets and Dad pointing out something on the map. Jordan hadn’t talked to me much on this trip, but I suspected that was because Dad had chewed him out for springing this on Mom. Every so often, I’d catch Jordan looking at me, and he’d always give me a small, almost apologetic smile, like this had turned out worse than I’d warned him it would. Mom was walking behind Dad and Jordan, but I wasn’t sure she was actually paying attention to the light designs.
This part of our annual holiday tradition had always been one of Bryce’s favorites.
Harry pulled me to a stop in front of a cluster of LED herons standing in a garden pond, their reflections shimmering on the water’s surface. “These are incredible.”
“They go all out every year. This was always one of my favorite Twelve Days events when I was a kid.” A memory surfaced before I could stop it—Bryce hoisting me onto his shoulders so I could see the top of a light sculpture I’d been too short to appreciate from the ground. I blinked it away. “Eric used to try to touch them and Mom would lose her mind.”
Harry’s lips twitched. “That tracks.”
We kept walking, and I could’ve stayed in this moment for hours. Maybe coming home hadn’t been the worst idea.
Eric found me when Harry stepped away to grab us drinks from the small coffee stand. He appeared at my side with his hands shoved in his pockets and his nose red from the cold. I was still having a hard time adjusting to how grown-up he was now. Sometimes I’d look at him and still see the kid who used to follow me around the house stickhandling a tennis ball through the kitchen and asking if I’d watch.
“You seem different,” he said, staring at a display of light-wrapped trees.
