Page 5

It was a silly little tradition they had that none of us had the heart to break for them. It was something only for them. Something the two of them bonded over after our mother’s death. Something they needed.

I smiled at their bickering voices, shaking my head at their chaotic antics before turning around and heading back to bed.

Drea slept soundly, wrapped up in all the blankets in the center of the bed, spread out so her limbs took up all four corners. For such a small woman, she somehow managed to take up the entire king-size bed.

Not that I minded in the slightest. For all of my adult life, I’d slept alone. Had always thought I’d preferred it that way, if I was being honest with myself.

How fucking wrong I was.

Now that I had Drea in my life, I couldn’t picture sleeping alone ever again.

The mattress dipped as I climbed in, and Drea instantly adjusted, moving to wrap herself around me like a weed, her legs entangling with mine, her fingers sifting through my hair to clutch it tightly at the roots.

A contented sigh fell from my lips, and I wrapped my arms around my wife, pulling her in even closer. Her head came to rest upon my shoulder, and she did this adorable little snort—something Drea always did when she was deep in slumber.

I wasn’t remotely tired, so I just lay there, holding the love of my life in my arms as I stared up at the dark ceiling, thinking about how much everything had changed. How much better everything could be when the right person came into your life.

I had never been a believer in soulmates. The idea that there was only one person in the entire world who was your forever seemed absolutely ludicrous to me. What if your soulmate lived on the other side of the world? What if they died in some freak accident?

It made no sense to me whatsoever.

How smug the universe must have felt when it thrust Drea into my path, because now, I was eating my fucking words.

She was everything I could ever want.

Everything I would ever need.

In this life and the next.

Drea snorted, rolled onto her back, and mumbled, “Apples, pickles, and ham.”

I chuckled, moving to lean onto my side and draping an arm across her stomach. “What was that?” I whispered.

“On my sandwich. Apples, pickles, and ham. With smushed banana instead of butter,” she muttered back, as if we were in a full-blown conversation.

I chuckled again, shaking my head. Drea talked in her sleep. A lot. Some of it was complete nonsense, didn’t make a lick of sense, and sometimes, she would talk to me as if she were wide awake, even going so far as to answer my questions and ask some of her own in return.

In the morning, she would have absolutely no memory of it, which only made the whole thing funnier in my eyes.

I softly ran my finger over her skin, down her temple, across her cheek, and over her soft, plump lips. Watching someone sleep was kind of stalkerish, but I honestly couldn’t help myself. My eyes ran over every single detail. Her long dark lashes. The splatterings of metal pierced in her eyebrow, nose, and lip. Her long, slender neck.

Mesmerized. I was utterly mesmerized by every inch of her, to the point that it almost bordered on obsession.

Who the fuck are you kidding? It is obsession.

I took in her features once again, committing them all to memory, and I was unable to stop the smile from spreading across my lips even if I wanted to. I burrowed into her side, falling asleep to the soft sound of her voice muttering about strange food combinations as if it were white noise.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Aleksandr! Get your big behemoth ass up! It’s Christmas morning!”

I groaned, throwing my arm over my face. Maybe if I just ignore it, they’ll go away.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Aleksandr!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!