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“Because I’m in a home now and it calls for it. Maybe I miss it. I’m not sure. I just feel like I need to have them. Besides, Harper might enjoy it too. I don’t want to go overboard. I’ve got George to think about, so not sure how well that will go with him.”
“Maybe put the tree in the front room by the window. George doesn’t go in that room without you so he can’t get into it.”
“Good idea,” he said. “See. I need some help. I’ve got to get a tree and decorations for it. Maybe a wreath. There are some booths over there. Let’s go pick one out.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her along to the sound of her laughter.
An hour later they were leaving the fair and he had his wreath and a few other Christmas decorations that he’d found to put in his office. She found that sweet he was thinking of that. They had a game plan to get his tree when they were back in town and the lights and ornaments to go with it at a home goods store.
“You don’t want a real tree?” she asked him. “You’ve got all those plants in your office and other rooms in the house.”
She’d found that odd that he had so many and they were nice and lush so he took great care of them.
“I had to move everything out of the way from George. I don’t want to worry about a real tree if he gets away from me and pulls it down. There could be water everywhere. I’m looking for the least amount of mess. The tree won’t go to waste. The house is big enough that at some point in the future I could always keep one in the front by the window and have one in the back too.”
“I’ve always wanted to have more than one tree at Christmas.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“My place isn’t big enough,” she said.
“I haven’t seen it, I wouldn’t know.”
She hadn’t realized that. “We can stop there if you want before we go to your place. I’ll show you around, but it’s nothing special.”
“It’s not the place that needs to be special but the person in it,” he said.
Yep, a perfect mate right there.
19
Making It Work
“Your place is great,” Rick said when Gillian opened her front door. They walked right into a living room and he could see into the dining room, then kitchen. “How many bedrooms?”
“Two,” she said. “One bathroom. It’s about eleven hundred square feet, which is nice. It’s pretty open too and has a lot of character. It’s an older home, but Trey did a lot of work to it.”
“He lived downstairs before?” he asked.
“Yes. He bought the house when he found out he was going to be a father. I know I haven’t talked about this much, but the short version is he was dating someone and she found out she was pregnant. She didn’t want to keep the child, but he convinced her to go along with the delivery and paid for Ben.”
“What?” he asked.
“Yeah. He said in his mind it was nothing more than a surrogate and that is how he thought of it. His ex wanted the money anyway. He’d taken a loan out and paid, then paid all her expenses letting her live with him at the point for free too. They had separate rooms. She was going to move after the baby was born. She was in a band and wanted to try to make it big, which as of yet hasn’t happened.”
“Everyone in a band always wants to make it big,” he said. “The chances of that happening are normally slim and more so the older you get.”
“Exactly. She had a job and did the music on the side. Doesn’t matter. Trey was a single father from day one. He’s a great dad, but man, was it a big lifestyle change for him and us.”
“I bet you didn’t hesitate to step up,” he said.
“No. I think in some ways it gave me the excuse or the push I needed to leave Mike. I’d been thinking it for a while but then stuck. Change is so hard.”
“I know,” he said. “More so when you wait longer than you should. It seems to me we are both making it work now.”
“We are,” she said.
“Show me around,” he said.
