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I smile. “Course, JuJu. I did have help, though.” I tip my head toward Christopher, who sits at my feet, his hand idly curled around my calf, rubbing up and down. “Thanks for holding off on celebrating until I could come back from my work trip.”
“Always.” She slips her hand around mine and squeezes. “I do have one complaint about your work travels, though,” she says, a sparkle in her eyes. “You hardly go on them anymore, and I feel like I’m due for another life swap. Now what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. It seems I’ve become a domesticated Kat.” That makes her laugh. “Maybe it’s time for you to give in to the pull of our family’s wanderlust gene, strike out on your own.”
She smiles to herself, sipping her mulled wine. “Maybe I will. Try somewhere quieter for a while. Maybe upstate. Maybe halfway across the world. We’ll see.”
“To no one’s surprise...” Toni calls, drawing us back into the group’s conversation. “Nick’s and Bianca’s signs shareextremelyhigh compatibility.” He peers over at the lovebirds, who wear matching powder-blue sweaters covered in fluffy white snowfall appliqués. With a snowperson on each sweater stitched to lean toward the edge, lips poised for a smooch, as Nick and Bianca sit beside each other, it looks like they’re kissing. “Of course,” he adds sweetly.
“Of course,” we all singsong, with a few extraawwws, making Nick grin and Bianca laugh happily as he kisses her cheek.
“Next!” Toni says dramatically. “Kate, our Aquarius queen.” I give a regal wave. “And then Christopher! A Taurus, if ever there was one.”
Hoots go up. Christopher rolls his eyes from his seat at my feet. His hand slips down my leg and hooks around my ankle, squeezing gently.
Toni squints, reading the screen. “So let’s see the Taurus and Aquarius sign compatibility.”
“It’s abysmal,” Christopher says.
The whole room dims to a hush.
Christopher peers my way. “You’re all obsessed with this astrological stuff, so I looked it up months ago, and when I saw in the summary that by all zodiac wisdom, an Aquarius and a Taurus are a terrible match, I decided it was bullshit.”
Slowly, he turns, stretching an arm across my lap and threading his hand with mine. “But then I kept reading, and I came across a little paragraph that said there’s a sliver of a chance that two people of these signs can be the exception that proves the rule. It said, if they’re willing to do the work to get to a place of trust and understanding, they’re rewarded with a passionate, electric connection—the kind of love that feels new every day.” He smiles wide, his gaze warm and tender, only for me. “So I decided it wasn’t absolute bullshit, after all.”
I’m still shy about being affectionate in front of everyone else, but this time I don’t hesitate to lean in and kiss Christopher, long and slow, for everyone to see.
“All right!” Sula says, springing up from her chair toward the vintage record player behind her. “Time to dance. Not only is it Jules’s and Bea’s fortieth birthdays—”
“Hey!” they call, offended.
“Okay, fine, thirtieth,” Sula concedes, sifting through the records, “but it’s a celebration of love!”
“Ooh, wait,” I tell her, breaking away reluctantly from Christopher, then rushing over to the record player. “Let me.”
I find just the record I wanted and lift the needle. As it dropswith a crackle, followed by a burst of the tango’s opening bars, I turn and stroll his way.
“Christopher.”
He grins up at me from his seat on the floor, a flash of excitement in his handsome eyes. “Katerina.”
I offer a hand, smiling at the man I love with all my heart. “May I have this dance?”
Christopher takes it and stands, then pulls me tight against him. One slow step, then another, a quick, breathless turn. Finally, a weightless, thrilling dip that I knew was coming.
He presses a kiss beneath my ear and whispers, “I thought you’d never ask.”
—
Each time I leave home, it’s harder. Of course, I still love experiencing new places for assignments, meeting new people, telling new stories. But the ache gets a little sharper, the longing lingers a little more, every time I’m gone from home.
I should be soaking up the white-hot beauty of Croatia in July, proud and happy that my work for this long-form piece on female entrepreneurship and growing economies is coming together so well, but as I sit, eating my meal and staring at the glorious view of the Adriatic Sea at sunset, all I can think about is how much damn fun we had at my sisters’ birthday party last week, how Mom and Dad came over and joined in on the dance party, how I talked so much and laughed so hard my voice was hoarse by the time I saw people off, and then after everyone was gone, and Christopher made love to me over and over, I screamed in pleasure so much I lost my voice completely.
Turning back to my food, I poke an olive listlessly.
But then a shadow cuts across my little table, swallowing up the sun and turning the world as bleak as I feel inside.
I frown up from my plate, prepared to tell whoever’s standing over me to move along, when I freeze.
