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I rub at my eyes and take a closer look. Someone is standing on my front walk with a speaker playing music. No, not someone.Nickis standing in front of my house in a Santa hat and the ugliest Christmas sweater I’ve ever seen. The wobbly stitches and lumpy felt letters across the front don’t spell the typical holiday greetings. Instead, it readsI’m sorry.
“Oh!” I stifle the exclamation with a worried glance at the couch. There’s no reason to wake Saint and Angel. But this is like a scene out of one of the romances I’ve talked Nick’s ears off about. Surely that means something? I try not to let myself overthink this as I shrug on a jacket and jam my feet into my boots.
As soon as I open the front door, the song changes to “All I Want For Christmas is You.” Out here, I can see Susan standing in my driveway. She’s got the snow machine from the ski and tubing hill she manages. She shoots me a thumbs up when I catch her eye.
And Nick walks up to me before dropping to his knees in the snow.
“What are you doing?” I ask, hands pressed to my chest over my heart that’s beating fit to burst free of my chest.
“Winning you back. If you’ll have me?” Nick reaches for my hands, and I let him cup them between his palms. “Carl, I messed up leaving here yesterday. Last night, driving past the skaters at Nathan Phillips Square, I realized, there’s so much more to life than a job that makes me miserable. I missed being here with you. I’ve missed out on so many holidays to climb the corporate ladder, but spending the last week with you showed me everything I’ve been missing.”
“The magic of Christmas?” I suggest ruefully. I’m wary of trusting him again. He showed me his priorities, right? Except he’s here now, and he put real effort into this apology.
He shakes his head. “Love. All the little things that make life worth living. Your smiles, cookies fresh from the oven. A house that feels like a home because it’s full of memories and mementos of a life well lived. Music in the living room with Mom, taking the time to walk hand-in-hand. Connections that go deeper than the superficial, deeper than sex. Kisses that make me come alive. You.” He licks his lips, adjusts his grip on my hands, and whispers, “I’m falling for you, Carl. I know we agreed to fake dating, and I messed up even that much by leaving. I’m more sorry than I can say for that. Can you find it in your heart to give me a chance to be your boyfriend for real? Let me learn to love you properly?”
I nod, too overwhelmed that he feels the same to voice an answer. And scared. He’s saying all the right things, but what happens when his boss calls him home to Toronto again?
We have so many details to discuss, a larger conversation that needs to happen. But he came back to me. In the end, I matter enough for him to drive through the night to be back here with me. I want this. We can figure out how best to build our future together later.
“Yes?” Nick asks, his face shining with the same hope that fills my heart. I want to believe in him, and in us.
“Yes!” I nod, pulling him to his feet and into a kiss full of all the love in my heart that I thought I’d have to get over.
If Nick wants this as much as I do, we can make it work somehow. Just like Saint and I found a way to love each other after our marriage ended. I can visit him in the city, or he can try to work remotely sometimes. We can figure something out.
“Good.” Nick grins against my lips. “Because I sent in my resignation before I left Toronto.”
“You can’t quit your job for me!” I swat at his chest, horrified at the weight of that, but also reassured that he’s serious about refocusing his priorities.
Nick catches my wrists and tugs me more firmly into his arms. “I didn’t. I quit for me. And I’m staying with Mom while I figure out exactly what’s next for me. But whatever that is, I want it to be here, with you. I want to be happy.”
It’s a relief to hear that. All of it. The parts where it’s not solely about me. That the sudden upheaval to his life isn’t all on my shoulders. And the part where he is serious about trying to make a relationship work between us.
“You weren’t before?” I ask.
“No. I didn’t realize how unhappy the corporate grind made me until I came here and you gave me a taste of what happiness truly looks like. Now that I’ve sampled it, I can’t go back to how I was living.”
Nick kisses me again, with the homemade snow swirling around us in picture-perfect eddies. I melt into my boyfriend’s arms, kissing him until a wolf-whistle from my front door breaks us apart. I grin when I see Saint standing there with Angel tucked under his arm, yawning.
Oh. I almost forgot I left Saint and Angel asleep on my couch. Will Nick mind that they slept over? Best to find out now. I glance between Nick and my overnight guests, but Nick just waves at them. “Merry Christmas. Sorry if I woke you,” he calls as he fumbles with the music app on his phone to cut the noise from the speaker.
“Merry Christmas. I’ll give you a pass since you just made all Carl’s Christmas fantasies come true. But you better not make him cry again or I won’t be so quick as him to forgive you again. Come back to my place to give the lovebirds privacy, Angel?”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
Angel flashes me a thumbs up when they catch my eye. I can’t wipe the goofy grin off my face as I watch Saint cop a feel before guiding Angel to his door.
Nick glances between me and the two of them, but he doesn’t ask what we were doing.
“Holiday movie marathon. We fell asleep,” I explain anyway.
“I’m glad you didn’t spend the night alone. I know you were looking forward to a cozy evening.” He slings an arm around my shoulders and kisses my temple.
“I was. Come in, there’s still time to wake up together on Christmas morning.”
“Sure. Let me just make sure Susan is all set with the snow machine.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
