I just felt like I couldn’t really do a fucking thing about any of it.”
I nodded and sniffed, getting misty-eyed myself.
“I love you,” I whispered, and he smiled up at me.
“I think I love you too,” he said. “I mean, I think I’ve loved you for a long time. A lot longer than I was even willing to admit to myself.”
The anxiety was clear on his face as the confession left his lips.
“It’s okay,” I murmured and kissed him again. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
It was awkward, bending like this to put my lips against his with him lying on my lap, but I didn’t care. My back could scream. I wanted to kiss and reassure my man.
16
Sage…
She was my garden of Eden. Her parents had named her so fucking appropriately. Her kiss as I lay in her lap confessing all my fucking secrets healed some of this fractured ache I’d been carrying around in my chest for so long.
I wanted her so badly, then. So fiercely, but there were way too many fuckin’ people around. I was a private man when it came to my intimacy. I felt caught out and sort of embarrassed that Rush had come in when he did, but at the same time… I was kind of grateful for that, too. I mean, we both hurt. We both still hurt. We probably could start helping each other instead of suffering in our own private pains.
I sat up and sighed. Eden smiled at me, my own personal angel, and asked, “Which one do you want to start with?” She waved a hand over the two ornament boxes.
“That tree’s not going to take them all,” I said dubiously, and she smiled.
“Probably not,” she said, looking at the poor tree with affection. The spindly fucked-up thing made her heart happy, like me somehow, against all odds.
“What about this one?” she asked, picking up what I presumed was her favorite out of the lot.
“What about that one?” I asked with a smile.
“I think it’s my favorite,” she said blushing, and I cocked my head.
“Why?”
“I love the purple,” she said, and I nodded. It was made from a solid chunk of purple heartwood.
“You know that’s the actual wood, right? Not dyed or stained or anything,” I said.
“Nuh-uh!” She didn’t believe me.
“It’s true, ask Rush or Chandler the next time you see them. You bake it in the oven and the heat brings out more of the purple.”
“Seriously?” she asked, taking it to the tree and hanging it on one of the branches.
“Dead serious,” I said, picking up another. I sighed. “This was Nox’s favorite.”
It was a mixed one – a light pine ball, the spindly pieces coming off the top and bottom, some deep, dark wood that was almost black. The real spectacular part was that Rush had somehow inlaid like a knot-work pattern of the dark wood into the lighter wood ball at the ornament’s center. It was impressive and truthfully had been my favorite, too.
“It’s beautiful,” Eden said, taking it from me.
“I think it’s my favorite, too,” I confessed, and she smiled at that.
“What about Maren’s favorite?” she asked softly.
I smiled and picked up the first one Rush had ever given her.
“It will always be this one,” I said. “She loved this one like no other.”
“How come?” she asked.
“Because it was the first,” I said. “Mare had a thing about firsts. I think it’s why I wanted to do this with you,” I said.
“Decorate a Christmas tree?” she asked, and I glanced up at her, her mouth a small ‘o’ of confusion that was utterly adorable.
“Decorate our first Christmas tree together,” I answered.
She smiled then, and it was so beautiful, so dynamic, my heart tripped all over itself in my chest.
“Here’s to a lot of firsts,” she murmured and hung the ornament.
She asked about every single one. About the story behind it, or what kind of wood, and with every single one we hung, I had a reminder of my sister – of her laugh, of her smile, of her beautiful face as she looked at Nox the way Eden looked at me now.
And somehow, by the time we hung the eighth and final ornament on the tree, I felt better. The memories of my sister, of the man who had become my surprising father figure in the wake of my own father’s death, didn’t hurt so much. I even smiled at a few of them.
Eden stood with me, the little tree aglow with the white little