Tic-Tac-Mistletoe - N.R. Walker Page 0,68

grinned and closed his eyes, resting his forehead on mine, and when he looked at me again, his eyes were glassy. “Stay.”

I nodded and he kissed me again, deep and with every emotion I could now taste between us. It was kinda scary that things had moved so fast, but it also felt right. I was falling in love with him, maybe I was in love with him already and I’d just been too afraid to admit it.

But I was going to stay, and that was the rightest I’d felt in years.

Epilogue

One year later

We’d loaded everything into my SUV on Christmas Eve, and Ren drove down to Mossley while Chutney and I sat in the passenger side looking at all the pretty scenery.

I’d made this drive dozens of times now but I still preferred it when Ren drove. It was kind of perfect being ninety minutes from Liv. We got to see each other all the time without being in each other’s pockets. When baby Stevie was born, I’d stayed to help out with laundry and cooking, or even just baby-ogling while the exhausted new parents caught up on some much-needed sleep.

Stevie was the cutest almost-seven-month old baby to ever exist. And as her uncle, I was completely impartial in this proclamation, of course. They had decided that the name Migaloo, while cute, was not probably appropriate for a newborn girl, so they called her Stevie Kathryn, after Stevie Nicks and my mother, Kathryn Kenneally. Okay, well, they didn’t actually name her after Stevie Nicks, but I liked the rock-star vibe. And apparently they didn’t name her after Stevie from Schitt’s Creek, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. Not that it mattered, I was happy with either.

But Ren and I made awesome uncles, if I did say so myself. I mean, we were good dads to Chutney, so it was a given, but Ren adored Stevie.

Things between Ren and myself had never been better. I pretty much moved in before New Year’s last year and we’d never looked back. We’d only ever had one argument and that was over folding towels. Which, for the record, I do the correct way—folded into thirds—and Ren folded them in half, then half again. Which is clearly wrong and, quite frankly, monstrous. The fact that this argument blew up when I was scrubbing the house from top to bottom while waiting on news of Stevie’s birth was beside the point. Actually, it was probably the whole entire point and a valid reason why I was so stressed, and anyway, the short version of our one and only fight story is that now I am in charge of folding all the towels.

“You okay?” Ren asked, sliding his hand onto my thigh.

I held his hand and smiled. “Perfect.”

“You seem nervous.”

I shot him a look. “Nervous? What would I be nervous about?”

He smiled and shrugged. “Dunno. Christmas will be perfect.”

I squeezed his hand. “I know.”

Well, I hoped it would be . . .

We arrived and unloaded everything and I got first cuddles with Stevie while Ren drank his coffee; then we swapped. Ren and I had brought a lot of the food we’d made yesterday so all we had to do was reheat it for dinner tonight. There was ham and lamb and vegetables au gratin and a whole bunch of Christmas cookies.

The idea was for us to have Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day, when Liv, Josh, and Stevie went to spend time with his family, Ren and I would head home. That way we could be home after lunch, spend Christmas night on a makeshift bed on the floor in front of the fire, and Ren wouldn’t be rushed to open the store the next day.

And our Christmas Eve dinner was lovely, with Stevie’s highchair at the table—her first Christmas. We toasted to family, those here and those who weren’t. We watched more awesomely terrible Christmas movies and we had a few eggnogs, and we went to bed with full bellies and fuller hearts. I fell asleep in Ren’s arms and he woke up in mine.

“Merry Christmas,” I whispered, rubbing his back.

“Hm, Merry Christmas.”

“Can you believe it’s been one year?” I asked wistfully.

“It’s been the best year.”

“It has,” I replied. I didn’t want him to mention that this was our halfway point. My two-year visa was half over. I knew his mind would follow the same steps mine had, and last time I mentioned my visa, he was sad for a week, so