“ARE YOU TIRED?” I ask Lacey.
She is curled up beside me on the bed, a book in her hand and her feet tucked under my thighs. There’s a steaming mug of hot chocolate sitting on the table next to her, and I lean over to grab it by the handle. I pop one of the marshmallows in my mouth and take a long sip.
It’s nearing midnight, and every minute of our Christmas Eve has been busy. We spent hours making cookies, then followed up the cooking with caroling and helping my parents wrap gifts for my nieces.
The living room looked like a war zone covered in wrapping paper and ribbons when we finished for the night, and I’m going to make sure I’m up extra early in the morning to help clean up.
“No,” she admits, and she drags her thumb across my upper lip. “You have a whipped cream mustache.”
“Is it a good look?”
Lacey tilts her head to the side. Her eyebrows wrinkle like she’s deep in thought, then they smooth back out. “I don’t hate it.”
“That’s significantly better than no.” I set the drink down and drum my fingers against her shoulder. I’m buzzing with energy, and I can’t sit still. “Want to go on an adventure?”
“An adventure?” Lacey taps her phone screen to check the time and frowns. “It’s midnight.”
“It’s not far. Just a few steps away.”
“Oh, God. This is the part where you kill me, isn’t it?” she sighs, an exasperated sound that fills the room around us. “I knew watching all those true crime shows would come back and bite me in the ass. You were too good to be true.”
I laugh and pluck the book from her hands. I make sure to put her bookmark in place so she doesn’t lose her spot. “I’d be too lonely if I killed you. Who would make me pumpkin pies? Who would I bring magnets to? I have a whole box of them at home. I can’t just be the magnet guy.”
“Wait.” She sits up and tugs on my shirt. Her fingers curl around the sleeve and she pulls me toward her. “You have a box of magnets?”
“I do,” I say.
“Why?”
I open my mouth, but there’s a moment of hesitation.
I want to start being honest with this woman. About my feelings. About where I see things going with her when we get back home.
I’ve never really been scared in my life; you can’t be when you’re an athlete. You have to anticipate. React. There’s not a lot of time to be afraid when you’re sprinting down a football field.
Having feelings for your best friend is different. It’s a lot of flailing. Thinking you’re up a creek without a paddle all because she fucking smiled at you, and you feel like you’re flying.
It’s being worried she might run—not because she doesn’t want you, too, because it’s so obvious she does—but because she’s also scared.
I’m going to go slow with Lacey. Not give it all away at once but ease her into the idea of us. A version of this story that doesn’t have an ending but a new beginning instead.
I have no fucking clue how, but I’ll figure it out.
“I buy four or five magnets every time I travel somewhere,” I explain. “I give you one, but I keep the others in case you don’t like what I picked. In case yours breaks or gets lost. In case I stop coaching tomorrow and I can never go back to these places, I want to be able to keep giving you something. I have this plan to give you a new one every year until you’re the magnet girl.”
“There’s a shoebox in your closet of magnets with California burritos on them?” she asks.
She reaches for my hand, and her fingers press into the pulse point of my wrist. I hum, distracted by the drag of her nails and the way her skin is fair and smooth.
“Yes,” I say around an exhale, a whoosh of wind leaving my lungs. “Yes, there is. Beavers, too. And apples for New York. There are about eighty of them in there.”
“And you want to give them all to me?”
I curl my fingers around her chin and tilt her head back. Her eyes are as wide as saucers and as green as the grass in the summertime.
“When the timing is right, they’re yours. If you want them.”
Her lips form an O, and I can tell a dozen questions linger on the tip of her tongue. “I would,” she finally says, and my heart jolts in my chest. “I would like them.”
“Good.” I rub my thumb down the curve of her cheek. “Will you go on an adventure with me?”
“Yeah.” Lacey nods, and I’m going to pretend she’s agreeing to every adventure with me, not just this one. “I will.”
I climb off the bed and point to her jacket. “Bundle up. We’re going outside.”
“It’s twenty degrees.”
“That’s why you’re going to wear a coat.” I grab my own layers and pull on a beanie and gloves, making sure to take the heavy blanket off the bed, too. “We won’t stay there long.”
“Okay.” She hurries to her suitcase, shrugging on her coat and shoving her feet into her boots. “I’m excited.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have been so enthusiastic. It’s not that great.”
“I doubt that. Everything with you is wonderful.”
That makes my heart jolt, too.
I hold out my hand, and she laces her fingers through mine. I turn off the bedroom light and unlock the window. The glass creaks and groans in the cold as I open it.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Ready,” she repeats, and I duck outside.
I came out here earlier when Lacey was playing with my nieces. She let them put every color of eyeshadow on her face and pounds of blush on her cheeks. I shoveled the roof off to make sure we’d be able to walk without slipping. I’ve done this a thousand times, but never with someone I care about so much.
My foot gets a strong hold on the shingles, and I lift under her arms to help her through the window.
“Come on.” I move us slowly down the slope of the roof, and Lacey grips my arm tight.
“Is now a good time to tell you I have an aversion to heights?” she says, and her laugh is a nervous sound. She stays stationary, and I move back to her side. “I’m not sure about this.”
“It’s a few steps to our left. I’m going to walk in front of you so if you fall, you land on me. I’ve done this a ton of times and you can trust me, Lacey girl. I’m never going to let anything hurt you. But if you want to stay right here, we can do that, too. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”
Lacey takes a deep breath. She wraps her arms around my bicep and gives me a feeble nod. “We can move. Just go slow. Please.”
“I promise.” I kiss the ridge of her knuckles and start toward the other side of the roof. “You let me know if I’m going too fast, okay?”
“Okay. This is—this is good so far.”
“Good. You’re doing great. We’re almost there, then we can sit down.”
Her grip on me eases up and her stride becomes surer, a confidence in her step. When we reach the other side of the roof, she lets out an exhale that could move mountains.
“I did it,” she says, and her teeth chatter. “Fuck, it’s cold.”
“I’m so proud of you.” I pull her into a sitting position and drape my arm over her shoulder. I wrap a blanket around us to create a cocoon, and she nestles into my side. “Better?”
“Much. What are we looking at? Your secret lair where you chop up bodies?”
I chuckle and point to the lake behind the house. The water is frozen and the moon reflects off the ice, making everything white and gray. I point to the stars next, the dozens of constellations in the night sky.
“This.”
“Wow,” she whispers, and I look down at her. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” I agree, but I’m busy studying every inch of her face. Her button nose. The slope of her jaw. The stars twinkling in her eyes. “It is.”
Lacey tips her chin up and brushes her lips against mine. It’s a soft kiss, tentative, but it’s enough to warm my insides. I cup her cheek and my thumb settles in the hollow of her throat. I can feel her heart beating under my touch, and it’s racing, just like mine.
“Shawn?”
“Hm?”
“I’m so glad I’m here with you.”
“Shucks, Lacey girl. I’m glad you’re here with me, too.”
My tongue sits heavy in my mouth, and I want to tell her more. Like how I want her here every Christmas for the rest of our lives. A tradition we’ll do until we’re old and gray and can’t use our legs.
She blinks up at me, and it hits me like a bolt of lightning.
It strikes my chest and zips through me like a live wire.
I’ve been electrocuted.
A single word echoes in my head like a drum, a beat I can’t ignore.
Love.
I’m falling in love with this woman.
I have been for some time, I think.
God, I’m a fucking idiot.
How could I be so stupid?
No wonder I can’t stay away from her.
No wonder I want to touch her every chance I get.
No wonder I’m happier when she’s around, like none of my problems exist.
No wonder there’s a sour taste in my mouth when I think about letting her go.
I’m fucking obsessed with her.
Laughter slips out of me, and my shoulders shake as I try to hold it together.
“What’s so funny?” she asks.
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You’re laughing like a hyena.”
“Is that what you think I sound like?”
“Well, you do. Your voice got all high and squeaky.” She side-eyes me, but she scoots closer, too. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I clutch her hand like it’s my lifeline. I trace over her knuckles. The space between her fingers and the back of her palm.
Mine, I think.
All mine.
Of all the people in the world, this is the one that stormed into my life.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m the luckiest fucking guy in the universe.
“I’m okay.” I drop a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m better than okay. I’m happy.”
“Me, too.” She’s quiet for a minute, and I wonder if she fell asleep. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course you can.”
“Could we—maybe next year, could we come back?” she asks, so soft I’m afraid it’s going to be snatched out of the air. “I’d like to be here with you again. This place is starting to feel like a safe space for me, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She pauses then adds, “but maybe that’s because I’m with you.”
I grin like an idiot.
My cheeks hurt from how hard I’m smiling. I pull her into my lap and bury my face in her hair. Even on top of me, she’s still too far away.
“We’ll come back, sweetheart. I promise.”
She tucks her chin into my chest and speaks right to my heart when she says, “I’d like that a lot.”
A cold and bitter wind rips through the air, but I don’t care. I’m in no rush to go inside. I could stay out here with her forever, nothing but the trees around us and the woman of dreams in my arms.
