Chapter 49 Maeve
MAEVE
I was bone tired when I finally got home from work the night after the dance.
Remy and I had been out late the night before and the store was packed with shoppers trying to finish their holiday shopping.
I’d been on my feet for eight hours straight, pulling clothes from the floor and ringing up purchases, and I was ready for a hot bath and bed.
I was on my way to the door when the yellow dog trotted over to greet me.
I dropped my bag and crouched to pet his thick neck. “Hi there, boy. You okay?”
He whined in answer, shoving his head into me as he absorbed my affection.
Worry nagged at my stomach. It was cold enough that my breath fogged the air. The dog shouldn’t be outside.
“Are you hungry? Let me get you some food.”
I picked up my bag and he followed me to the door. Inside, I filled his food bowl with kibble and brought it outside with the second bowl and the bottle of water.
This time I set everything down by the door, hoping the building would give him a little shelter from the cold.
He went straight for the food, devouring it in less than two minutes before lapping at his water bowl. Then he came over to me again, rubbing against my leg.
“You’re a good boy,” I said. “You know what? I have an idea. Wait here.”
I opened the door and reached inside, then grabbed my nice coat from the hook where I’d hung it after the dance. I didn’t wear it that often anyway.
I brought it outside and lay it on the concrete ledge that had once acted as a loading dock for the old factory building. It led to the door of the loft, and the building’s brick facade definitely cut some of the chill.
I turned the coat into a little nest and patted the wool. “Come here, boy. This will help you stay warm.”
He hesitated, then walked over, sniffed the coat, and lay down in its folds.
“Good boy.” I stroked his head and thought about June. She’d been such a sucker for dogs. I’d always thought I was more of a cat person, but the yellow dog was starting to change my mind. “Stay as long as you like.”
I straightened and made my way inside, hoping the dog would be okay. Maybe I could take him with me when I went back to the apartment to live with Bailey.
The thought made my chest feel heavy, not because I didn’t love Bailey and not because I wouldn’t have loved to keep the yellow dog, but because it would mean leaving the Butchers.
I remembered the way Remy had looked up at me in the car the night before, the words that had been on his lips.
Leaving them felt almost as impossible as staying.
I hung my jacket by the door and started up the stairs. The loft looked dark and I wondered if the Butchers were in their rooms, but when I got to the top of the staircase I saw that the living room wasn’t dark after all. It was lit by soft gold light.
From a Christmas tree.
And not just a Christmas tree, but the biggest Christmas tree I’d ever seen indoors.
It took up most of the space in front of the loft’s huge windows, barely clearing the ceiling. And the tree wasn’t alone: it was surrounded by shopping bags, more than I could count, all of them overflowing with what looked like Christmas tree decorations.
I’m pretty sure my mouth hung open as I stared, my brain spinning.
Then Bram stepped around the tree, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, his feet bare. He looked almost embarrassed, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Oh, you’re home.”
“I’m home?” I looked around the darkened living room for Remy or Poe, but they were nowhere to be found. “What is this?”
“It’s a Christmas tree.”
I walked toward the tree, mesmerized by the shimmering light in the dark room, Main Street lit beyond the windows.
“Yeah, I kind of got that part, but where did it come from?”
“I cut it down.” He hesitated. “For you.”
I turned to look at him and for a split second, I saw him as he must been as a little boy, before he’d lost his parents and his innocence. “You… cut it down. For me.”
“Would you prefer one from one of those tree lots? Because I can…” He looked around, like he was ready to dispose of the tree then and there if I asked.
“No!” I took a deep breath. “It’s… it’s gorgeous. I just… I’m just surprised.”
“Good surprised or bad surprised?”
“Definitely good.” I reached out and touched one of the tree’s branches, still supple and soft. “I just can’t believe you’d do this for me.”
“We should have done it a long time ago,” he said. “You deserve a Christmas tree.”
My throat was doing this funny thing where it closed up, like I was going to cry, so I turned my attention to the bags cluttering the living room floor. “What is all of this?”
“Decorations,” he waved his hands around in a very un-Bram-like show of excitement. “I didn’t know what you liked so I got some of everything.”
“I…can see that. Did you save anything for anyone else?”
It looked like he’d bought up several stores’ worth of inventory.
“I’m not sure, but Cassie said the lights were the hardest thing about putting up a tree, so I did that part,” he said. “I can decorate it too, if you want, but Cassie said that part was fun and you might want to help.”
I was having a hard time not smiling. “You asked your sister about this?”
“I wasn’t going to ask Poe and Remy. They’d probably sabotage me for shits and giggles.”
“We wouldn’t have sabotaged you.” Remy entered the room from the hallway, came closer to investigate the tree, and stumbled over the cord to the Christmas lights.
“Watch out, dickhead.” Bram reached out to stabilize the tree as it wobbled. “You almost knocked over Maeve’s tree.”
“We might have sabotaged you.” Poe walked into the room and slung an arm over my shoulders. “What do you think, little bird? This tree big enough for you?”
I laughed. “I think it’ll do.”
I looked at Bram, fiddling with one of the strings of light, tucking it farther back into the branches so the cord wouldn’t show, and felt like my heart was going to explode. He still hadn’t said he was sorry, but as apologies went, this one was pretty epic.
“We don’t have to decorate it tonight,” Bram said. “You’re probably tired from your shift.”
“Not on your life. I’ll get the hot cocoa, you find a Christmas playlist.”
All of my earlier fatigue had disappeared, and suddenly there was nothing I wanted more than to decorate this ridiculous big ass tree with the Blackwell Butchers.