Chapter 7
Graeme
Rudy sat on the low stool near the front counter, carefully unwinding a length of silver ribbon that had gotten itself into a knot. He worked with quiet focus, tongue caught between his teeth for a second when the ribbon snagged.
A few hours ago, he hadn’t just told me things. He’d trusted me with the parts of himself that taught a person how to break if handled carelessly.
Knowing that shifted something I hadn’t been planning to move.
It wasn’t responsibility—I was used to that. It was the quiet awareness that if I stepped wrong now, I wouldn’t just disappoint him. I could reinforce every lesson he’d learned about being too much, about softness being conditional.
But what unsettled me was the quieter realization beneath it: that being that man for Rudy would not stay neutral for me.
I could already feel the edge of it—the way my attention sharpened when he was near, the way my instincts leaned toward him without permission.
I’d learned that offering care came with consequences. It created attachment. And attachment made you vulnerable to wanting more than the other person might ever be able to give.
And Rudy wasn’t staying. Two weeks. A pause, not a beginning. I’d learned the hard way what happened when you built emotional scaffolding for someone who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—remain.
I checked the clock above the door. A little past nine. Volunteers would start wandering in soon, cheeks red from the cold, arms full of boxes and tins and decorations they insisted on “adding to the chaos.”
“Almost done with that one?” I asked, nodding toward the ribbon.
He glanced up, that small, shy smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah. It tried to fight me, but I won.”
“Good. I don’t let just anyone wrestle my ribbon.”
His smile turned into a quiet up-curve, there and gone. It did more to my chest than it had any right to.
I moved toward the front door, checking that the walkway I’d shoveled earlier hadn’t vanished under fresh snow. Outside, Main Street had softened into something almost unreal—lamp posts haloed in gold, snow drifting in lazy spirals, the whole street wrapped in light and white.
Rudy glanced around the shop, eyes tracing the half-opened ornament boxes, the stacked garlands, the old bins with handwritten labels.
“Do you… always do this?” he asked. “The decorating night, I mean?”
Something in his voice tugged at me—curiosity, yes, but also that flicker I’d seen before, the one that said he didn’t come from places where people gathered just because someone shouldn’t be alone.
My hand stilled on the ribbon I was straightening. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “Every year.” I felt the memory settle over me, warm and sharp all at once. “Started twenty years ago.”
He looked at me, waiting in that way only someone who’s never had a tradition to stand inside knows how to wait. I exhaled, slow.
“It was the year I reopened the greenhouse,” I said.
“I’d been working on it for months. Just me, a toolbox, and the ghosts I kept trying to outrun.
” The old ache flickered in my chest, not painful now, just part of the landscape.
“Winterhaven watched. Didn’t say much. They have this uncanny ability to give you the space you need when you need it. ”
I ran my thumb along the edge of a wooden shelf, remembering the dust, the cold, the long days where the quiet felt too loud. “The weekend before opening, I’d planned to decorate alone. Didn’t think anyone would care either way.”
A soft huff of disbelief left me at the younger version of myself who thought surviving meant doing everything by himself. “But around midnight, I heard footsteps. Thought it was a raccoon.” My mouth curved. “It wasn’t.”
Rudy leaned in a little, barely noticeable unless you were watching him closely—which I was.
“Half the town showed up,” I said. “Kids in pajamas. Their parents with boxes of used ornaments. Someone brought cocoa. Someone else brought gingerbread. They just… walked right in.” My voice dropped. “And one of the older ladies said, ‘No one decorates alone in Winterhaven.’”
The words still lived in me, steady as breath.
Rudy’s gaze softened, and the expression on his face—awe, longing, something bruised around the edges—hit me harder than I expected.
“It became a tradition after that,” I said. “Second Saturday of December. We close at nine, people wander in around then. They add their own ornaments, fix what needs fixing, make the place feel like Christmas again.” I shrugged lightly. “It’s not a fancy event. Just… community.”
He didn’t answer right away, and in that pause, I could see it—the contrast. My life: rooted, held, surrounded by people who showed up without being asked. His life: foster homes, empty spaces, loss stitched into every chapter.
“That sounds… incredible.” His voice was quiet and careful, like he was afraid to disturb something delicate.
“Yeah,” I said, meeting his eyes. For some reason, the air between us felt warmer. “It is.”
I let my hand brush his sleeve—light, grounding. “You don’t need an invitation to be part of it tonight, Rudy. If you’re here… you’re part of it.”
I watched his throat work around a swallow, watched the way his fingers brushed the hem of his sweater—soft, absent, almost childlike.
Belonging meant something different to him. I was starting to understand just how much.
Before I could say anything else, the bell over the door chimed.
Holly & Pine filled in the way it always did on decorating night—gradually, warmly, like the building itself was waking up.
The old greenhouse windows caught the light and scattered it across the wooden floor.
Snow tapped softly against the glass while voices layered over one another, familiar and easy.
I was used to this rhythm. The town showed up. Boxes appeared. Chaos followed. Then, somehow, it always turned into something beautiful.
What I wasn’t used to was how aware I was of Rudy.
He stood near the front counter at first, unspooling a length of silver ribbon that had knotted itself into a stubborn mess. Mae paused on her way past, gave him a smile, and said, “You’re good with your hands. Want help, or are you winning?”
“I think I’m winning,” Rudy said, and there was a hint of pride in it.
She laughed and moved on.
That mattered more than he probably realized.
People didn’t orbit him like he was breakable.
They spoke to him the way they spoke to anyone else—quick comments, light jokes, passing warmth.
Rosa brushed past with a tray of gingerbread and nudged one toward him without ceremony.
The Fitzgerald twins argued loudly over where the wreath should go and recruited Rudy as the tie-breaker.
He listened, actually listened, then pointed and said, “There. It balances the window.”
They accepted the verdict like it was law.
He smiled at that.
I kept my distance at first, watching the way he moved through the room—quiet, attentive, clearly taking more in than he let on, but not folding in on himself.
This wasn’t the square, with its noise and sudden press.
This was contained. Predictable. People came in, did their part, and drifted back out again.
Still, I saw the moment the evening caught up with him.
It wasn’t panic or fear that slowed him. It was accumulation.
Rudy had been useful all night—sorting boxes as they came in, carrying garlands from the back, holding ladders steady while other people climbed.
He moved with quiet efficiency, checking labels, asking once where things went and remembering the answer.
It wasn’t small work. It was the kind of background labor that kept the night running.
At some point, he leaned his hip against the counter and paused, eyes tracking the room like he was taking inventory instead of resting.
I stepped closer. “You okay?”
He looked at me, then nodded, a reflex more than an answer. A second later, he corrected it. “Yeah. Just… slowing down.”
That mattered.
“You can call it,” I said. “We’re about done.”
He glanced around—at the wreaths hung straight, the bins stacked empty, Mae laughing near the door as she tugged on her gloves. Then he nodded again, this one more deliberate.
“Okay.”
The volunteers filtered out in pairs, leaving behind warmth. When the door finally shut and the shop settled into quiet, Rudy let out a breath that sounded like relief more than exhaustion.
“You want company on the way back?” I asked.
He hesitated—just long enough that I could see the old instinct to minimize himself rise and fall.
“Yes,” he said, meeting my eyes this time. “I’d like that. If you don’t mind.”
Something warm settled in my chest at the sound of it.
“I don’t mind,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We stepped outside together.
The walk to the Hearthstone was short, but it didn’t feel rushed. Snow muffled the street, and our boots fell into an easy rhythm. I debated, for half a block longer than necessary, whether to put an arm around his shoulders.
I didn’t.
Instead, I stayed close enough that he could lean if he wanted to.
Halfway there, he said quietly, “Tonight was… good.”
“It was,” I agreed.
He nodded, eyes forward, hands tucked into his coat sleeves. “I didn’t feel in the way.”
That was the only thing he said, and it told me more than anything else he could have offered.
At the inn steps, he turned toward me. His lashes were heavy, his shoulders slack with the kind of tired that comes after you stop holding yourself together.
“Thanks,” he said. “For… all of it.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Goodnight, Rudy.”
He nodded, already half turned toward the door.
“…’Night, Daddy.”
The word landed between us, soft and unmistakable.
He froze.
Color rushed into his face as he looked back at me, startled, like he’d only just realized what he’d said.
I didn’t tease. I didn’t pretend I hadn’t heard it. I stepped closer and rested my hand briefly at the back of his neck—steady, grounding.
“Sleep well, sweetheart,” I said.
His shoulders dropped in a long breath.
Then he went inside.
I stood there for a moment longer, watching the light shift behind the window, aware of the quiet truth settling into me.
I had learned, a long time ago, that offering care came with consequences. It invited closeness. Attachment. Feelings you couldn’t neatly box away when the moment passed.
Rudy was only here for two weeks.
And already, I knew this would cost me something.