Chapter 28
Violet
The house is still and soft, the kind of Christmas-morning quiet that hums with expectation and possibility.
I wake to find myself alone. Not strange in the full context of my life, but in the last few weeks, I’m typically the one sneaking out of bed so as not to wake Simon.
Not the other way around. I throw on a robe and the fuzzy socks he left me on the porch and pad downstairs.
The tree throws little pools of gold across the floorboards; the garland on the mantle glitters where the first hint of dawn slips through the blinds. Coffee and the low murmur of voices whisper from the kitchen and I head that way.
Simon’s voice. Nash’s too, high and earnest in the way only six can be.
I stop at the doorway and lean against the trim, unseen.
Simon stands at the counter in the pajamas he unwrapped last night, bare feet on cold tile, hair a little wild.
He pours cocoa into a mug and crowns it with marshmallows like he’s performing a ceremony.
Nash wiggles excitedly in his chair, more awake than I’ve ever seen him in the early hours of the morning.
“Careful,” Simon says, easing the mug into small hands. “It’s hot.”
“I know.”
“Here’s the thing, Nash.” Simon lowers himself into a chair at the table. “Something I want you to remember when you’re grown.”
My nephew nods, bending down to blow on his cocoa. I listen, grinning softly, as Simon tries to talk about women like Nash is sixteen, not six. He wobbles, but recovers as best he can, then says,
“I want you to remember, when it’s right, you’ll feel it deep inside.
And whatever you do, don’t let the world tell you that other things—money, fame, success—matter more.
They don’t. The most important thing in life is right here.
” Simon taps Nash’s chest, over his heart.
“It’s being with people who love you, taking care of them and knowing you’re taken care of too. ”
I press my palm to the doorframe because something in me lurches at that, tears springing to my eyes as the conversation continues. I spent so long believing I was wrong to love Simon Holiday. Turns out, I just hadn’t reached the end of the story yet.
“Do you think Santa really came here before Minnesota?” Nash asks after a few quiet moments. “Because Dad says time zones are a real thing, but I think Santa has, like, a turbo mode.”
Simon smiles, that softer smile he saves for tender things. “I think Santa goes where he needs to go first.”
Nash considers this like a philosopher, then nods. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
I clear my throat, and both heads pop toward me. Nash beams.
“Aunt Vi!” He pushes back from the table, his cocoa sloshing over the rim as he plonks it down and rushes me. I kneel and brace for impact as he calls, “Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas, bud.” I kiss his temple and look up at Simon over Nash’s head. He’s watching me with that same soft smile.
“Good morning, you.” His voice is as tender and sweet as his words to my nephew.
When you find the right woman, you’ll know…
“Morning,’” I say, straightening. “I can’t believe you guys beat me awake. Especially Mr. Morning Hater over here.” I ruffle Nash’s head, and he ducks out of reach.
“There’s coffee.” Simon glances at my ancient machine with disdain. “If you can call it that.”
“It’s brown. It’s caffeinated. I think it’s safe to call it coffee.”
He pours me a mug and hands it to me as Nora and Robbie come downstairs. Nora greets us with a hearty, “Merry Christmas!” while Robbie grunts and makes a beeline for the coffee pot.
We move to the living room and someone turns on the TV fireplace. The air smells like pine and cinnamon, and somewhere beneath the Christmas music is the faintest thread of ocean from the bay.
We do stockings first.
Nash’s paper-ripping style could register on the Richter scale.
Bows fly. Tissue paper drifts like confetti.
He narrates every single item: “A yo-yo! A book about doctors! Dino socks! A tiny heart listener thing!” He pulls on the socks, then puts the stethoscope into his ears and evaluates Simon, who dies very dramatically only to be resurrected by a determined Nash.
From his parents, Nash gets a remote-control car that makes a sound I’m pretty sure the Geneva Conventions would frown upon; from me, a puzzle of the lighthouse and a hoodie from the bakery that says OFFICIAL CINNAMON ROLL TASTER.
He wears it immediately over his puppy pajamas and declares himself ready for duty.
Robbie salutes him. Nora cries laughing. It is ridiculously perfect.
While Nash drives the car up Robbie’s leg and into the side of the couch, Nora and I exchange our gifts.
I hand her the wrapped plaque I bought with Simon at the Christmas Market, my stomach doing an odd little twist. She peels back the paper and goes quiet, running her fingers over the letters like she’s praying with them.
When she looks up, her eyes are bright. “Vi…”
“When I saw it, I immediately thought of Mom. And you.”
She nods once, sharp, like yes. “It’s perfect. She would have loved it and I do too.”
We hug long and hard, twin heartbeats syncing in shared remembrance of our parents. Robbie clears his throat and pretends to dab at his eyes with a bow; Nora swats him and studies the plaque again, running her fingers along the words.
Then Simon stands and slides a big, wrapped box across the rug toward me with his toe, trying harder than he needs to look casual.
My name is written in his handwriting—so familiar it makes my chest ache.
Nash sits cross-legged to supervise. I tear paper.
Inside is an espresso machine so sleek it looks like it could file taxes and fly a plane.
My jaw drops. “Simon.”
“What?” He shrugs, hands stuffed in his pockets like a boy caught with a slingshot. “I can’t keep pretending brown water is coffee. I just can’t. Tomorrow we’ll go out and I’ll buy you some proper beans and your life will be changed from this point forward.”
Something tells me that’s true, though I doubt the espresso machine will have much to do with it.
“It’s not brown water,” I say, even as I laugh and examine the list of features on the side of the box.
“Okay, my turn,” I say quickly, then hand Simon a small box wrapped in craft paper and twine. “Open carefully.”
He does, like he always has, like paper is worth saving. Inside is a framed picture, the one from the ornament he had me hang on the tree all those weeks ago. We were young, happy, so deeply in love. His arm around my shoulder, me leaning in close, him pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
“You were right,” I say as he lifts it from the box. “It belonged in a place of honor.”
Simon’s eyes soften as he traces our smiling faces under the glass. “It’s perfect.”
“There’s something else.” I gesture toward the box. “It’s small and maybe silly but…”
He lifts the tissue paper and there’s the soft clunk of something hitting the cardboard. A smile lifts his lips as he reaches in and pulls out a key.
“I had to sneak down last night and rewrap the gift, but I kinda figured, why not just move you and your stuff in here? We’ve lived apart long enough.”
His smile deepens. “You sure?”
I nod. “Very.”
Nora and Robbie exchange one of those married glances and suddenly need to refill coffee and cocoa; Nash announces loudly that the remote-control car needs a pit stop “with marshmallows,” and takes his noise machine with him into the kitchen.
The room is temporarily quiet, except for the low hum of Christmas carols and the obliging pop of the TV fireplace.
Simon reaches behind the couch and pulls out a small, flat box wrapped in red paper with a gold ribbon. He holds it between us like a dare. His eyes are steady, even if his hands aren’t.
“You weren’t the only one sneaking around with last minute gift ideas,” he says. Those ocean eyes hit mine and I’m suddenly certain I’m about to get walloped… in the best possible way.
I carefully take it, peel back the ribbon, tear the paper, and lift the lid, then draw out a stack of legal pages.
For half a heartbeat, the room tilts as I take it in.
Clean letterhead, neat paragraphs, the cold language of “rights” and “assignments.” But every single line is split through with thick black ink.
Not a tidy strikethrough. An obliteration.
Whole sections X’d until the paper puckers.
My brows furrow. “What’s this?”
“Turn it over,” he says, voice low.
On the back page, his handwriting has taken over where the law gave up. It runs at a slant like he didn’t pause to make it pretty, like he needed to get it down before courage wavered.
New proposal: We do this together. Not a coffee shop for me and a bakery for you.
But our old dream come to life. Co-owners.
Co-dreamers. Co-everythings. I’ll handle the pieces I’m good at.
You do the things only you can do. We build a place that tastes like home and feels like Christmas in July and October and every Tuesday.
P.S. I ordered aprons. Yours says Boss Lady. Mine says Guy Who Listens to Boss Lady.
I half-laugh, half-sob. It’s the sound you make when something heavy gets lifted all at once and the air rushes back into your lungs.
“You’re sure?” I ask, though I can already feel the answer in the room, the way the morning steadies around us, the way the tree seems to lean in to hear him say it.
“Vi.” Simon moves closer, everything about him stripped down and honest. “I came here to take the thing we made and make it mine. That’s the truth, and I hate it.
But then I walked into your bakery and saw you, I remembered what the dream actually was.
Us. Together. Doing what we love with who we love in a town we love.
I want as much of that life as you’ll let me have. ”
The world goes very quiet. There is nothing in it but him and me and the sound of paper settling in my lap.
For one strange second I think of proofing dough—how you let it rest, how the waiting makes the miracle.
How you can’t force rise; you can only create warmth around it and trust what’s inside to do what it was made to do.
“Is this really happening?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“Just say the word.”
Nora and Robbie reappear with mugs they definitely didn’t need to refill, pretending they haven’t been loitering just out of sight. Nash barrels back in and crashes into the pile of wrapping paper with an excited whoop!
My mind presents a litany of what ifs followed by a thesis on what could go wrong. Instead of pushing them away and pretending everything’s fine, I look to Simon and tell him exactly how I’m feeling.
“I’m scared.”
“I’ve got you. I promise. After three years without you, I know exactly how special you are. I will do everything in my power to show you.” He drops a wink toward Nash who grins, while I push an imaginary pin into the air.
“Do you trust me?” he asks quietly and I nod, tears welling in my eyes.
“Yes,” I whisper, but mean it with my whole heart.
Simon closes his eyes for one heartbeat like that one word landed in a place he’s been protecting for years. When he opens them, those blue eyes are bright and wet. He pulls me in, careful and sure, while the tree lights splinter across his shoulder.
I set the contract on the coffee table and he takes my hand, our fingers threading, and squeezes once. “Merry Christmas, Violet.”
“Merry Christmas,” I whisper back, and I think of my parents leaning over the counter at Sterling’s, smiling at each other like life couldn’t get better because they shared everything together. I think of Simon and me in their place, laughing as the smell of cinnamon rolls mingles with coffee.
Paper rustles. The coffee machine hisses its approval from the kitchen.
The TV fireplace pops and Nash drives his car over his father’s shoulders.
Outside, the bay brightens, silver-blue under a winter sun.
Inside, my heart settles into the shape of home—the one I thought I’d lost and somehow found again, tied up with a ribbon and written, messily, in his hand.