Chapter 7
The sun streams into my window the next morning, and I pull the covers over my head. I don’t want to face this day. My boring day without any holiday to celebrate and no one to celebrate with.
Although I guess technically it’s the second day of Christmas, since Cal’s mom rightfully pointed out that there are twelve.
Ugh. Now the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song is stuck in my head, and the cheeriness is making me want to pull the covers around myself even harder.
“Two turtledoves” is today. I want to text Cal about why turtledoves have “turtle” in their name, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to.
I don’t know who Cal is to me now.
But that thought makes me sit up.
Because I realize . . . I do know.
He’s the guy who carries my snacks in his bag.
He’s the guy who loves being the unsung team player.
He’s the guy who fell in love with a girl at seven when she climbed a tree.
He’s the guy who lifts up a scrawny kid to make him feel tall.
He’s the guy who listens intently to a bored old lady’s story about her friend’s cousin.
He’s the guy who’d do anything to heal a wound. He’s the guy. He’s meant to be my guy.
And he’s not broken. He’s not half. I can’t stand that he thinks that about himself; it’s so wrong.
I have to tell him. Screw being responsible and not wanting to push. He pushes people around for a living! Surely he’d appreciate getting a push himself when he needs it.
I throw off the covers and grab my nearest pair of jeans. I bound down the stairs and fling open the door, ready to march over to Cal’s house and tell him to stop being so scared.
But when I step outside, he’s already in front of me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I, um . . .” He blushes and holds out a bouquet. But it’s unlike any bouquet I’ve ever seen.
“Is that . . . ?”
“It’s a cheese bouquet,” he says. I look closer.
Salami rolled to look like roses; blocks of cheese shaped like tulips; rosemary for greenery stems. It really is a goddamn cheese bouquet.
“Well,” he continues as I stare, “cheese and charcuterie, because they make pretty good-looking fake flowers. I saw it on Pinterest when I was looking for something for someone who loves cheese, and—”
“You made this?”
“Well, yeah.”
“For me?”
“No, I thought I’d go to Harris Teeter at seven in the morning to make a bouquet for one of your sisters. Think I have a chance?”
I lightly punch him in the arm, and he grins.
“You went to Harris Teeter first thing in the morning to source cheese to make something you saw on Pinterest?” I confirm.
“Well, the good cheese shop doesn’t open until eleven.”
“Goat. Sheep. Cow?”
“Yup.”
I wave the bouquet over, pulling his adorable cheese creation into my hands so I can stare at it.
“I was such an idiot for what I said the other night,” he sighs, and my gaze zings back to him in surprise. “I’m scared. And I don’t know how to do this. But I can’t let myself lose you just because of that. Every time I look at you . . . I feel like I can breathe again.”
My mouth falls open in shock.
“Un-unless . . .” he stammers. “Unless I’ve totally got this wrong and—” He reaches out to take back the bouquet.
“Absolutely not,” I say, pulling it back to my chest. “I can’t believe you made this for me.”
“It’s not a big deal—”
“No, it is a big deal,” I say forcefully. “And actually, I was bounding out of here to go tell you you were wrong, but you beat me to it.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, right now. Do I look like I got ready in any kind of measured way?”
He looks me up and down, that perfect grin of his expanding. “Not at all.”
“Well, exactly,” I huff, determined now to make sure he hears this part.
“I was coming over to tell you that you’re not half of anything.
In fact, I think watching you has made me realize .
. . Maybe if your heart breaks from that kind of love .
. . there’s even more space in the in-between.
You’ve expanded. You still carry all that love, and it’s just made you bigger.
A sock without its pair is still a sock. You can match it with another one.”
His eyes are on me like I’m the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen, but I can already spot the mischievous tilt to his smile. “Is your romantic gesture calling me a sock?”
“Cal!” I huff, trying not to crack up. “Come on! I didn’t make fun of your cheese bouquet that they’d probably use as the left image in a ‘Reality vs. Pinterest’ slideshow!”
His laugh booms, the most delectable sound I’ve ever heard. If this man isn’t whole, then no person on earth could possibly be.
But before I can succumb to laughing with him, he picks me up and kisses me.
And just like everything else with Cal, it’s completely enveloping.
His arms are around me so fully I’m a foot off the ground but with no fear of falling.
He kisses me like he’s never meant anything more seriously.
He kisses me like I’m the person who’s helped him breathe again.
When it’s over, he sets me back down in a daze. I’m so delightfully stunned I’m like a cartoon with stars circling my head.
“You know, I think I’m into this idea of twelve days of Christmas,” he says. “I’m probably going to need someone to help me get through that.”
“Aren’t we both going back to New York in like three days?”
“Yeah, I already made a reservation for next week at that Kit Roth restaurant I wanted to show you.”
“You were that sure I was going to say yes to your cheese bouquet?”
He gently pushes my hair behind my ear. “I figured with two holidays about miracles, I was bound to get one too.”