Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
BELL
The hum of the fridge greeted me as I padded barefoot into the kitchen, the cold tile sending a small shiver up my spine. December in Austin wasn’t exactly freezing—especially compared to Maine—but a chill had definitely settled into the house while we’d been away.
I grabbed my old Thackeray sweatshirt from the hook by the back door, pulling it over my head before rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hand and yawning.
A week. That was how long it had been since he’d come crawling into my bedroom in the middle of the night, since I’d made him beg, since I’d fucked him like I was trying to fuck away my own hurt. A week of cautious glances and careful touches and trying to find our way back to what we had before.
I pulled the fridge door open and rooted around inside, looking for something to make for breakfast. Unfortunately, after several days on the road, all we had was an empty egg carton, half a bag of shredded parmesan cheese, and a lonely avocado that was sunken in on itself on one side.
“So omelettes are out,” I muttered.
We’d gotten in late last night from Vegas after an away game that had left the team buzzing from our win. On the drive home from the airport, Ethan had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, the sound of his soft snores filling the cabin. I’d walked us inside and stripped him down to his boxers like the doting boyfriend I was before crawling into bed beside him. He was still asleep now.
I reached for my phone, tapping open my favorite music streaming service and scrolling to the holiday playlist I’d been listening to all week. The soft sounds of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” flowed from the Bluetooth speaker on the counter, just loud enough to hum along to. When I glanced up at my reflection in the window, I caught myself smiling like an idiot.
I filled the kettle and pulled down the beans Ethan had picked up from the local roaster he liked, wincing at how loud the grinder sounded. The rich, nutty aroma began filling the kitchen as I poured the water in circles over the grounds, watching them bloom just the way he had shown me.
Before moving in with him, I’d never bothered with real, artisanal coffee—just grabbed whatever was available at the student union or from the coffee cart outside my PoliSci seminar. But here I was, carefully counting the seconds as I poured because I knew he liked his coffee strong but not bitter.
Maybe this was what peace felt like. Being in someone’s house and calling it home.
Or was this the calm before the storm?
I’d just finished adding a splash of cream to my mug when I heard the soft padding of feet behind me.
“Morning,” came his sleep-rough voice.
I spun to see Ethan leaning in the doorway, wearing old flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt that clung to his chest in all the right ways. His hair was sticking up in every direction, and there was a pillow crease marking his cheek.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” I said, unable to keep the warmth from my voice despite my lingering doubts.
He shuffled toward me, and pressed his forehead against my shoulder. “You made coffee.”
“Well, I attempted to,” I said, reaching back to run my fingers through his messy hair. “No food, though. We’re going to have to go shopping unless you want to try an avocado and parmesan smoothie.”
He made a disgusted noise against my shoulder that turned into a laugh.
The sound unwound something tight in my chest, a knot I’d been carrying for days.
I shifted to face him, my heart doing that stupid flutter it always did when he looked at me with sleep-soft eyes. Sometimes I wondered if it would ever stop—this low-grade ache that formed every time he gazed at me like I was his favorite person in the world. Like he didn’t quite believe I was real.
Swallowing around my emotions, I held a mug out to him. “I think I got it right.”
He accepted the coffee with both hands, like it was something precious.“You’re a lifesaver,” he murmured, inhaling deeply before taking a sip. His eyes closed briefly in appreciation. “Mmm, perfect.”
“Given what’s going on in there—“ I lifted my mug to gesture toward the fridge and the sorry state of our provisions, “I fear we’re going to have to go shopping.”
I let the invitation hang between us, a small test I didn’t want to admit that I was giving.
It’d been a week since our fight and the rough makeup afterward. A week of sleeping together every night in the same bed, of driving to the arena in the same vehicle when we used to take separate cars, and a week of my toothbrush sitting on the bathroom counter next to his.
But it had also been a week of me waiting for him to bolt again. Of watching him flinch anytime a teammate mentioned the social media series or I stood too close to him.
Some foolish part of me insisted on keeping a tally of every time he said yes to things like this, like I was quietly adding up proof that I mattered to him. That this was a relationship, and not just fucking on the down low.
“We should probably shower first.” The look he gave me over the rim of his mug suggested that it might take longer than expected.
I didn’t fully trust the heat in his eyes, not yet. Sex had never been our problem. It was everything outside the bedroom that tripped us up.
Still, when he looked at me like that, it was impossible to say no.
* * *
By the time we left the house, it was creeping toward noon, the December sun warm against my skin as we strolled toward the co-op half a mile away. His fingers brushed against mine, just once, as we rounded the corner.
I didn’t reach for his hand. Didn’t let myself do more than smile and enjoy the moment for what it was. A quiet offering. A reminder that this— us —meant something to him, even if he still couldn’t show it when other people might be watching.
The co-op was small but well laid out, the air scented with freshly baked sourdough and prepared vegetarian entrees enveloping us as we stepped through the door. Hand-written chalk signs hung above displays of winter produce, and holiday garlands draped across the rafters, casting dappled shadows on the polished concrete floor. It was the kind of place where white people with dreadlocks and face tattoos stocked up on things like spelt berries, einkorn flour, and every kind of bean known to man.
“Keep Austin Weird” wasn’t just a saying for the people here; it was a manifesto, and I fucking loved this place.
The store wasn’t crowded—just a few shoppers quietly browsing, Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” through hidden speakers. Still, I caught the exact moment Ethan’s demeanor shifted. His shoulders inched upward, his spine straightening as though someone had yanked on an invisible string. The soft expression he’d worn all morning at home morphed into something carefully neutral, his eyes darting around the space, taking inventory of witnesses, before settling guiltily back on me.
I felt myself moving in response, putting an “appropriate” distance between us.
“Okay,” I said, pushing my disappointment down as I pulled out my phone to check the list I’d made. “We need eggs, obviously. Bread. And real fruit, not just those fruit-flavored sports drinks you’re obsessed with.”
“Those drinks contain electrolytes,” he countered, his fingers hovering over a few different different bread options before selecting a dark brown loaf, weighing it in his palm before placing it into the cart with precision rather than tossing it in the way I would have. A careful man, even in the smallest gestures.
I bumped my shoulder gently into his. “Rye? Seriously?"
“It’s rich in nutrients and has a low glycemic index,” he said, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
His eyes flicked past me to scan the shelves for his favorite nut butter, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward, betraying the amusement he wouldn’t fully express outside of his house.
“You’re worse than my grandpa,” I said, my tone laced with fondness.
My parents might be assholes, but my mom’s dad Jerry was my best friend. Well, he would have been if a guy could be best friends with an octogenarian who only sometimes remembered you.
“Not all of us can eat like a frat bro and expect to stay in shape,” he chirped, his eyes darting to an older woman dressed in a kaftan standing at the end of the aisle. Seeing that she was absorbed in reading the ingredients listed on a cardboard box, he linked our pinkies together. “I have to watch my nutrition carefully.”
The gesture surprised me, small as it was. A week ago, he would have never risked even minimal contact in public.
Leaning close, he added, “After all, I’m dating a much younger man. I need to be able to keep up my stamina.”
His finger unhooked from around mine, but I just smiled and savored the moment of teasing, quiet intimacy.
Next, we picked up a block of sharp cheddar cheese from Vermont and a bag of onions before looping around to the back of the store, where a cute holiday display had been erected near the dairy section. It had mistletoe hanging over a rack of candy canes and chocolate Santa Clauses. Ethan grabbed a quart of A2 milk out of the fridge and took the long way around the display to avoid getting near it.
I followed along behind him, my lips betraying me with a slow smile over how he’d studiously he’d avoided the mistletoe.
When I caught up to him in the meat aisle, it was to the sound of him humming along to the Christmas music playing over the store’s speakers.
“I didn’t know you were a fan of Brenda Lee,” I observed, fighting a grin.
“I plead the fifth.”
“Uh-huh.”
His mouth twitched at the corner, and I felt it again—that flutter, that stupid warmth that settled in my chest whenever he let me see the softness he kept hidden from everyone else.
“Have you ever had a Christmas tree?” I asked suddenly, the words tumbling out before I even knew what I was saying. The mistletoe display had triggered something, a vision of Ethan sitting on his floor opening presents on Christmas morning. “Here in Austin, I mean.”
He blinked, his movements stilling for a fraction of a second. His brow furrowed slightly, as though I’d asked something far more complicated than a simple question about holiday décor. “Like … a real one?”
“Yeah,” I said, watching his face closely. “Pine needles everywhere, makes-your-house-smell-like-a-forest real.”
He shrugged, but the gesture reminded me of the type of dismissal he employed when we’d first met. He busied himself with adjusting the carton of eggs in the cart to make room for the two ribeyes he’d selected, a classic Ethan stalling tactic I recognized too well.
“Not really,” he said, his voice deliberately even. “What would be the point?”
I stared at him, catching the slight flush at the base of his throat that told me there was more to his dismissal.
“Um, the point is celebrating Christmas.” I kept my voice light, but leaned closer, mindful of the elderly man now browsing jars of pasta sauce a few feet away.
Ethan’s face screwed up in confusion, like he understood that I was speaking words he should recognize but couldn’t parse them together.
A woman with a toddler on her hip passed by, and I noticed how Ethan shifted his stance, angling slightly away from me.
The shift wasn’t as subtle as he probably thought it was. It stung, reminding me that for all his promises, he still wasn’t comfortable even being seen out in public with me. He was still a man divided—one person at home, another in public.
I wanted a future where he wouldn’t have to calculate every movement, every glance between us. Where grocery shopping wouldn’t require strategic planning worthy of a CIA mission.
But for now, I told myself I could trust that we were building toward something stronger.
And maybe, just maybe, I could give him this one thing—permission to enjoy something he clearly wanted.
“Ethan, you love Christmas.” While he’d never said as much, all the evidence was there … if you knew where to look.
And since I’d made a habit of studying everything about this man, I couldn’t miss it.
“No I don’t,” he replied, the words coming too quickly, his knuckles whitening slightly where they gripped the cart handle. His eyes darted to the end cap where boxes of holiday-themed beer were stacked in a vaguely Christmas-tree-shaped triangle, strings of multicolored lights draped across it blinking cheerfully.
“You do .” I tugged the cart forward, guiding us toward a less populated aisle. “You hum along to the music without even realizing it, and you bought holiday-scented fire starters when you don’t even use the fireplace.”
“I like the smell,” he argued, though his tone wasn’t as firm as it could be.
He reached for a package of bacon, examining the label with unnecessary concentration.
“Ethan,” I said, my voice softening as I risked brushing my fingers against his wrist, “you got misty-eyed when I made you watch Love Actually after we beat Jersey on Thanksgiving.”
He groaned, quickly dropping the bacon into our cart. “You swore you wouldn’t bring that up.” Despite his protest, the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “We should get a tree.”
He froze for a second, his breathing visibly paused. “You want to?”
There was something vulnerable in his question that made my chest tighten. Like he’d been wanting the same thing but hadn’t dared to ask. Like Christmas was something he’d denied himself for reasons I couldn’t begin to understand.
“Yes,” I nodded, maintaining eye contact. “I want us to get the biggest, most ridiculous tree we can find. I want to haul it home and argue over whether we do white lights or multi-colored ones, and I want to find one of those terrible ornaments with two snowmen kissing and write our names on it in Sharpie.”
Ethan stared at me for a beat, his expression caught between amusement and something deeper, something that looked almost like longing. “That’s wildly specific.”
“It is.” I grinned, not backing down, even as I wondered if I was setting myself up for disappointment. Building something together, creating shared traditions—these were things couples did. Real couples, not whatever ambiguous arrangement we currently had.
He looked away, but the color rising in his cheeks betrayed him. A holiday jingle played faintly over the store speakers, and I watched him unconsciously tap his finger against the cart handle in rhythm. “Fine,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft. “We’ll get a tree.”
“Yeah?” I asked, trying not to sound too excited or hopeful, though I couldn't stop the smile spreading across my face.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice soft now. His eyes met mine briefly before he pushed the cart forward, adding in a tone so low I almost missed it, “You wanna go tonight?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Because despite all my reservations, despite the voice in my head warning me to protect my heart, I wanted this. Wanted to build a life with him, even if I was still afraid it might all come crashing down.
One Christmas tree wasn’t going to fix everything between us. I knew that. But maybe it was a start.