EMBER
It’s late on Christmas Eve, and the apartment is quiet after having Christmas Eve dinner with Emmett, Jo, Collette, and Fish.
Cassidy is asleep down the hall, as are her parents in the guest bedroom, while Mom is staying with my brother.
I’m curled up in my flannel pajamas half-watching a Christmas movie when I hear a tentative knock n my door.
I know it’s him before he opens it. Sully. He pops his head through the doorway to see if I’m awake.
“Come in,” I whisper, because his parents are just there.
He walks in wearing his matching flannel pajamas that Cassidy and I decided to do, and he had no choice, with his hands behind his back and a look of pure mischief on his face.
“I’m glad you’re still up. I wanted to give you something without an audience,” he says.
I’m surprised. “I got you something too.”
His face lights up. “You did?”
I nod. “Yeah, it’s in my bag, let me get it.” I scurry out of bed, walk into my closet, and pull the package out of its hiding spot.
“Should we swap at the same time?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Okay, 1… 2 … 3…”
He hands me mine, I hand him his, and we open them at the same time.
Mine is a set of drawing pencils. Not just any set, it’s the ones that my favorite interior designer uses to sketch things out.
It’s in a beautiful wooden case and tucked in with them is a small spiral sketchbook.
I open it, and the first page isn’t blank.
It’s a photocopy of a drawing. I stare at it for a moment as tears well in my eyes.
I must have been thirteen when I drew it, it was the first house I ever drew.
“How?”
“I found it years ago in my childhood box of things. I only found it again when I moved into this apartment. I remember how proud you were when you told Cassidy about your idea and describing the rooms you drew. It lit up something in Cass and you two spent hours then talking about design as you moved on to more ideas.”
I can’t speak, my throat has completely closed over. I stand there holding a set of pencils and a photocopy of my dream, and I understand, all at once, that this man has been paying attention to me for my entire life. I try to stop the tears from falling.
“Open yours,” I manage with a sniffle.
He looks down and opens the box. And goes completely still.
It’s a card and puck signed by the man he idolized as a kid. The one whose poster was on his childhood wall, who he talked about like a god when we were young. A signed rookie card, mint, the real thing, and a championship puck.
“Ember.” His voice is strange. “This is … do you know what this is?”
“I know exactly what it is.”
“Where did you even …” He looks up at me, stunned. “These don’t just … Em, this is worth …”
“It was Kevin’s.”
He blinks. “What?”
“It was in Kevin’s collection, which I found at the back of the closet in a box.
I gave it to him one Christmas for his stupid man cave he was building.
He doesn’t even like hockey and never put it in the room.
So I thought, fuck him, he didn’t deserve it, and I knew someone who would appreciate it.
I remembered you had that guy’s poster on your wall when we were kids.
You told me once you’d have given anything to have his rookie card.
” I lift a shoulder. “So, I may have committed a small crime.”
Sully stares at me, and then he starts to laugh, this low, disbelieving, delighted laugh.
“You stole it.’
“I liberated it.”
“You stole your ex-husband’s hockey card to give to me.”
“That sounds horrible when you put it like that.” I wince.
He walks over and cups my face. “I fucking love it.”
“Really? I feel bad because I feel like I’ve given you a second-hand present, but …”
“Come here,” he commands.
And I do.
He sets the present down very carefully on the dresser, and then takes my face in both his hands again and kisses me, slow, deep, and it undoes me completely.
“Thank you,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Nobody’s ever … just … thank you.”
“Merry Christmas,” I whisper.
He walks me backward toward the bed, his mouth never leaving mine.
He lays me down like I’m something precious and follows me onto the mattress.
His hands move slowly, pushing the pajama top up and over my head, kissing every new inch of skin he uncovers.
When the fabric is gone, he sits back on his heels and just looks at me for a long moment, eyes dark and soft all at once.
“You’re so freakin’ beautiful,” he murmurs, almost to himself.
Then he leans down and takes his time. Mouth on my throat, my collarbone, the curve of my breast. He lingers everywhere, tasting, learning, making me restless under him.
When he finally settles between my thighs and puts his mouth on me, it’s unhurried and thorough, like he’s got nowhere else in the world to be.
I come with my fingers in his hair and his name soft on my lips.
He moves up my body, kissing me deeply so I taste myself on his tongue, and sinks into me in one long, slow thrust. We both go still for a second, forehead to forehead, just breathing.
Then he starts to move, deep, steady strokes that make the bed move, and my breath catch.
No dirty talk, just the quiet sounds of us and the city lights painting patterns across the ceiling.
When I come again it’s with my legs wrapped around him and my face buried in his neck.
He follows a few moments later, burying himself deep and holding me tight as he falls apart.
Afterward, he stays inside me, still half-hard, and rolls us so I’m draped across his chest. His fingers trace lazy circles on my bare back.
“Merry Christmas, Em.”
“Merry Christmas, Connor.”
Christmas lunch is chaos in the best way.
We all descend on The Rose by midday, and the private dining room has been transformed into a vintage Christmas spectacular, with garlands and candles and a tree in the corner taller than Emmett.
It isn’t just our families around the long table, everyone is here, Harper’s family, her brother Sam, Kimberly, Camryn, and Nate.
Of course, little Bastien is being held by Felix, and his mother is there, too.
She’s come down from Quebec. There’s Issy, her two sisters, and Pierre, who hovers around her thanks to her ever-expanding bump.
Fish, his mom, sister, and nephew. Unfortunately, his brother-in-law has been deployed again.
And I can’t forget the boys, Bouch, Evan, and Nelly, who brought his family from Sweden.
And here I thought my Christmases would be lonely with just Mom and me.
I look around the room and see so much love and happiness.
Mom and Cassidy’s mom are already two mimosas deep and cackling about something.
Our dads are arguing amiably about the game on the muted TV.
Emmett has Jo tucked under his arm and a light-up Santa hat sits crooked on his head.
Sully catches my eye across the table. He’s wearing a pair of felt reindeer antlers that Cassidy jammed on his head to get into the spirit.
Those blue eyes do things to my body, as does that mouth.
I have to look away before someone catches me staring.
The food comes out in waves, more than any of us could ever eat, and there’s a moment when the whole room quiets just enough for Harper to stand at the head of the table, her glass raised, and Bastien on her hip.
“I’m not going to make a speech,” she says, which gets a laugh, because she always makes a speech.
“Okay, a small one. Look at this room.” She sweeps her glass across the table, at her parents, at Sam, at the boys, at the whole ridiculous crowd of us.
“I grew up lucky, I know I did. But this? Everyone I love crammed into one room being loud and impossible together? This is the best thing we’ve ever built.
So, thank you, all of you. For being here … Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas,” we all echo.
And I couldn’t be happier to be here, amongst all this loud craziness of the Mavericks.