35. Ozzy
Ozzy
“ Y OU CHEATER! HOW COULD YOU!” I bellow across the living room, betrayal practically oozing from my voice.
Jackson doesn’t even flinch. He just blinks once, the corner of his mouth twitching with the smallest hint of a smile. “She’s my sister,” he deadpans, nodding toward Theo. “You’re with Jensen. Carter’s with Wyatt and Mama. I told you this already.”
“You told me,” I repeat with a hiss, sitting beside a stone-faced Jensen, who’s currently acting like my mere presence is offensive. “You said we’d be partners. You lied.”
“Technically,” he says, loading candy canes onto a tray, “you pouted, I folded, and then Mama told us all what to do.”
I narrow my eyes at him and then glance at the mess of bowls, sprinkles, gumdrops, icing tubes, and pre-cut gingerbread walls spread across the kitchen table. “He’s not going to help,” I grumble under my breath, gesturing at Jensen, who hasn’t moved a muscle since I sat down.
Jensen crosses his arms. “You were supposed to sabotage Niamh’s relationship. Instead, you became her drinking buddy.”
“She’s dating a chiropractor, Jensen. He’s literally healing spines and paying her compliments. You want me to what, slash his tires?”
“Maybe,” he mutters.
Dorothy, ever the mother even in grief, whacks him on the arm with a candy cane. “You will perk up, son. This one’s for your daddy.”
The room goes quiet. Just like that, the energy drains. Jensen shifts forward, picking up a wall piece, but his movements are slow. His lips press together like he’s biting back more than just words.
I glance at the table, then to the window.
The one that framed Morris’s bed in those final weeks.
His blankets are gone now. The hum of oxygen no longer fills the background.
But I can still feel him there—see the ghost of his grin as he’d razz me for “making that gingerbread man look like he’d survived a bear attack. ”
He was always laughing at me, not in a cruel way—just amused. And God, I miss it. I miss him.
I stare at the empty spot by the window until the sting in my chest spreads like frostbite. My hands clench in my lap. I thought I’d be ready for this. I thought the holidays might feel lighter by now, softened by time or warmth or routine. But they don’t. They just feel hollow where he used to be.
He gave me more than just a place to stay.
He gave me a home.
A family.
He gave me love.
And now, he’s not here to see what he helped grow.
He’s not here to see Wyatt get icing in his hair or to roll his eyes when Dorothy starts singing Christmas carols off-key while sipping her rum-laced eggnog.
He’s not here to see Jackson reach for my hand beneath the table or to tell me he’s proud of how far I’ve come.
I never got to tell him thank you. For the late-night talks. For the quiet jokes. For the moments he treated me like a daughter when I didn’t even know how to be one.
A tear slips down my cheek before I can stop it.
Across the table, Jackson’s gaze meets mine.
His eyes are glassy too, and for a second, it feels like time freezes.
All around us, the others are still. Wyatt has a gumdrop in his hand, staring at nothing.
Dorothy’s shoulders have slumped. Theo’s not making sarcastic remarks for once. Even Carter looks unusually solemn.
None of us are working on our gingerbread houses.
None of us are saying it.
But we’re all thinking it.
Morris is gone.
And it’s not fair.
“Jesus Christ, suck it up and grow a pair,” I can hear him saying in my head, rough and loving in equal parts. The memory cuts through my chest like wind through a cracked window, and I press my lips together, trying to keep the sob from escaping.
“I have an idea,” I say, my voice hoarse but firm.
Everyone looks up.
“I just…” I stand, brushing crumbs off my lap. “This was his favorite thing, right? The gingerbread contest. He’d get everyone all riled up, talk shit like he was the Gordon Ramsay of candy architecture.”
A soft laugh escapes Theo.
“So,” I continue, steadying my breath, “what if we don’t do teams this year? What if we don’t compete? What if… we all build one house together? Just one. For him.”
Silence follows.
Then Dorothy nods, swallowing hard. “He’d like that.”
Jensen exhales slowly and starts pulling the walls of the house toward the center of the table. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Jackson stands and kisses the side of my head. “You’re a good woman, Ozzy,” he murmurs. “He’d be proud of you.”
“No,” I whisper, curling into his side for a second longer than I need to. “I’m proud of him.”
We all lean in after that—passing icing, aligning crooked walls, laughing through our tears when Wyatt eats three gumdrops off the roof before we can glue them down. It’s clumsy and messy and warm. Just like Morris would’ve liked it.
And for a moment—just a moment—it almost feels like he’s still here, watching over us, grinning at the chaos he left behind.
Jackson laughs as we step into the warm glow of the cottage— our cottage, technically.
Or it will be, officially, next week when he moves his stuff in.
He’s already left half his life scattered across my shelves: the hat he always loses, his boots by the door, his toothbrush beside mine in the bathroom.
But something about calling it ours makes it feel real in a way that tightens my throat.
“I still can’t believe you got Carter to give up the competition for a group project,” he muses, unwinding his scarf and hanging it on the hook beside mine.
I smirk, peeling off my coat and draping it with a little less care. “Please. A gingerbread Rowe Ranch is way cooler than that pirate ship he was gonna build. Which, by the way, should’ve disqualified him. That’s not a house.”
Jackson hums, following me toward the kitchen. “Mm. He’d argue men and women lived and died on those ships. To some, that was home.”
I stop and give him a flat stare. “That’s a lot of poetic nonsense over a cookie house.”
He grins, closing the distance between us. His arms snake around my waist, slow and warm, and he presses a kiss to my cheek. “It’s a very serious competition. Sacred, even. You crushed tradition. Next year, we’ll team up and take him down properly.”
I spin in his arms, eyebrows raised. “You think you got another year of putting up with me in you?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. Just lifts his hand to tuck a lock of damp hair behind my ear, fingers trailing lightly down my jaw. The simple gesture pulls me back to months ago, to a version of myself that would’ve flinched. Would’ve pulled away. Would’ve run.
And now? I lean in.
“Baby,” he says quietly, eyes steady on mine, “there will never be enough years with you.”
Something cracks open in my chest—something gentle. Raw. The way he says it, like it’s already a promise carved in stone. Like he knows how easily I still sometimes wait for everything good to be ripped away.
I look at him for a long moment, letting that warmth bloom somewhere inside me. “You know I believe you, right?”
“I do.” He brushes his lips over my temple, grounding me like he always does. “But I’ll keep proving it anyway.”
My fingers curl into the front of his flannel. “I think Morris knew. That we’d get here. That this would be the end game.”
We stand like that for a moment. Just breathing. Holding on.
Eventually, I pull back and give him a crooked grin. “You ready to live with me full-time, Rowe? You’ve seen me cry over baby chicks.”
He chuckles, eyes dancing. “And I’ll do it again. Ride or die, baby.”
“Okay, well, just remember that when I put up a Christmas tree for each one of?—”
He grabs my waist and lifts me onto the counter mid-sentence, silencing me with a kiss that curls my toes and short-circuits the rest of my thoughts. His lips trail down my jaw, featherlight.
“I love you, Tink.” Jackson presses our foreheads together and I give him a soft smile.
“I love you too, Superman.”
And just like that, the ache in my chest softens—not gone, but bearable. Because he’s here. Because this home, this love, this future… it’s real. And it’s ours.