Chapter 2
Leo’s singing and the smell of bacon lure me to the kitchen before I’m even fully awake.
I stop in the doorway. Leo is at the stove wearing only low-slung pajama pants, flipping bacon with a pair of tongs while belting out the chorus in a terrible pirate voice.
His hair is mussed from sleep, and I stand there for a second admiring his broad shoulders.
He’s ridiculous and the hottest thing I’ve ever seen at seven in the morning.
My brain hasn’t even fully turned on yet, but my body perks up.
A pot of oatmeal steams on the burner beside Leo. Ewww, oatmeal. Are they expecting me to eat that?
Dane sits at the kitchen island with a cutting board and a pile of strawberries, slicing them into even pieces. He’s wearing jeans and a blue Henley with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, forearms flexing with each cut. I fucked both of them last night. I might be the luckiest girl in the world.
“What shall we do with a drunken sailor,” Leo croons, waving the tongs like a conductor’s baton, “early in the—“ He spots me and grins. “Morning, lass. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.” My voice comes out sleep-scratchy. I’m wearing one of Leo’s t-shirts and nothing underneath, and the cotton brushes my thighs as I cross the kitchen tiles on bare feet. The floor is cold, and I curl my toes against it, which is not exactly the sexy entrance I was going for.
Dane’s eyes track me, unhurried, and I’m starting to understand this might be the way he does everything. “Merry Christmas, Alice.”
Something in his voice makes warmth bloom low in my belly, and I have to look away.
Leo hooks an arm around my waist as I pass the stove and pulls me in, pressing a kiss to my temple.
The scent of oranges from his skin mixes with bacon grease and coffee, and I breathe him in, my hands flat against his bare chest. I could stay in his arms for hours, but the rumble in my stomach tells me I’ve got other priorities.
“Hungry?” he asks, his accent thicker in the morning.
“Starving.”
“Good. Sit down and let us feed you.”
He says it like a command wrapped in kindness, and my body tingles. I take the stool next to Dane, and he slides a mug of coffee toward me without being asked. Black, two sugars. Did Leo tell him how I take it?
I wrap my hands around the mug and take a sip, watching them prepare breakfast. Leo plates the bacon while Dane spoons oatmeal into three bowls and arranges the sliced strawberries on top in a pretty design.
Once he adds blueberries and a drizzle of honey, he places the first bowl in front of me.
After watching the care he took dishing up the bowls, there’s no way I’m going to decline it now.
Leo starts another verse, this one about putting the sailor in the longboat, and Dane shakes his head without looking up. “Your pitch is criminal,” he says.
“My pitch is festive.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
I laugh into my coffee, and Leo points the tongs at me. “Don’t encourage him, lass. He’s been judging my singing since university.”
“Someone had to,” Dane says, and the corners of his mouth twitch.
We eat together at the island, knees bumping, Leo’s hand drifting to my thigh between bites.
The bacon is perfectly crisp, and Dane’s oatmeal is the best I’ve ever had.
I’m not sure if the food is really this good, or if I worked up an appetite last night.
I might just be happy, so everything seems wonderful.
They’re both in good moods, and breakfast is fun. Leo reaches across me to steal a blueberry from Dane’s bowl, and Dane catches his wrist without looking. They bicker about the sea shanties with the comfort of decades between them. They both keep filling my coffee without my asking.
I haven’t had a Christmas morning like this since my parents’ last Christmas, when I’d watched my dad burn the pancakes while my mom laughed so hard she cried.
That was three months before the accident.
After that, Christmases were at my aunt’s apartment with takeout and the TV on too loud, and eventually, it was me alone in my apartment with snacks and whatever holiday movie looked interesting to stream.
My throat gets tight, and I stare down at my oatmeal, blinking hard. Don’t. Not right now.
A warm hand covers mine. Leo’s thumb strokes across my knuckles slowly, not saying anything. He doesn’t have to. I turn my hand over and lace my fingers through his, squeezing, and the tightness in my throat eases enough for me to breathe.
Dane sets a glass of water beside my coffee without a word. He doesn’t even look at me when he does it, and that’s somehow the kindest thing anyone has done for me in a long time.
I drink the water, and I’m fine.
After breakfast, Leo insists I sit on the living room couch while he and Dane clean the kitchen. I try to ignore the request and get a firm “Sit!” from both of them at the same time, which sends me straight to the couch.
The living room is warm, and one of them started a fire already.
The Christmas tree glows in the corner, colored lights blinking through their slow rotation.
The star casts tiny prisms across the ceiling, and pine mixes with cedar from the fireplace.
My chest does a weird fluttery thing that I’m choosing to ignore.
Once the kitchen is clean, Leo drops onto the couch beside me, one arm stretching along the back behind my shoulders. Dane sits gracefully in the armchair. He looks comfortable here and doesn’t act like a visitor. It’s obvious he visits often.
“Dane has a gift for you, lass.” Leo nods at Dane.
Dane reaches down beside the armchair and produces a package wrapped in brown paper, with simple, careful creases. He holds it out to me without ceremony.
Inside is a Mary Oliver poetry book. The cover is beautiful, and when I open it, I find a note written in neat, angular handwriting on the first page: “For the mornings when you need inspiration. —D”
I run my thumb over the ink. I don’t know who Mary Oliver is, but the fact he put thought into the gift warms me. This man I’ve known for less than twenty-four hours bought me poetry for Christmas.
“Thank you,” I say. “This is really thoughtful.”
“You’re welcome.” He says it simply, but his dark eyes hold mine, and I can tell the poetry means something to him. I make a promise to myself to read it and see why he chose this gift for me.
Leo squeezes my shoulder and stands. “Alright, lass. Come with me.”
The guys lead me down the hallway to the room Leo mentioned as a possible art studio.
Leo turns the handle and pushes the door wide.
The windows are the same as I remember, stretching across the far wall with the backyard buried in snow beyond them.
But the room has been transformed. A drop cloth covers the hardwood, and a wooden easel stands in the center, angled toward the light.
The shelves along the far wall are stocked with supplies: oil paints, acrylics, watercolors, tubes, and pans, arranged by color.
Jars of brushes in every size, from fine detail rounds to wide flats.
Palette knives, charcoal pencils, a tin of graphite sticks, rolls of tape, bottles of linseed oil and turpentine.
A stack of canvases leans against the shelves in different sizes, and beside them, a pad of thick watercolor paper and a sketchbook with a leather cover.
A wooden palette rests on a small worktable next to jars for water, rags, and a set of palette cups.
In the corner near the windows, there’s a comfortable reading chair with a side table and a lamp, like he knew I’d want a place to sit in the morning light with a poetry book and a cup of coffee.
Leo did this. When I was shopping at the mall with his credit card and walked past the art supply store and told myself I didn’t deserve to go in, he was planning to turn this empty room into a studio for me for Christmas.
I can’t move. Can barely breathe. The tears come before I can stop them. Not pretty tears. My face crumples, and I press both hands over my mouth. My shoulders shake because nobody has done anything like this for me since my parents died, and I didn’t think someone would ever want to again.
Leo wraps his arms around me from behind, tucking his chin on top of my head and holding me while I fall apart. His chest is solid against my spine, and oranges surround me. He lets me cry until I’m done.
“I’ve got you, lass,” he murmurs into my hair.
I turn in his arms and bury my face against his neck, breathing him in. I don’t know how long we stand there, but it’s long enough that the tears run dry and I’m left hiccupping against his chest.
“You built me a studio,” I say into his neck. “Thank you.”
“I converted a room,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Dane helped me pick out the supplies over the phone. He has strong opinions about brushes.”
I look over Leo’s shoulder. Dane is leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, watching us. His eyes are soft. He’s glad. That undoes me almost as much as the studio.
“Thank you,” I say to him and smile.
“You’re welcome.”
Leo kisses my temple again. “Merry Christmas, Alice.”
I glance around in happiness. This is the first Christmas in years that’s felt like one.
We eat BLTs for lunch, and Leo puts on soft Christmas music. At some point, I pull on panties and a pair of shorts, which feels almost modest compared to how I spent last night. I curl up on the couch between them with Dane’s poetry book while Leo reads on his tablet and Dane watches the fire.
My legs are draped across Leo’s lap, his hand on my ankle.
I’m leaning against Dane’s side, his arm behind me, and I can feel his breathing against my shoulder.
I keep sneaking glances at both of them.
Leo’s jaw, the firelight on the gray at his temples.
Dane’s long fingers resting on the back of the couch. I want to draw those hands.