Chapter 3
Chris
Daphne’s cool blue eyes met mine across Decca’s hot and crowded kitchen.
She smiled and lifted her fizzy water in acknowledgment, continuing her conversation with one of Decca’s friends. The rest of the party suddenly faded into oblivion.
Only Daphne’s wide, unapologetic grin remained in my consciousness, and her silvery hair, glowing like a halo beside Decca’s Christmas tree.
I tightened my shoulders and cracked my neck, testing the motion. My body felt unfamiliar. I didn’t know what I was feeling. So much at once. Like something was braced against my chest, dragging my body down into some dark obscurity, while an opposite force filled my lungs with something so weightless it let me float up and up.
Her eyes were so light, the blue so unsaturated, they were practically gray—the reflection of stars on inky oceans, belying the cold, murky depths underneath. Getting lost in them would doom me.
But oh, how I wanted to be lost.
Something hit my back, jolting me headfirst into reality. The din of conversations roared back to life. I blinked, surprised to find myself still sitting at this rickety kitchen table, still holding a drink that was now more melted ice than bourbon.
Decca trailed her hand across my shoulders before she shoved her deceptively strong body into the kitchen chair with me. I winced as my right ass cheek slid off the seat, forcing me to uncross my legs to steady myself.
Her breath smelled like whisky and orange rind from the cocktail in her hand. She must have had quite a few—Decca only got touchy when she’d been drinking.
“Bethany wants to sing Christmas Carols,” she said.
“Are you prohibiting her from doing so?” I sipped my drink.
“Well, she can’t just break into song a cappella, can she? She can't even hold a tune with proper accompaniment.”
“Accompaniment would be a bonus.” The wool tweed of my jacket pulled tightly across my back as I crossed my arms.
“We have a piano.” Her eyebrows raised suggestively.
“You do,” I agreed.
“If only someone here could play it.” She tapped her chin.
“Dec, you don’t have to dance around it. Just ask.”
She clasped her hands together in front of her chest. “Please, will you play some Christmas songs for us?”
I stood, removing my jacket, pushing up the sleeves of my sweater, and unbuttoning my cuffs. “Consider it your Christmas gift.”
“You already gave me a Christmas gift. I’m drinking it.” She lifted her Manhattan to her lips. “Thank you again, by the way.” She sipped.
“That was your hostess gift. My mama taught me better than to walk into a party empty-handed.”
“Ah yes, the quintessential Southern gentleman.” She shook her head. "Thank you, Mr. Southern Living."
"You want me to take the scotch back?"
“Don’t you dare.”
Someone clapped anemically as I sat at the piano and raised the fallboard. The keys were dusty inside, as if no one had thought to cover them until they realized the piano hadn’t been played in years. Curling my fingers around the first few chords, I gritted my teeth against quarter tones that weren’t supposed to be there. Eesh. Probably been out of tune even longer than it had gone unplayed. Hopefully, Decca’s guests were too filled with the holiday spirit—and spirits—for their ears to be offended by the discordance.
Without thinking, my left hand began an arpeggiated jazz intro to “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” a hymn that wasn’t particularly well known as a sing-along carol, but had always been a nice, peaceful opener to my old set list—the same one I’d performed countless times in high school, when my parents made me spend my holiday breaks volunteering at the nursing home instead of video gaming.
After the first verse, I transitioned into an uptempo, but rather burnished “Deck the Halls,” and the infectious joy almost drowned out the horrid intonation of the piano.
It had been a long time since I’d played in public.
Long ago, I matriculated to college as a piano performance major, which meant I never just played . I practiced pieces that never got good enough. I performed them for dour-faced committees. There was no happy medium. My instrument had quickly become a stressor.
I hated it. I burned out. I quit.
Majored in Biology instead. Something where the answers were objective. A clear right or wrong. Not another “you’re almost there.”
Sometime during the last five or so years, I’d started playing again. Really playing. Focusing on nothing, just zoning out to the rhythms, improvising like I'd never done before, and relishing what it felt like to create beauty.
There was a tactile satisfaction to making music: the buoyancy of the keys, the extension of my muscles when my hands stretched to span a tenth, the tension of the sustain pedal under a leather-soled Oxford.
I could close my eyes and hear the notes bloom in ways that were altogether different from the past. Most people didn’t talk about how good it felt. How fun it was to savor those tiny, sensual pleasures.
Now, I played to relax or to navigate my feelings. It was the one thing I did solely for myself. My therapy. It was what I did to avoid a different kind of burnout: the compassion fatigue that crept up insidiously on deathcare workers.
But tonight, it was nice to play with others again. Their happy voices, lubricated by alcohol, and the kind of laughter that only came with friendships that were deep and long-lasting. It warmed my insides, being a part of it—even if I was only a tiny part.
Halfway through “O, Holy Night,” which Decca's husband, Gus, and his brother were absolutely killing in the vocal department, I caught Daphne’s figure out of the corner of my eye, blotting her eyes with the sleeve of her light blue sweater.
Crying. She couldn’t be crying. I couldn’t stop to console her.
I flubbed a chord, my fingers getting lost somewhere along the way. Watching her become emotional made me lose all concentration.
What was it that made her cry? Where was her family? She mentioned something about her dad. Before he’d gotten sick. If he was still alive, whatever it was must’ve happened a long time ago, since she’d mentioned it in the same breath as her childhood race car bed.
Oh, Lord. It was cute as fuck that she’d had a race car bed. I never even had a race car bed. And I had... well, everything.
I transitioned into “Silent Night,” the universal last carol. Daphne seemed better now, holding one of Decca’s hands and sipping her pink can of bubbly water with pink-painted lips through a pink straw.
“Thanks, Chris. That was a nice surprise,” Gus said, reaching out a hand for me to shake. We'd had words earlier. It seemed my playing had been a step toward healing the strain I'd caused.
“Yeah, man. Great playing.” Waylon, the detective who’d been holding a baby on his hip most of the night, also reached out to shake my hand after Gus.
“Tell me again why we joined a hockey team instead of a band?” Gus asked Waylon.
Waylon shrugged. “We don’t have a drummer?”
“I could take drum lessons,” Soula said.
“No, you can’t. Remember when you were fourteen and you wanted to learn the hammered dulcimer? You made your teacher quit,” Gus said.
“I don’t ask so many questions now. I can read the room.”
A look passed between Waylon and Gus. “Can you, though?” Waylon kissed the top of his wife’s head.
I left the siblings and their spouses to their conversation and snuck away to check on Daphne.
There was a flash of blue outside, next to the raging bonfire that looked almost hot enough to chase away the frigid temps—now negative four.
I pulled on my coat and stepped outside.
The air bit into my skin where it was unprotected: my face, my hands, my neck. Daphne still had the scarf I’d looped around her neck this morning and the gloves I’d later lent her. I didn’t have the heart to ask for them back. I didn’t want them back. My lizard brain wanted her to keep them, let them comfort and warm her body, so she’d think of me every time she wore them.
She didn’t turn at the sound of my footsteps, not even when I stopped next to her in front of the fire. As hot as the blaze was, she shivered and folded her arms across her chest.
I slipped my coat off and draped it over her shoulders. The air was so cold when it hit my back that it sucked the breath from my lungs. She smiled sadly in thanks.
“You play beautifully,” she said finally. A slight smile stretched across her mouth as her eyes met mine. “Not like a duke at all. You play like... you.”
“What was it that made you cry?” I asked.
“I wasn’t crying crying. I just..." She shook her head and let out an exasperated groan. “When you dropped me off at my mom’s earlier, I was supposed to go caroling with them.”
“Them?”
“My mom and stepdad, stepbrother, and sisters. Twins. I can’t carol—I can’t carry a tune in a bucket—but the point is, we’d made plans. They left without me.”
“Were you alone? If I’d known, I would have brought you with me to my mom and dad’s for lunch.” I faced her, rotating my body to warm my backside. The position gave me a better view of her face, still open and vulnerable, even with whatever she was thinking about. The flames danced in her downcast eyes.
“No, my stepbrother didn’t go with them. We watched Die Hard.”
“Ah. For the record—not a Christmas movie.”
“Agreed. Still good, though. Listen, I’m sorry to be a downer. I just get a little melancholy this time of year.”
“I know how you feel.”
Dozens of questions popped into my head. I wanted to know everything about her. I wanted to pry it out of her so I could make it better.
But I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t my business. She didn’t owe me her life story. She didn’t need me to save her, as much as I wanted to.
Jesus, I’d never even thought about saving anyone. I didn’t know why her vulnerability cried out to me.
“I don’t know what it is about Christmas,” she continued. “Maybe it just highlights how I thought life should be: warm and cozy and bursting with love and acceptance. And mine never was. It wasn’t bad. It just... they try to include me—my mom’s family—but I add a weird formality to the dynamic. My stepbrother and my sisters—they’re always on their best behavior whenever I’m around. I think I would have preferred fighting.” She sounded tired. Her voice lacked the emotion it usually carried. Usually. As if I’d known her longer than—I glanced at my watch—fourteen hours. God, this had been a long day. A thrilling, eventful, life-altering day. But only a day.
“I used to hope somebody would adopt me. A lovely older couple who’d low-key hate me at first, but they’d whisk me off to Prince Edward Island, and soon, they’d grow to love me so hard they couldn’t imagine their lives without me.”
“I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t immediately love you,” I said to the fire. I hadn't meant to say it out loud, but I had, and I wasn’t even that mad about it. Something about this woman made me abandon my senses.
I couldn’t tell in the moon and firelight, but she looked like my words had hit their mark, like they’d meant something.
“It doesn’t do anything to complain, I know. But when I have kids— if I have kids —I’ll never let them think they aren’t the most important things in my life.”
“What about your dad? He’s the one you lived with, right?”
“Dad’s fine. He’s just... I don’t know, haunted. He was in the army. A mortuary officer. He’d seen too many bad things to be there for anyone else. Especially an eight-year-old daughter. He couldn’t really handle the family holiday stuff, so the years I wasn’t with Mom, Dad and I didn’t do anything. I’m grateful. Really. So many people have it so much worse than I ever did.”
She laughed like she was embarrassed, and raised a hand to cover her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I know I sound like a spoiled brat. I am. I’m a spoiled brat. Let’s just go back inside and pretend I never said any of this. I’m not a terrible person, I swear.”
She leaned into me, whether it was for physical warmth or companionship, I didn’t care. Her nearness made my nerve endings explode. I’d take any bit of that feeling I could.
The logs in the fire shifted off-center, sending sparks eddying up into the night sky.
“I used to wish I’d been adopted, too,” I said. I had no right to complain, but I hoped it would make her feel less alone. “I hoped that one day, my real parents would discover where I was, and they’d come back for me. And I’d have three brothers and HBO so I could watch Fraggle Rock , like my friends. I don’t think you can call yourself a real kid unless you’ve considered what it might be like if you were born into a different family.”
“What was your childhood like?”
“Not bad, just unusual.”
“Because you’re rich?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Think what? That you’re rich? Because you are. Obviously.”
I looked into eyes filled with mischief and challenge. “You’re very perceptive. It’s not obvious to most people. In fact, I pride myself on how well I usually disguise it. You caught me on an unusual weekend. I was in town for brunch with my parents when Decca called me out on a case she said I’d enjoy.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“One part of it,” I admitted. Her teeth scraped across her rose-stained lower lip, but the look in her eyes was anything but coy.
“So, what do The Rich do for the holidays?”
“I don’t know about the rest of the one percent, but I spent most holidays working in my parents’ charity kitchens,” I said, stoking the fire back toward the center of the pit. A welcome blast of heat wrapped around my body as the logs locked into a new position.
Her eyebrows raised as she moved even closer.
“Did you lack for love?” she asked. I could see the change in her when she was no longer in the spotlight. She became brighter, empathy shining out of her as she turned her light on me. This was what she needed. Plumbing the depths of my disappointments seemed to work like a shut-off valve for her own.
“I lacked for nothing. It’s just... my parents like to give back. Christmas was hectic with charity work, on top of our regular giving. Sometimes it would have been nice to have Christmas dinner on Christmas. Decorate the tree as a family rather than leave it for our people while we ran around, frantically trying to feed the entire homeless population of Nashville. There was this never-ending need to be useful to everyone else, while ignoring the special, quiet moments I saw others have. It made the holidays sort of sad. Anyway, first-world problems.” I shrugged. “I’m not traumatized, just annoyed.”
“It doesn’t mean your feelings aren’t valid. Same as mine. You’re just as entitled to a little seasonal depression.”
“Thank you, but you’ve seen my car. I have a tremendous amount of privilege. My parents love me. I know that. I have everything I could possibly want.” Or, I did until now.
Daphne’s hand brushed my elbow before running down the sleeve of my thin sweater. Icy cold met my hand. I looked down to find her fingers lacing between mine.
“I always wondered what it would be like to have that greeting card commercial Christmas. Where everyone piles onto a couch with hot cocoa and watches movies under a shared blanket. Or cookie baking that erupts into a flour fight. I think it’s okay to mourn the loss of our... I don’t know what they are. Presumptions? Misconceptions?”
I swallowed hard, forgetting to breathe for a few moments. Forgetting to move. Forgetting everything but the feel of her fingers in mine, as cold as we both were.
I wanted to warm the side of her body the fire wasn’t reaching, to feel her frozen lips pressing against mine, her breath on my cheek, my hands tangling in the soft-looking strands of her hair.
My left arm was pressed into her side, and I’d never been more aware of the skin on that limb. Electricity shot through my entire body, beginning with those points of connection, making my heart jolt from her nearness.
She made a sort of moaning sound in agreement.
I clasped her hand tighter, pulling it into my chest, turning toward her and bringing her closer to me.
“Chris?”
“Yes.” I looked into her eyes. One, hot and fiery. The other shrouded in the cold blue from shadows the light couldn’t touch. I was desperate to cling to this tenuous moment without knowing how.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I hope I didn’t ruin the happy party vibes.”
I smiled. “You couldn’t ruin anything.”
Pulled her closer, holding her elbows. Her eyes never left mine. What was she seeing? It was probably only the fire reflected in my glasses, but surely there was something more there. My desire. Our chemistry. It was impossible to hide my own fire for her any longer.
Her lips parted, but no words came—only a thick puff of vapor. Her breath was barely warm against my mouth as I leaned in. Closer. So slowly. Not because I was hesitant, but because I needed to stretch this moment out like taffy.
Her eyes, her cheeks, her aquiline nose morphed with kaleidoscopic symmetry, the surreal image shifting into a new pattern with each millimeter closer. Our warm breath collided, hinting at the fires burning big and hot inside us both. My lips just barely brushed hers when her eyes fluttered closed.
“I don’t remember a winter this cold. Ever,” said an obnoxiously loud voice. “Where’s your—oh my God, sorry guys.”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose under my glasses, expecting Daphne to jump out of my arms. But she didn’t pull away. She smiled warmly, as if she hadn’t been embarrassed at all to be caught with me.
I dropped my hands, still taking in a delighted Daphne for a few more seconds.
I’d wanted to extend the moment. My wish had been granted. Our lips had barely touched.
“I’m sorry I ruined your moment,” Decca slurred.
“It’s time for me to head out, anyway,” I said to Daphne. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Is seven too early? I’d like to get to the lab before noon.”
“Yes,” Decca said.
“No,” Daphne said simultaneously.
The two women looked at each other.
“Why don’t you take Daphne home with you. Have you got a place for her to sleep? That way, you can just leave from there and already be closer to the highway.”
I nodded. “There’s a bed for her.” Her pupils widened.
Oh. Shit. I didn’t mean it like that.
Something was wrong. This was too good to be true. Something had to go wrong. I racked my brain for potential complications. “My parents aren’t home. I took them to the airport this afternoon. They’re traveling for the holidays. It would just be me. And you. Would that make you uncomfortable?”
Daphne’s lips quirked up. “No.” She said it like a dare.
A thrill rushed through me, the exhilaration of the cold mixing with the way she was biting her lip and threading her fingers through mine. This was happening.
I squeezed her hand. I couldn’t wait to get out of here.
I’d woken up this morning with a summons to work.
My dental practice was closed between now and New Year’s. The school and the lab were closed even longer between semesters. I’d been thrilled for my parents when they'd asked if I minded them finally taking their trip to Germany this Christmas, but that meant I was now looking at weeks curled up alone in my apartment. More alone than usual. Reading, writing up some overdue research, cooking a single Christmas salmon filet, exchanging gifts with Nubi—and I already knew she was giving me a Montblanc chronograph and matching fountain pen this year. I’d had to wrap them myself, since feline paws weren’t exactly deft in the arts of folding and taping.
My holiday vacation would be cozy enough, and I enjoyed being alone. Like I’d told Daphne earlier, Christmas was more a time for being “on duty” rather than gathering with loved ones in front of a tree.
Like a geek, I’d been grateful for the distraction of work. Like a man, I’d been even more grateful for the distraction of Daphne. I was eager to spend more time with her. All the time with her.
The promise of Daphne spending the night with me, even if it was in only in one of the guest bedrooms in my parents’ house, was intoxicating. A three-hour drive to Knoxville with her, where I’d get to hear more of her smoky voice as she teased me about my lack of mechanical skills and talked about my research and hers, flooded me with happiness. It did so much more than waylay those solitary hours I'd be spending over the next couple weeks.
These were the feelings I’d been waiting for. Holy fuck.
I'd never felt like this before. I'd never met someone and known almost immediately that they were important. Daphne was a respite. The first drops of a perfect cabernet. This was more than just three more hours of distraction. It was like being saved from a disaster I hadn’t known I was experiencing.
She was pulling me from a building filled with carbon monoxide, and I was suddenly breathing oxygen.