Chapter 40
Aiden
Cristiano’s farmhouse smells like rosemary and pine and something sweet cooking in the kitchen—probably the cinnamon-bourbon Christmas pudding Katya swore she wasn’t going to make this year because ‘it’s a whole day ordeal’, but then caved when Mia begged for it.
It’s Anya’s recipe after all, and this is their first Christmas without her.
It’s incredible how much a year has changed everything—and that this Christmas we’re with our friends who are family and not family who were, in fact, adversaries. We’re all choosing to be here with each other rather than being forced to spend the holidays together.
Mia is hanging the last few ornaments on the tree. I can’t stop watching her. She belongs in every version of my future, and now, finally, she’s letting me hope for it again.
Cristiano is feeding logs into the stone hearth fireplace.
I just finished setting up the table in the dining room.
Huxley is wearing a Santa hat, playing DJ, and we’re being subjected to French yule songs.
It’s the kind of night that feels like it lives in snow globes and postcards.
Katya is flitting around the kitchen, putting on the finishing touches. Her apron reads: Don’t Make Me Flip My Grinch Switch.
She’s healing, and I only occasionally see sadness claim her. She misses her mother, as does Mia, but they’re keeping her good memories alive by doing things like making her favorite Christmas pudding.
I slip away for a moment to double-check that the small velvet box is exactly where I left it in the bedroom we’re sharing. I put the velvet box in a large gold gift bag. It’s glittery and perfect. Like the moment I’m hoping for.
I sneak it under the tree when Mia is otherwise occupied.
After dinner, which is raucous, Katya dims the lights and announces, “It’s gift time.” Then she turns to her friend. “You go first.”
My chest constricts. I watch Mia scanning under the tree, her eyes searching. “Where’s mine?” she murmurs as she pulls out the gift bag. She pulls out all the tissue paper and then spots the small box. “Is this…?”
She looks at me, and my heart’s a drumbeat in my throat.
I nod.
Everyone’s quiet now. Cristiano is holding Katya’s hand. Hux has stopped mid-sip.
Mia opens the box.
It’s a new ring. It’s a simple ring. Like us. A diamond on a platinum band. It’s not for show. It’s for love.
I get down on one knee and I look up at the woman who has broken me and remade me by choosing me again.
“Mia, I love you,” I say. “And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Marry me.”
Her hands fly to her mouth. Tears brim in her eyes, but her smile is radiant. “Yes,” she whispers. Then again, louder. “Yes!”
The room erupts.
Cristiano claps. Katya wipes away her tears. Huxley lifts his glass and shouts, “About fucking time!”
It certainly is.
I slide the ring on her finger, and she looks at it in awe.
She pulls me up and kisses me.
“I love it,” she murmurs.
“I love you.”
It takes us a few short months to get married.
It’s not traditional or flashy. Hell, it’s not even sunny.
After all, spring in Vermont can be tricky.
But it is perfect.
We decide to say our vows under the pergola at the honey farm, where we first talked about forgiveness and the future.
We don’t have many guests this time.
Jolene’s here with her wife and two sons, beaming at us like a proud big sister.
Katya’s sitting beside her boyfriend, whom she started seeing right after Christmas when she ended up in the ER with a sprained ankle. They haven’t been dating long, but Dr. Pranav Shukla looks at Katya like she’s the sun and the storm. They make a charming couple.
Cristiano is with his date, a serious woman named Carolina, who runs the non-profit Haven House that Mia and I are partnering with.
Huxley is dressed in a dark blue suit with no tie. He came alone because, as he put it, “It’s Mia’s day. No one needs to meet Tatiana 2.0.”
“Who the hell is Tatiana?” Mia muses.
I frown. “No clue.”
“Oh my God! Is Hux in love?”
We both look at each other and burst out laughing, rolling our eyes. “Wouldn’t that be delicious karma?” I say.
She agrees, giggling with abandon.
There’s no music but the wind, no decorations but what nature provided.
I am not even wearing a stiff suit. I’m in dark dress pants and a white shirt, but that’s where the formal shit ends.
Mia walks down a narrow path framed by rows of bright daisies, their cheerful faces turning toward her as if she’s part of the sunlight itself. She wears a simple ivory dress with delicate lace sleeves, her hair falling in soft waves.
My breath catches. She’s stunning.
This is better than the first wedding. Better than anything I ever imagined.
We exchange vows that we wrote ourselves.
“I don’t promise perfection.” I hold her hands. “But I promise to never stop growing with you. To never stop choosing you. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”
She smiles, her eyes shining with happiness. “I promise to tell you how I feel. To let you in. And to make a home with you that no one can shake.”
Cristiano officiates—turns out Vermont allows just about anyone to marry you as long as they register—and when he says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife…again,” I kiss her like the world could fall around us and we’d still be standing.
Afterward, we gather around a long table in the open barn of the honey farm.
The food is catered from our now-favorite Mediterranean restaurant. Instead of a wedding cake, we have baklava. We also have plenty of champagne and good wine to go with the food.
Huxley gives a toast that somehow manages to be funny and moving. “So, I beg you, Mia, don’t ever leave him again, because he just about drank all my good whiskey the last time.”
Katya’s toast is more of a warning. “You hurt her again, and I’ll have your balls.”
After dinner, we slip away from our guests, and wander down a quiet path.
The air is thick with the sweet, herbal scent of lavender from the rows that blanket the rolling hill. At the edge, we stop, the world spread wide before us. The sky is painted in streaks of rose and gold as the sun sinks low.
I draw Mia close, tucking her against me, and together we watch the horizon blur into twilight.
“You still want kids?” she asks.
We’ve talked some about adopting, but our lives have gotten tremendously busy with setting up the resource center for foster families, so it hasn’t been something that’s been on our minds.
I am also working with a couple of non-profits, helping them with their accounts, but my full-time job is setting up a Haven House branch in Burlington.
“Only if you do,” I say.
“But…say I could get pregnant, then?”
“Then, yes.” I stroke her arm. “I want every messy, magical thing I can have with you, baby.”
She releases a long breath. “I don’t think I want to adopt right away.”
“That’s okay.”
“Or…ever.”
I know what she’s thinking. I pay attention these days, and that helps me understand her better.
“You want us to become foster parents?”
She turns in my arms and smiles wide. “Yes.”
“I think that’s beautiful.” And I mean it.
“I spent too long thinking I wasn’t enough because I couldn’t carry a child,” she murmurs softly and then cups my cheek, kisses me. “But now with Haven House, I know what’s important is taking care of children, giving them a safe space, not giving birth to them.”
I nuzzle my nose against hers. “You’re beautiful inside and out, baby, and we’re going to make kickass foster parents.”
In the distance, the honeybees hum. Our guests laugh in the barn, and we join them.
So much has changed in the past eighteen months since I made the biggest mistake of my life and kissed Diana. And it has been for the better.
Like Huxley once said, “Sometimes there is a very small gap between a breakdown and a breakthrough.”
The breakdown of our marriage helped both of us grow and evolve, identify our priorities, be better versions of ourselves, and live a life that is about purpose and contentment.
We sold our shares earlier this year, not for what they were worth but because we wanted to be rid of them. We put a large chunk of the money in a trust to support Haven House, which feels a whole lot better than spending it on ourselves.
I’m glad we disposed of them when we did because now they’d have been worth even less. Winter Financial is crumbling under its own arrogance—Diana’s tenure was a disaster. After she was ousted, Dad took over as CEO again. I feel no bitterness or joy at the downfall of the company I helped build.
I don’t look at the past much, not when I have so much to look forward to.
Huxley turns on the music. He’s our official DJ.
Etta croons “At Last”, and I pull Mia into my arms. “Dance with me.”
“Always.” Her voice is soft but certain.
“May I present Mr. and Mrs. Winter,” Huxley announces with mock formality. “For the second time.”
The handful of people who matter most to us—our chosen family—clap.
Soon, others are dancing as well.
Mia rests her cheek against my chest, right over my heartbeat. She fits against me like she was carved to, her dress brushing over my shoes, the faint scent of honey and lilac in her hair.
“You’re mine,” I murmur into her hair.
“And you’re mine,” she whispers back, her fingers curling into the back of my shirt.
I close my eyes, letting the music and the moment wrap around us.
When the song ends, I don’t let her go. Not today, not tomorrow. Not ever.
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