20. Holiday Loot Table #3
“I could officiate,” Dex tells him. “It wouldn’t be legal. It would be spiritual.”
Cami raises her mug. “I’d attend.”
“You’re enabling him,” I tell her.
“I know.”
Ronan has been quieter for the last few minutes. Eventually, he sets his mug down. “I’m at capacity.”
Cami looks at him. “Okay.”
“I’m going to my room for twenty minutes.”
Micah nods. “Okay.”
Dex points toward the hallway with exaggerated solemnity. “Godspeed.”
Ronan gives him a flat look.
“Quietly,” Dex adds. “Godspeed quietly.”
Ronan leaves.
Nobody asks what happened because nothing happened.
Nobody follows him. Nobody wonders whether he’s angry or whether somebody did or said something wrong.
He just needs twenty minutes.
When he comes back, his shoulders are looser.
Cami lifts her feet from the couch without looking away from something Dex is showing her on his phone. Ronan sits beneath them, and she drops her legs across his lap.
His hand settles around her ankle.
I can tell immediately that this is grounding for him.
It’s all so fucking simple that I don’t know why it hits me as hard as it does.
I get up and head into the kitchen.
Five mugs are scattered around the island. There are cinnamon-roll crumbs on the counter and Ronan’s coffee scale beside the sink. Micah’s sketchbook is sitting on the dining-room table while Cami’s glucose tabs are beside the fruit bowl because that has become one of the places they live.
From the living room, I can hear Dex laughing.
Cami tells him he’s an idiot.
Micah says something too low for me to make out.
Ronan corrects somebody about something.
I lean both hands against the island.
There used to be rooms in this house nobody used.
When I bought it—well, when Macey and I bought it—I liked the size because space to grow felt safe. There was room for roommates… children. Room to close a door after a bad shift, and enough distance that we wouldn’t have to live on top of each other.
Sometimes all that space just felt empty.
Even after the guys moved in, pieces of the house still felt temporary.
Then Cami showed up with too many books, diabetic supplies, houseplants, and enough personality to alter the gravitational pull of the entire place.
Everything got louder after that.
Messier.
A lot fucking harder.
There were months when I was convinced every choice I made was going to cost me somebody.
At first, I was afraid of wanting her. Then I was afraid of losing her.
Then I was afraid loving her meant accepting things that would eventually tear me apart.
I spent too much time trying to keep the definitions clean because clean definitions felt controllable.
Legal husband. Friend. Roommate.
Mine. Not mine.
I thought if I understood where every line was, I could protect what mattered.
Turns out people don’t give a shit where you draw the lines when they’re busy becoming family.
“Hey.”
I turn.
Cami is standing in the doorway, fingers tracing the necklace on her chest. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyebrows lift.
I laugh softly. “Actually, yeah. I promise.”
She crosses the kitchen and steps into my arms.
After a minute, she asks, “What are you thinking about?”
I look over her head toward the living room.
Dex is trying to attach a bow to Micah’s hair.
Micah is swatting him away.
Ronan is apparently critiquing the placement.
“I used to think this house was too big,” I tell her.
Cami lifts her head and studies me.
“Even after the guys moved in. Sometimes, it still felt like too much space.”
Her expression softens. “And now?”
Dex yells something about artistic vision from the other room. Micah tells him to hold still, as now the bow is going on Dex’s head.
Ronan says the bow is objectively crooked.
Cami laughs.
I swallow past he lump in my throat. “Now it finally fits.”
Her eyes fill. “Griffin.”
“Please don’t cry.”
She smiles. “You’re crying too.”
I touch my face.
Fuck.
“Long shift,” I mutter. “I’m tired.”
“Bullshit.”
“Probably.”
Her arms tighten around me.
I notice the mistletoe still hanging over the doorway.
“Come here.”
“I am here.”
I take her hand and move us beneath it.
She looks up. “That isn’t legally binding.”
“Shut up.”
I kiss her slowly.
When we separate, I rest my forehead against hers.
“Merry Christmas, husband.”
“Merry Christmas, wife.”
From the living room, Dex calls, “Are you two done being all kissy face?”
“No,” Cami yells back.
“Great. Just checking.”
I laugh and follow her back into the living room.
She pulls me down beside her on the couch. Micah sits on the floor in front of us with Dex half-sprawled across him, and Ronan stays in the armchair looking considerably more regulated than he did twenty minutes ago.
Later today, Micah will go see his family. I’ll probably sleep for a few hours. Dex will work again eventually. Real life will start moving.
But not yet.
Right now, there are five stockings on the mantel.
Five people in the room.
Cami rests her head against my shoulder.
I look around the house again—the one I once thought had too much space.
For the first time since I bought it, there isn’t an empty part of it anywhere.