Chapter 3 Willow
WILLOW
The drive home unspools along a ribbon of dark road, the car filled with the soft snores and half-dreamed murmurs of the kids in the back.
Cast sits beside them, restless and simmering, because he can feel that Damien and I have just fucked—despite the fact that we already had that morning.
His jaw works as he stares out the fogged window, but his reflection burns in the rearview mirror, eyes locking with mine, hot and accusing.
Damien’s hand rests loose on the wheel, knuckles split from a fight he didn’t start but made sure to finish.
The dashboard glow paints him in soft blues and greens, his focus steady on the road ahead.
Outside, the cold has settled—a rare Texas frost silvering the medians—while inside, the heater hums, sighing warmth into the cabin until the windows bloom with fog where the kids press their breath.
In the very back seat, Elise fights sleep, forcing her head up every time it lulls to the side. Her lashes are clumped with melted flurries from the arena’s icy air, her cheeks round and pink from excitement.
“One more song,” she mumbles, already drooping against Penny’s shoulder.
“Only if it’s the goal horn,” Theo says, and then makes the noise himself, low and obnoxious and perfect.
“Ugh, you’re so loud. Papa needs his ears to drive,” Rose announces, clamping her hand over Theo’s mouth.
“Papa or Pops?” Theo mumbles around her fingers.
“Papa,” Rose and I answer together, and I can’t help smiling into my scarf.
The kids have their own little language for us—Papa for Damien, Pops for Cast, and Daddy for Vincent, the names sorted in their minds like rules of a game only they understand.
I, of course, am always Mommy, Mama depending on who is calling me.
Damien glances over, grin tugging to one side. His voice is still rough from shouting on the ice and laughing in the locker room. “You good?”
I’m both buzzing and boneless, throat raw from screaming, fingers sticky-sweet from hot chocolate, skin still humming from the way he looked up into the stands and found me like he always does.
Beneath all of it, a candle-glow secret I haven’t said out loud yet burns steady and private low in my belly.
I press my palm there through the drape of his jersey and let the thought warm me.
“I’m good,” I whisper.
“Good,” he says softly, and squeezes my knee once with his rough, warm hand.
We turn into the long driveway like slipping into a memory. The house waits in a halo of soft light—the oversized wreath the kids insisted on hanging crooked, the path lined with flickering lanterns, the big windows glowing gold.
I never get used to the feeling of opening the door and breathing in home—the layered warmth of it: pine and sugar, a faint breath of cedar from the garland draped along the banister, the clean hint of laundry soap and lemon oil, and the soft, steady thump of our golden Labrador, Scooter, his tail greeting the door before I can.
“Shoes,” I say on reflex, and four small bodies tumble into the mudroom—laces, little boots, and scarf knots tangling into a cooperative wrestling match.
Damien drops to a crouch with a theatrical groan, making the kids laugh. “This zipper’s got attitude,” he mutters, wrestling with the tiny teeth until they finally give in. Elise gasps, wide-eyed, then pats his cheek with grave approval.
“Good job, Papa,” she says, like he’s just saved the world.
Penny, meanwhile, has abandoned her own coat entirely and is busy fitting her pom-pom hat onto the dog’s head. “There,” she declares, stepping back to admire him. “Official North Pole security.”
Scooter’s tail thumps hard enough to rattle the boot tray, his whole body wiggling with pride.
“All right, you guys,” I call, tugging off my boots and shaking out the cold. “Brush your teeth and then straight to bed. It’s way past everyone’s bedtime.”
A chorus of groans rises instantly.
“But I’m not tired!” Theo insists, flopping onto the rug.
“I didn’t even finish my cocoa,” Penny adds, clutching her empty mitten.
Elise yawns wide enough to prove herself wrong.
Before I can reply, Rose steps forward with all the authority of a tiny general, hands planted primly on her hips.
“We can’t go to bed yet,” she declares. “We must conduct important business.”
“And what business is that?” I quirk an eyebrow, twisting my lips to the side.
The kids all sing in unison, voices overlapping in chaotic joy: “Elf on the shelf!”
They scatter down the hall before I can say a word, the dog trotting after them like part of the operation. I stay behind for a moment, laughing—the sound cracks something loose inside me I didn’t realize was still tight.
Elf on the Shelf is entirely Vincent’s doing.
He started it that first December, swearing he wasn’t “the type for holiday gimmicks,” and then spent hours staging elaborate scenes that made the kids lose their minds every morning.
Just thinking about it makes my chest twist. I miss him—his steady calm, his ridiculous commitment to the bit, the way he fills a space even when he’s not in it.
Cast steps close enough that his shoulder brushes mine and presses a kiss to the side of my head. “He said he’s landing soon,” he murmurs.
I nod, smiling before I can stop myself.
We follow the trail of laughter into the kitchen, which glows like its own little country—white tile and black range, the long island still cluttered from earlier battles: homework sprawls, art projects drying, crumbs from a cookie war.
A tin of ginger cookies sits open beside a cooling rack, and the air smells thick with cinnamon—normally comforting, but lately it turns my stomach in a way I can’t quite explain.
Beneath it, the faint metallic sigh of the dishwasher.
Rose stands at the counter, eyes wide and serious as she surveys the scene. “The crime scene,” she declares.
We set to work. I pull the jar of powdered sugar from the pantry—the kids’ eyes go big, glitter-hungry—and shake a warning finger. “We are dusting, not detonating. We are creating wonder, not a crime lab.”
“This elf is a criminal! He ate all the cookies,” Theo mutters, already peeling off a strip of painter’s tape to make handcuffs for the elf. Penny kisses the elf’s felt cheek and whispers, “Be brave,” because Penny always has a soft spot for the doomed.
Elise sprinkles sugar with careful, delighted taps, watching it fall into perfect drifts across the marble. “Snow,” she breathes, and then uses a fork to make tiny footprints. “We must bring him to the big man!”
“Vincent has to clean all this up,” Damien says under his breath.
He pours cocoa into four small mugs and one large, swirling whipped cream into clouds so high they could catch birds.
He sets the biggest mug where he knows I’ll reach for it without looking.
When I wrap my hands around it, the warmth sinks all the way to my bones.
Penny produces a letter she wrote in the car in pink pencil, the lines tumbling and earnest:
Dear Daddy,
The Elf is under arrest for crimes of mischief. No coffee until he says sorry and maybe gives us presents.
Love, NPB
“It’s perfect,” I tell her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Her hair smells like apples and the expensive conditioner she stole from my shower. “I will make sure Daddy sees it in the morning.”
We prop the note against the espresso machine like a subpoena. Theo tapes the elf’s wrists to the hot-water spout, then carefully ties a bow.
“Alright, my brave detectives! It is time for bed,” I say gently when the laughing finally winds down. “Before you turn back into pumpkins.”
“We never were pumpkins,” Theo protests.
“You were,” I assure him. “Round and orange and very opinionated.”
Cast’s hand finds my waist as the kids scatter toward the stairs, still arguing about bedtime rules and cookie crimes. His thumb tracing lazy circles through the thin cotton of Damien’s jersey. Leaning into him feels like letting out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
“You all right?” he whispers in my ear, under the clatter of the dog’s nails on the floor and Elise’s battle with the bathroom light switch.
“Now I am,” I say, and mean it.
“Good.” His mouth curves. “And your degenerate athlete?”
“In the pantry,” I say, smiling. “Trying to clean up the powdered sugar explosion from the elf’s setup before Vincent gets home. He didn’t want him walking into another Christmas war zone.”
“Damien cleaning?” Cast chuckles softly, his breath brushing my temple. “Miracles do happen.”
“Ha ha ha. Very funny,” Damien says, and bumps his shoulder as he passes, dish towel thrown over his shoulder, a smear of sugar across his jaw and zero shame about it.
Cast glances at him, amused. “You missed a spot.”
Damien wipes at his face, grinning. “Yeah, well, the elf fought back.”
“Pops!” Rose yells from her room, her voice echoing down the hall. “You promised story time!”
Damien groans softly, and we herd the kids up the stairs with the kind of martial efficiency that only exists when the kids are exhausted enough to not fight back more than normal.
Rose negotiates the exact number of pages of her book to be read aloud.
Theo insists toothbrushing is a constitutional violation and then brushes anyway with battlefield vigor.
Penny asks three different questions about where elves come from.
Elise goes boneless the moment her head hits the pillow, clutching a stuffed polar bear whose ear is held on by a thread and hope.
I kiss each of them softly, the way that tells my nervous system the world is fine. Rose’s hair smells like the peppermint shampoo she chose because it made her feel like a candy cane. She whispers, “I saw you on the jumbotron. You’re very beautiful.”