Chapter Eighteen
Laney
The afternoon light is fading to deep gold when Ryder’s voice breaks the peaceful silence.
“I have something for you,” he says quietly. “After everything today—the call with your father, learning the truth—I think now might be the perfect time.” He smiles, warm and certain. “Whatever tomorrow brings, I want tonight to be about us. About this.”
My heart skips. The phone call left me feeling raw and renewed at the same time, like I’ve shed an old skin and everything is more vivid now. “I made something for you, too.”
His smile widens. “Then let’s exchange gifts now, Solarin.”
The word wraps around me like warmth itself—private, reverent. He says it the way some people say love—as if it’s both a promise and a truth. For a heartbeat, I just breathe it in, letting it settle deep where the lonely parts of me live.
We sit cross-legged on the floor by the fireplace like children on Christmas morning, Hamlet wedged between us with the air of a chaperone taking his duties seriously.
Duchess and her kittens nestle in their box nearby, tiny bodies twitching and squeaking in sleep.
Every so often, one noses blindly against a sibling, searching for warmth or milk.
“You first,” he says, holding out a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with kitchen twine. His amber eyes are soft but intense, watching my face like my reaction matters more than anything in the world.
My hands shake slightly as I unwrap it. When I lift the paper and see the restored music box, my breath catches.
“Ryder.” His name is barely a whisper. “You fixed it.”
He shifts, suddenly uncertain; the movement somehow makes his massive frame look boyish. “It took a few tries. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
I wind the key with trembling fingers, and when “Für Elise” fills the cabin, tears spill down my cheeks. The melody is faint, slightly uneven—but it’s hers. My grandmother’s song. The one I thought I’d lost forever.
The sound fills every empty place inside me, and something that’s been locked tight for years finally eases open. I can almost see her here again—flour on her hands, laughter in her eyes—and I realize he didn’t just fix a broken mechanism. He gave me back a piece of my past.
He pulls me close as I cry—but these are good tears, healing tears. When I finally look up, he’s watching me with such tenderness that it undoes me all over again.
“Merry Christmas, Sunshine,” he murmurs. “Thought you deserved to hear her song again.”
I press my face against his chest, the steady thrum of his heartbeat blending with the fragile notes of the music box.
“You fixed more than that,” I whisper. “You fixed me.”
He doesn’t answer right away, just holds me tighter.
The music box plays on between us, fragile and imperfect, something that’s survived hardships and time and still manages to sing.
I breathe him in: pine smoke, soap, the faint trace of coffee.
For once, there’s no ache, no sharp edge of loss.
Just this—his arms, the music, the quiet proof that broken things can still be beautiful.
“She used to play this every Christmas morning,” I whisper against his chest. “While we made breakfast together. After she died, finding it broken felt like… like I’d lost the last piece of her.”
“Why do you think I took over making all the trips to the barn?” he asks with a smile as his large hands show me the tiny repairs he made.
“Kept thinking about how you looked when you found it broken. Some things are worth saving, Solarin. They just need someone willing to put in the work to understand how they function.”
The words hit deeper than he probably intended. We’re not just talking about the music box anymore. After today’s phone call—learning the truth about my father, about twenty years of separation built on lies—the metaphor lands with perfect clarity.
Some things are worth saving. Some relationships need someone willing to put in the work.
“It’s wonderful,” I whisper, setting it carefully aside. “Now it’s time for your present.”
I hand him a smaller package wrapped in the same brown paper. When he opens it, he finds a small carved figure—a firefighter, unmistakably, shaped from a bar of pale soap.
The edges are a little uneven; the surface nicked in places where the knife slipped, but the details—the helmet, the hose, the tiny badge—are careful and deliberate. The faint scent of lavender rises as he turns it in his big hands.
“I know it’s not perfect,” I say quickly. “My grandfather taught me how to carve little animals out of soap when I was a kid. I hadn’t done it in years, but I wanted to make you something. I found a few bars in the linen cupboard and—”
He stops my nervous rambling with a kiss. “It’s amazing. Absolutely perfect.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He studies the little figure, noticing how I got the details right—the helmet, the coat, even tiny flames carved into the base. “This is going into my locker at the firehouse. Everyone’s going to ask where I got it.”
“And you’ll tell them your girlfriend made it?”
He looks up sharply. “Is that what you are? My girlfriend?”
My smile is shy but sure. “If you want me to be.”
“Solarin, I want you to be… everything.” He pulls me into his lap, the carved firefighter carefully set aside. “Girlfriend. Partner. The person I wake up next to. The person I come home to.” He pauses, then adds with deliberate weight, “Eventually, if you want, maybe even more than that.”
I kiss him—soft at first, then deeper. When we break apart, I’m smiling through fresh tears.
“I want all of that too,” I whisper. “It terrifies me, but I want it.”
“Brave girl.” He wipes away my tears with his thumbs. “My brave, beautiful girl.”
We sit in the firelight, the music box still playing its sweet melody, gifts exchanged and hearts laid bare.
The phone call this morning changed everything—gave me back my father, my history, my sense of being worth fighting for.
And now, wrapped in Ryder’s arms with the promise of a future we’re both brave enough to want, I feel like I’m finally whole.
“It’s not much, but I wanted you to have something that showed how I see you,” I continue softly, gesturing to the carved figure he’s set beside the music box. “Not as an Other or different or scary. Just… heroic. Beautiful.”
When he looks at me, something fierce and unguarded burns in his amber eyes. My pulse stumbles in response. “No one’s ever called me beautiful before.”
“Then they weren’t looking hard enough.” For a moment, his gaze seems to pierce all the way to my soul. “Today, since the call with your father. You’re…” He searches for words as his index finger trails a butterfly-soft pattern along my jawline. “You’re not hiding anymore.”
He’s right. The walls I’ve carried for twenty years have crumbled, leaving me exposed but not afraid. For the first time in my adult life, I feel worthy of being seen. Worthy of being wanted.
“I don’t want to hide from you,” I admit. “I don’t want to hide from this.”
“This?”
Instead of answering with words, I reach for him. My hands frame his face, fingers tracing the powerful line of his jaw, the elegant point of his ears. His skin is warm, utterly masculine, and covered in a golden sheen from the firelight.
“You,” I whisper against his lips. “Us. Whatever this is.”
His kiss is different this time—deeper, hungrier, with none of the careful restraint he’s shown before. I’m done being careful, too.