I kept staring at him, but something happened while I did.
He watched me a beat, saw that something happen, and said, “Fuck, you’re gonna cry again, aren’t you?”
I slapped his shoulder and snapped, “I’ve cried once with you, Merry. Once.”
“Well, this time I don’t have time to get you through it. I gotta get Ethan to school.”
I gotta get Ethan to school.
He took my kid to school every day. Every day. Unless he was out on an early morning case, which was rare, it was no fail.
Every day.
Mornings were now our thing, the three of us, but the school run was Merry and Ethan’s thing.
I felt wet hit my cheek.
“Shit,” he muttered, watching the tear fall.
“Stop making me happy,” I whispered.
His eyes came back to mine and his were dancing.
But when he replied, he was whispering too.
“Not gonna happen.”
“You need to be annoying on a more regular basis,” I demanded softly.
His body started shaking and his voice was doing it as well when he stated, “That’s not gonna happen either.”
“Okay, then you need to go because I have a lake house Christmas theme to plan and execute and that’s not gonna happen when you’re standing here being awesome.”
He audibly started laughing, and in the middle of it, he kissed me.
His laughter tasted great on my tongue.
The best.
“Okay, guys,” Ethan shouted. “Are you done with the gooey? ’Cause I been waitin’ in the hall, like, forever. I might not wanna get to school, but I’m cruisin’ toward perfect attendance third year running, which includes not being tardy, and, you take much longer, you’re messin’ with that mojo.”
Merry broke the kiss, and when he did, my tears had subsided.
This was because Merry’s kiss, as ever, was a good one.
It was also because my man and I were standing in his kitchen in his lake house, which would soon be my kitchen in our lake house, and we were staring at each other, laughing at my kid.
And I was finding I had a life that was filled with a lot of that.
Laughter.
So now, for a different reason, I had no room for tears.
* * * * *
I stood in Bobbie’s Garden Shoppe in her enormous Christmas section that was renown throughout the Midwest. It was this because it was so huge, she had to dedicate half her shop to it and half her parking lot, seeing as she had massive heavy-duty, heated tents where more of her Christmas crap was displayed.
I was there and had been for forty-five minutes.
But I found what I was looking for.
So there I stood, staring at a Christmas tree, and I was pretty certain I was going to buy the whole damn thing as it was—ornament by ornament, garland by garland—and resurrect it in Merry’s awesome new lake house. It was boho to the max, colorful with lots of berries and crystals and differently sized and shaped ornaments, very cluttered, stuffed full, totally awesome.
There was no other tree in Bobbie’s whole shop like it.
But I’d had a look at a couple of the ornaments, and even with Vi’s discount, to recreate that tree would cost a thousand dollars.
It was perfect for Merry’s pad, so I did not care.
Okay, that wasn’t true. It was perfect for me (I still didn’t care).
What I cared about was something else.
I whipped out my phone, jabbed my finger on the screen, and put it to my ear.
“Hey, babe. What’s shakin’?” Vi asked in greeting.
“Do you think Merry would lose his mind if I bought pink and purple Christmas tree ornaments?”
“How many?”
“A lot.”
“Okay, then, one hundred percent affirmative on him losing his mind.”
“Shit,” I muttered, already kind of knowing that was the answer.
“Say one ornament that you put on the inside of a branch close to the trunk that’s mostly hidden and he can’t see, you might get away with that. But more than that? No go.”
I stared at the tree. “What about canary yellow? And teal?”
“Negatory and negatory.”
“Lace cutout stars?”
Her voice was getting shrill either with hilarity, disbelief, or both when she asked, “Have you met Garrett Merrick?”
“Shit,” I muttered again.
“I thought you guys already decorated.”
“We did. My house. But we decided this morning we’re doin’ Christmas at Merry’s. So I need a whole new tree.”
“Ooo, sweet. Christmas by the lake. Awesome.”
She was not wrong.
“Fake tree?” she asked.
“I don’t know. He said he’d get one. That could mean anything.”
“He’s a guy. If he says he’ll get one, that means it’ll be real and you’ll be cleaning up pine needles until February. You’ll also have a time of it talking him out of going somewhere and chopping one down himself just so he can chop down a tree. My advice, babe? Focus on those things, primarily talking him into a fake tree so you don’t have to vacuum pine needles for two months, not wasting time talking him into pink ornaments. Trust me on this. You got a badass in your bed, you learn to pick your battles.”
I had a badass in my bed. I loved him. I wanted to keep him there. So I should listen to Vi. She had a lot of experience. She’d married a badass in the making when she was eighteen, and he’d grown into a full-blown one who unfortunately got dead way too soon. She’d then married an even bigger one who kept knocking her up when she wanted to concentrate on hoping her second child didn’t get knocked up by her own badass boyfriend at the same time keeping an eye on the fact that her oldest daughter had begun dating a badass cop in Chicago.