Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Once I’ve got enough, we shift to the couch.
This time, it’s intentional.
I set the phone on the tripod across the room and aim it just right: couch, quilt, blurred edges of the stove, no faces. Just silhouettes and touch. I hit record, tuck the remote under the quilt, and curl into Rhett’s side.
His arm wraps around me automatically. Like he’s done this a thousand times.
Like I’ve been here longer than two and a half days.
I rest my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. It’s steady. Real. I think about my stupid dream the other night, and how this feels like the waking version—better because I chose it, he chose it, and we’re both here for it.
“Tell me about you,” he murmurs, fingers tracing slow patterns along my upper arm. “Growing up.”
I swallow. There are stories I tell easily—college, the agency, how I once accidentally green-lit a Santa mascot with eyes that terrified children.
This isn’t one of them.
“I grew up about an hour from here,” I say slowly. “Small town. Mom, Dad, one younger brother. My dad ran a hardware store. My mom taught preschool. It was…nice. Warm. Loud at dinner. Birthday cakes from a box that somehow always tasted better than anything from a bakery.”
He listens. Really listens. His fingers don’t stop moving.
“Dad was the kind of guy who fixed everyone’s stuff,” I go on. “Leaky sinks, stubborn doors, broken hearts. He’d show up with his toolbox and a joke and make things better for a while.” My throat tightens. “I always wanted to be like that. Fix things. Just…in my way.”
His arm tightens around me.
“A few years ago he got sick,” I say quietly. “Fast. The kind of fast that feels like someone hit fast-forward on your life without asking.” I stare at the stove, eyes burning. “I took time off work to help Mom and my brother. We all tried to squeeze a lifetime into hospital visiting hours.”
I stop, swallowing around the lump in my throat.
“He died in December,” I say. “Right before Christmas. The tree was still up. The presents were still wrapped. We left everything just…sitting there for weeks. It felt wrong to open them. Like it was a party he’d been uninvited from.”
Rhett’s thumb strokes slow circles on my arm. “Ivy.”
“He was proud of my job,” I say, blinking fast. “He didn’t always understand it, but he liked that I told stories about people. That I made them look as good on the outside as they were on the inside. He’d brag to anyone who would listen—‘My girl makes Christmas happen with a camera.’” I laugh softly, watery. “I’ve spent every Christmas since trying to live up to that. And now I’m up for a promotion where I could make it happen even more. He’d be so proud. I just know he would.”
I feel a gentle pressure at the top of my head.
He’s kissing my hair.
“He’d be proud of you,” Rhett says quietly. No hesitation. No performative comfort. Just simple, solid belief. “You’re doing exactly what you set out to do.”
My eyes flood.
I turn my face into his chest, breathing him in, letting myself feel the grief and the comfort at the same time. He doesn’t try to talk over it. Just holds me while I ride it out.
When I can speak again, I sniff and tip my head back enough to see his face.
“Tell me about him,” I say softly. “Your friend. The one from…there.”
He knows what I mean.
For a second I wonder if I’ve pushed too far. But his gaze doesn’t shutter. Instead, it just goes a little distant, like he’s looking at a different horizon layered over this one.
“His name was Caleb,” he says. “From Kansas. Cornfields, Friday night football, parents who sent care packages that made the whole unit jealous. Best shot I ever saw. Worse taste in music than any human being should legally have.”
“I already like him,” I say.
A small, sad smile flickers over his mouth. “He snored,” Rhett adds. “Loud enough to rattle the tent. We’d throw socks at him. He’d wake up long enough to say we were jealous of his ‘manly respiration’ and go right back to it.”
I laugh, a fragile, surprised sound.
“He was the one who taught me to drive stick in a truck that shouldn’t have been on any road,” Rhett continues. “The one who made sure the new guys ate. The one who crawled under the Humvee with me when things went loud, cracked a joke, and handed me an extra mag like we were just patching a fence.”
His voice roughens.
“He deserved better than a folding chair at Christmas,” he says. “Better than me replaying that day every time I see a string of lights.”
My chest aches so hard I press my palm there for a second, as if I can hold it together.