26. Christmas Blessings

TWENTY-SIX

CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS

E ric rolled us from missionary to cowgirl, except once he got us in that position, he angled up and swung my legs around him so we were in lotus.

As I moved on his cock in his lap, I watched as he glided his hands over the silk at my sides, his head angled so he could see them roam.

That day, out shopping with the girls, I’d found a humdinger of a nightie. And I believed him when he said it wasn’t about the nighties.

Still, he seriously dug the nighties.

He tilted his head back to look at me, and I had no more thoughts about nighties.

As was becoming us, he didn’t need to say anything. I didn’t say anything either. But I hoped like fuck my expression was communicating the same thing his was.

I would know it did when he slipped a hand up my spine, into my hair and tipped my head down for his deep, wet, thorough but still tender kiss.

Last night after the whole thing went down, we fucked.

Tonight, we were oh so totally making love.

And honestly?

I had no preference. I adored doing both with him.

But right now, this was giving me life.

It was about him, me, kissing, intimacy and connection.

So many kinds of connection.

The orgasm Eric eventually gave me was slow in coming, and not explosive when it arrived. It was sweet and sultry and lasted a really long time.

After I had mine, and then watched Eric have his, he shifted me to my back in the bed with him resting down my side, his long legs tangled with mine, and his eyes went back to his hand which was skating over the charcoal gray silk at my belly.

“Admit it, Turner, it’s partially about the nighties,” I teased.

His gaze came to me, lazy and sated and so fucking bedroom, I felt an orgasm aftershock.

“You outdid yourself, sweetheart,” he replied.

I smiled.

“But…pink?” he asked.

“Pink?” I asked back.

With the very tip of his middle finger (yep, another aftershock), he traced the delicate lace at my bodice. It slashed a bit into the cleavage at an angle under my breast, and it adorned my left hip just at a little slit with the lace riding up nearly to my waist.

“This lace is pink,” he said.

I frowned. “It’s neutral.”

He looked to be fighting a smile. “It’s pink.”

“I don’t wear pink,” I declared.

Clearly not in the mood to fight over stupid shit, he said, “Okay.”

Though he said it in a manner where two things were clear. One, he didn’t want to fight over stupid shit. And two, he was humoring me.

I was saved from a retort by Henny jumping up on Eric’s bed.

My cat (or I liked to think of him as our cat) spent the day with his daddy at his daddy’s house.

Before this happened, Eric and I had had a half an hour discussion about it, along with us both huddling over my laptop researching articles about stressors for cats, and if we should move him to a new location so soon.

Everything said no. But in the end, since Henny would be going back and forth anyway depending on where Eric and I would be for a night, we decided to give it a go and see how Henny responded. If he seemed to have an adverse reaction, Eric would just bring him back and hang with him at mine.

Henny, who’d lived a bumpy life and sensed accurately that rough ride was over, took it in stride.

Best.

Cat.

Ever.

I’d spent the day helping Harlow pack then out shopping with the girls.

Eric had spent the day with Henny, leaving him only to head back to the pet store to double up on bowls and toys and litterboxes.

Best.

Guy.

Ever.

After Henny checked we were okay, he collapsed on a hip, lifted his hind leg in the air, rested his front paw on his side then commenced cleaning his belly.

As for me, I used a finger to slide Eric’s hair off his forehead (it just dropped back, but whatever) and regained his attention.

“You think Homer’s doing okay?” I asked.

His gaze softened (or it did this more, it was already soft and warm and sweet) and he replied, “Tex visited him today and said he was hanging in there. And Tex wouldn’t lie. So…yeah. I think he’s hanging in there.”

“You think maybe we should ask your dad to Phoenix for Christmas?” I blurted.

Now that things had settled down with all Jeff’s and my shenanigans, my mind had turned to my man, the upcoming holiday, and the fact that I had Jeff and a lifetime in Phoenix that gave me an abundance of found family, and Eric had none of that.

Eric had done his FBI thing, then spent time in Denver and lived in LA, but he was originally from Michigan, and both his dad and brother still lived there.

His brother…I wasn’t going to go there. He sounded like a dick.

His dad, though…

I mean, Christmas was coming, I had Jeff, and all my girls.

He had no one.

Except me.

“Honey,” he murmured.

“Okay, hear me out,” I began.

He took his hand from my nightie to cup the side of my face, then he bent and got close to said face.

“I know you want good things for me,” he said quietly.

“I do,” I replied.

“And I love that,” he stated. “But we’re looking at a thirty-year commitment to his illness. I’m not without empathy. He lost his wife and the mother of his children, and he carries some earned guilt around that, because he deemed his work more important than sharing the responsibilities of being a parent. I know addiction is a chronic illness. But with any kind of illness, you have to commit to treatment. If you don’t, there comes a time for the people in your life to be forced to make a decision, because your illness, and the decisions you make around it, affect the people who love you.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “I made that decision a long time ago, Jess.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

He sighed, and it was such a big one, I wished I hadn’t ruined our moment by mentioning it.

“I haven’t cut him out of my life,” he said. “I don’t talk to my brother, but I do talk to Dad. What I also do is keep firm to my boundaries.”

Smart. Healthy.

And I was such an idiot for bringing it up.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” I replied.

His face got hard. “Don’t ever, babe, not ever think that.”

“We were having a moment,” I pointed out.

“I’m still having that moment, being with my woman and our cat—” Tremendous, he thought of Henny as ours too—“and she gives a shit enough about me to want me to have my family close during a holiday.”

“I’m glad you look at it that way,” I mumbled. “Instead of me fucking up by bringing it up.”

“With the holidays coming, we were bound to have this conversation, and there would never be a good time,” he noted. “I can’t say it doesn’t fuck with me that at one point in my life I had a family. And then one night, I didn’t. But I can say I’ve learned to live with it.”

I rubbed my lips together to stop myself from replying.

He watched me do it, and when his eyes came back to mine, he whispered, “Fuck. It messes you up too.”

The lip rubbing failed when I went back to blurting, “She died on Christmas Eve, Eric. And I haven’t even mastered frying a hamburger. I don’t know how to?—”

I stopped talking when the pads of his fingers dug in, and he dropped his forehead to mine, his nose resting atop mine, and I felt like a total bitch, mentioning it and making him feel what I felt coming from him, blasting into me.

He slid his nose down the side of mine, lifted away, and said softly, “You learned I lost her last week. I’ve been living with it for decades. Do you honestly think I’m not looking forward to whatever dress you’re gonna wear to that holiday party at the Oasis and sitting around for five hours on Christmas morning while you unwrap all the presents you bought Henny?”

Awesome!

We were having Christmas together!

“My tree is white with black and silver baubles,” I warned him. “And we’re putting it up tomorrow night after I get home from work. Which is no biggie, since it’s super narrow, though it’s tall.”

His lips tipped up. “Copy that, Wylde. My Christmas tree is massive and we’re decorating it this weekend with Luke and Ava and the girls.”

Oh yeah.

Right.

He’d told me about this. Luke was first up to fill in at NI&S due to their short staff situation here in Phoenix. He was arriving the next day, staying with Eric while it was his turn in the rotation, but his wife and kids were coming to spend the weekend with them.

I grinned. “We have a plan. Now, I have to create a menu. Tree-trimming finger foods. Shrimp cocktail. Chicken satay. Meatballs. And some kind of Christmasy dessert that has ginger in it. And with the girls there, we’ll have to have an after-trimming activity. I’m going to have to think about that, but a Battle of the Best Christmas Song might be in order. I just have to figure out how that’s gonna go. And find time to buy some posterboard to create brackets.”

His deep chuckle rocked my body.

I wasn’t sure what was funny.

“What?” I asked.

“Babe, it fucks with me I’m gonna live a life of boredom with you in it. But I’m down to make that sacrifice.”

Even though the words “live a life…with you in it” made me feel all gooey, I rolled my eyes.

He kissed me.

Obviously, while he did it, I stopped rolling my eyes.

Then, since I was leaking, I had to get up to clean up.

Henny, who had anointed himself the Official Bathroom Visitor, came with me.

Henny and I went back to Eric.

Eric and I turned off our lights, snuggled in, Henny curled at our feet.

And our little family went to sleep.

* * *

In our short relationship, Eric had never insisted on anything.

But the next morning, when I told him I was going to swing by the camp to see how Homer was doing before I went to work, he insisted on taking me.

Then again, I didn’t really fight him on it.

When he rolled the Tahoe to a stop across the street from the entrance to the camp, or more precisely, across the street from Homer’s tent, and we both watched Homer duck out, Eric said quietly, “I’ll wait for you here.”

I turned to him and nodded.

Then I got out.

I was halfway across the street when Homer put his hand over his heart.

He looked beyond me to Eric in his SUV, back to me, where he dipped his chin.

And with that, he ducked back in his tent.

I stopped moving.

Homer never ducked away from me.

I knew next to nothing about Homer, but what I did know was not to push this.

Feeling wrong—dejected, worried, maybe a little scared at what might be going on in Homer’s head—I turned around and got back in Eric’s car.

“He needs more time,” Eric said.

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

I heard him snap, looked down at the armrest between us and saw his hand extended, palm up.

I put mine is his. He curled his long fingers around.

After he did that, Eric took his foot off the brake, crept forward, found a place to turn around, and we drove away from Homer and the encampment.

As we did, one could say, I was really happy Eric insisted on coming.

* * *

“Uncle Eric!” Maisie shouted, hands on her little girl hips, pretty face screwed up in disapproval. She was standing among the open boxes of ornaments awaiting to be put to use. “This is such a boy tree .”

Luke and Ava’s second and final child, who was seven years old, had her father’s dark hair and her mother’s light-brown eyes.

She was also a bossy little miss.

The minute I met her, it was instalove.

“Yeah,” her father agreed. “I like it. We’re switching our tree to that next year.”

Ava, working beside me in the kitchen, snorted, this stating plainly not only was this a tease, but even if it wasn’t, no way Luke would make the effort to follow through with it.

I’d already sensed Luke was not a Christmas décor kind of guy and was only involved in the current sitch because it included hefting, assembling and mounting. Once the ornaments came into play, my guess was, he’d be out.

Maisie, along with her older sister Gracie, were horrified at their father’s statement, even though I’d noticed this happened a lot in the short time I’d been around them since their arrival the evening before. It nevertheless seemed lost on the girls it was a tease.

Luke would have a pink tree in a Barbie themed house if it made all his girls happy.

Though, he wouldn’t go out and buy it.

Sensing that was when I fell in love with Luke Stark.

“Daddeeeeeee, no !” Maisie screeched.

“Daddy!” Gracie cried in the horror a budding Victorian lady would use, lifting her hand to her throat and everything.

Cue the instalove with Gracie when I met her too. She had her father’s hair and dark-blue eyes, and it was clear she took her big-sister duties seriously. Therefore, we bonded on that score.

The two girls couldn’t be more different, with Gracie being quiet, observant, much more mature even if she was only nine, but having a talent with delivering understated dramatics that garnered deep respect from me.

On the other hand, Maisie was exuberant, talkative and had been given the gift I hoped she’d someday come to understand and appreciate: being the youngest, and as such, getting away with a good deal of shit.

It was borderline hilarious how GIRL! these two were when their father was the epitome of alpha masculinity.

That said, Ava was all girl too, in a womanly way. She was knockout gorgeous, with a curvy body, a head full of thick, blonde hair and a blatant attitude that sparked off Luke’s to such an extent, the sexual chemistry was thick in the air (that being theirs mingled with Eric’s and mine, obviously).

Though, I couldn’t say Maisie was wrong about Eric’s tree.

His actual tree was massive, both tall and very wide, and it was clear he’d hit a Michael’s or some such and bought every box of matte baubles in various manly shades of blue, some green, with gold and bronze thrown in. The ornaments were different sizes, so at least there was that. And there were a lot of them. As in, a lot .

But that morning, once Eric and Luke had dragged all the stuff out, and Ava and I took a look at what we had to work with, we’d loaded the girls up and did a run JoAnn’s and Michael’s where we scored some corresponding plaid wired ribbon with a thin gold trim and some sparkly-gold branches to spruce the thing up.

And Maisie had thrown a fit about that too. She was of a mind purple was a better contrasting color and declared we had to do “ Something! ” to save Eric’s tree, and plaid ribbon wasn’t her idea of what that Something! was.

We’d managed to quiet her down by purchasing some matte-gold moose (momma, poppa and baby) that had fake brown fur mufflers around their necks and some fluffy lit boughs to drape around his built-in TV unit (which necessitated us grabbing the rest of the plaid ribbon to make them match).

However, now that this was all about to come together, it seemed it didn’t appease little Miss Stark.

I stopped mid-arranging shrimp around the cocktail sauce I’d made, when Maisie pulled out the big guns, went to Eric, leaned into his side, reached up, grabbed his biceps beseechingly, and begged, “Uncle Eric, pleeeeeease , can we go to the store and get some of that purple ribbon I saw? It’ll be so perfect on your tree.”

Without hesitation, Eric stepped away from her but only to grab her hand and look at Gracie.

“Wanna come?”

Holy shit.

Gracie stopped petting Henny where they both were lounged on the sectional, popped to her feet and cried, “Yeah!”

Eric held his hand out to Gracie, she took it, and with all three of them attached, they headed to the door to the garage, both girls bouncing excitedly, and Eric looking through the adults as they moved out the door, saying, “We’ll be back.”

They disappeared, and not long later I heard the garage door engage and Eric’s Tahoe fire up.

“Get used to it,” Luke said from where he’d come to stand at the side of the island, taking me out of the stupor induced by what I just witnessed. “He spoils the shit out of them.”

“All their uncles do, it’s supremely annoying,” Ava groused. She stopped scraping the meatballs off the baking tray and onto the serving platter and looked to her husband. “Luke, that purple ribbon is not going to work on Eric’s tree.”

Luke stared at his wife like she was speaking a language he didn’t understand, and he was trying to decipher what she was saying through inflections and micro-expressions, before he noted, “Do you think Eric gives a shit?”

“That’s not the point,” Ava returned.

“What’s the point?” Luke shot back.

“Your daughter shouldn’t be allowed to dictate every proceeding she’s a part of,” Ava retorted.

“Why not?” Luke asked.

Oh yeah.

Totally loved this guy.

I could tell Ava was getting heated when she responded, “If you, and all the Hot Bunch, don’t stop spoiling them, they’ll be impossible when they grow up.”

Luke nabbed a shrimp, popped it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed and only then replied, “She’ll be impossible to everyone but us. Works for me.”

“Are you…are you…?” Ava spluttered while blinking feverishly at her husband. “Are you spoiling our daughters to make them unbearable to be around so no man will touch them with a ten-foot pole?”

Luke didn’t respond, outside of one side of his mouth hitching up in a half-smile.

“Oh my fucking God,” Ava whispered scarily. “They’re not even close to dating age, and you’re already making them undateable.”

“Start early, make sure the job gets done right,” Luke drawled.

Ava seemed fit to blow, but even as hilarious as this conversation was, I had some things to say about the situation.

“Although this is clearly something you two need to work out,” I began, and they both looked to me. “But did I just watch a little girl say she needed purple ribbon, and without even blinking, even though we’re about to start trimming, we’ve been cooking for the last two hours, and everything is ready to create the spread so we can eat and decorate, he put her in his car with her sister to go get said ribbon?”

“That is precisely what happened,” Ava confirmed irately.

My eyes wandered to the door as my lips tipped up, and I didn’t even care they were standing there when I whispered, “I’m so freaking in love with that guy.”

I felt something coming from Luke, it felt nice, but I didn’t have the opportunity to bask in it because Ava’s hand was on my arm.

I focused on her.

Her expression was deadly serious.

“Listen to me, Jess,” she stated in full Rock Chick Advisory Mode. “Do not let them boggle your mind with their good looks and healthy rationing of orgasms. It doesn’t seem those orgasms will wear off when they’re happening.”

Luke chuckled.

Ava shot him a death glare and came back to me.

“But they do. The haze clears. And then suddenly you realize you let them get away with a whole bunch of shit they never should have attempted in the first place.” The death glare went back to Luke. “Like spoiling your daughters, allowing all your buds to spoil them too, and as such, ruining their plans for future happiness.”

“Ava,” I called, and she returned her attention to me. “I think you know this, but just to say, first, they’re giving your girls indication they shouldn’t settle for anyone who doesn’t listen, doesn’t take their wishes into account, and doesn’t move mountains, when it’s within their power, to see to them. And second, when they find that guy, he’s not gonna give that first shit she’s got an overbearing father and a dozen uncles who are the same. He’ll win her heart and Luke and the Hot Bunch will just have to find it in them to deal.”

Luke grunted unhappily.

Ava shot me a winning smile.

As for me, with two parents who treated me and my brother like heirlooms they didn’t want, but couldn’t give away, and Eric, who’d had his family disintegrate one hideous Christmas Eve, what I just watched boded beautiful things for our future.

A man who considered a child’s opinion was not only worthwhile to listen to, but act on immediately, was going to be a great dad.

Obviously, I didn’t want to be around spoiled brats, and definitely not raise any, but there’d come a time at Michael’s where Ava was done, and she’d said a quiet, “Enough, Maisie,” and Maisie let it go.

Clearly, she was a kid who had been taught she was free to be herself, but when she pushed it too far, all Mom had to do was say two words, and she’d also been taught to mind.

I believed every kid should be spoiled a little bit, they should feel safe to express themselves at all times, and in a matter as unimportant as purple ribbon, a good man in their lives they loved and trusted taking them to the store to buy it was a precious thing.

Luke moved back to finish positioning the boughs around the television and Ava edged closer to me.

“The guys and girls are pretty excited about what’s happening with you and Eric,” she whispered.

How sweet!

I looked at her with a smile on my face.

But her face grew stone-cold.

“We’ve waited a long time for him to find a good woman who makes him happy. But, if you hurt him, you are dead to us forever.”

She said these words like she really meant them, and more, the Rock Chicks might actually make me dead if I hurt Eric.

Therefore, I blinked.

The doorbell rang.

“Got it,” Luke said and moved that way.

Ava shifted from me like she didn’t just little-sister threaten me about Eric.

“Where are my babies?”

At this demand, my attention hit the door to see most of the rest of our party was arriving. That being Shirleen, Moses, Roam, Cap and Raye.

Jeff was also coming, but since I got a text from him twenty minutes ago asking Eric’s booze preferences, I figured he was at Total Wine for a host gift.

Cap was carrying a bottle of wine, so was Roam, but Moses was carrying a foil wrapped platter.

Moses and Shirleen didn’t even live in Phoenix yet (though, the offer they put on that condo was accepted, which meant they were officially moving down early in the new year), so how they had a platter, I didn’t know. But I suspected whatever was under that foil was made in Raye’s kitchen, seeing as Cap relinquished it to his mom every once in a while.

“Eric took them to Michael’s to buy more ribbon,” Ava said, walking out from behind Eric’s island direct to Moses.

I watched Shirleen take in the tree, the opened boxes of ornaments, the three cute, but lonely moose on his coffee table, then Ava.

“Are they hitting Pottery Barn and Home Goods too?” she asked as she gave Ava a hug.

“I hope not,” Ava replied, heading for more hugs from Roam, Cap and Raye.

She did this as Shirleen was pulling her phone out of her purse.

She stopped doing it when she noticed Shirleen engaging her phone to send a text.

“Do not tell Eric to take my girls to Pottery Barn,” Ava commanded.

“I’m getting my bearings, girl, and Pottery Barn is literally five minutes away, so it’s no skin off his nose to do a drive-by,” Shirleen retorted. She tipped her head to the island. “I see you got the food ready. I also see no pigs in a blanket, which is why we brought some, and the last thing I see is this house is woefully under-decorated.”

“It’s fine,” Ava replied.

Shirleen turned on her. “The man has a woman and a cat, he needs more than a tree and three moose.”

I agreed with her.

However, I didn’t think buying Christmas decorations for his home was something I could do without Eric there. The bough wasn’t a thing, men dug greenery, but the moose with fur mufflers were pushing it. Though, Eric had just smiled when Gracie and Maisie had put them out. That said, I thought he did that solely because Gracie and Maisie were the ones who put them out.

Ava opened her mouth to say something, but Shirleen put up The Hand right in front of her face, and added, “Stop! What is that racket?”

Everyone listened.

We heard nothing but Christmas music turned low.

Shirleen walked to Eric’s smart-home unit, bent to it, and demanded, “Alexa, stop. Play. Nat. King. Cole. Christmas.”

The Jonas Brothers stopped playing and Cole’s The Christmas Song started.

So much better.

“There.” Shirleen swiped her hands together like she’d just completed a taxing job. She then divested Moses of the tray, whipped off the foil, put it down on the island with all the other food (I was particularly proud of the ginger cake with brown butter icing Ava and I had thrown together). Shirleen then decreed, “Now it’s a party.”

“It’s a party when I have a beer,” Roam muttered.

“Word,” Cap agreed.

They headed to the fridge.

“Oh my God, that cake looks amazing,” Raye said as she came to my side and bumped hips with me.

Ava lifted her martini glass. “Wait until you taste her cocktail.”

“It’s a wet run for the holiday extravaganza at the Oasis,” I told her. “Pomegranate gimlets.”

“Are you shaking?” Shirleen asked me.

“Always,” I answered, taking her hint and heading toward the cocktail shaker.

She hiked her ass on a stool.

“Men, over here, I think we’re off by a quarter of an inch on the left side,” Luke, standing behind the couch, arms crossed on his chest, was studying the placement of the now lit bough with a critical eye.

Roam and his opened bottle of beer went to stand next to him. “It’s so thick, how can you tell?”

“Yup,” Moses, also having gone to look, agreed. “Quarter of an inch on the left side. I got it.” He then moved to the bough.

“A quarter of a—?” I started to ask after something that was obviously unimportant.

But Shirleen giving me a look and shaking her head stopped me.

Her look said, As a woman’s thing, it’s totally unimportant. As a man’s thing, it’s the end of the world and has to be fixed immediately. Leave it .

I processed this wisdom and left it.

An hour later, Jeff had showed with a bottle of Grey Goose, he got intros all around, and we were all on the sectional with drinks (Roam, by the way, had claimed Henny), when Eric and the girls trudged in laden with bags.

While Eric greeted the not-so-newcomers, Maisie dragged her bag right to Ava. “Look, Mommy! We went to Pottery Barn and Uncle Eric got these!” Whereupon she pulled out two toss pillows.

One was in the form of a snowman with a top hat and a red scarf, the other was much the same shape, but it was a red Santa with his hat pulled over his eyes and a fluffy beard.

“ Aren’t they perfect? ” Maisie shrieked.

“Absolutely,” Luke answered, and Maisie shot her father a dazzling smile.

“I’ll get the batteries,” Eric murmured.

“I’ll help!” Gracie cried and skipped along with Eric’s long strides as they headed to the pantry.

“Batteries?” I asked.

“For the trees that are gonna sit with the mooses!” Maisie told me.

She then tossed her spent bag aside and raced to the Michael’s bag Eric had set on the floor.

“We got the ribbon, and we got some purple ornaments to match, and we got these!” She yanked out some stocking hooks that had gold stars.

After showing us those, she set them on the coffee table then went to another bag that Eric had brought in, this one Pottery Barn.

“And a stocking for you.” She tossed a white, honeycomb faux fur stocking at me. “One for Uncle Eric.” She tossed a bright red cable knit stocking at me. “And one for Henny!” she brandished the last above her head.

From what I could tell through the movement, it was a brown velvet stocking with black embroidered pine trees and black trim.

“I think they got things covered,” Moses murmured, humor in his tone.

“Whose idea was Pottery Barn?” Ava asked suspiciously.

“Uncle Eric’s,” Maisie replied. “Gracie told him the mooses were lonely, and Uncle Eric said mooses live in a forest, we had to find trees. So we looked at the trees at Michael’s, but they’d been picked over. Then Aunt Shirleen texted Uncle Eric about Pottery Barn, and he said we should try another store, and that’s when we got the pillows and stockings and trees . And this!”

She went to the last bag and pulled out a creamy, thick throw that was fake fur on one side, and had the forest design with deer and mountains in black on the other side.

I made a mental note to steal that for my house while Eric came back with Gracie and a packet of AA batteries.

They got to work unboxing three glass trees of varying heights that looked great with the moose, and even better when they got the batteries in and lit them up.

I got to work on trying not to sigh like a grown-up Victorian lady at how adorable they were with all their dark heads bent together putting batteries into glass trees.

I’d turned into a total sap.

I didn’t care even a little bit.

“Can we eat now?” Roam asked.

“Meatballs!” Maisie shouted and raced to the kitchen.

Ava sighed and got up. I got up with her, since everything was in the oven keeping warm so we had to respread the spread.

In the end, the food was great, and although the extra touches to the Christmas décor weren’t splashy, they definitely upped the ho-ho-ho factor. Better still, they’d always remind Eric of Gracie and Maisie. Huge bonus.

And I was thinking Maisie had an eye, because the deep purple she picked provided the perfect pop of color and looked really good on the tree.

Most of all, through this, I was struck by three things.

Christmas blessings, if you will, of the early variety.

The first, the present company made Jeff instantly comfortable. The getting-to-know-you portion pretty much ended at introductions, and then it was all about football, strategizing how to hide all the cords (Jeff pulled that off with some bough placement magic and a slight adjustment to the tree) and an in-depth discussion about Phoenix’s shooting ranges.

The second, Henny loved the girls. Henny loved the adults. Henny could give two shits about cat toys, but he loved batting ornaments along the floor, even if they broke and necessitated me finding Eric’s broom and dustbin to sweep them up.

Henny was having the time of his life, perhaps literally.

Henny was finally home, and Henny had a family.

The last, I didn’t have to worry anymore, because Eric had the same.

He had a lot of brothers. He had sisters. He had nieces.

And they were all the best kind. The ones he chose for himself, and the ones who would take a bullet for him (definitely literally).

I was thinking this thought as Eric and I were in the kitchen, cutting pieces of cake to pass around.

I felt his hand come to rest on the small of my back and looked up at him to see he was very close.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“What’s got you looking like that?” he whispered back, tenderness in his eyes as they moved over my face.

My gaze wandered to the living room, the sectional filled, the girls on the floor with some leftover ribbon playing with Henny, people talking, laughing, drinking, spent plates and napkins everywhere, Bing Crosby crooning, and the tree, boughs and décor glowing.

“How I cope,” Eric stated, and I turned back to him.

“What?”

“With losing Mom. I don’t know what I believe about life after death. If it’s possible, or if it’s just hopeful. But what I think is, if it’s real, and Mom can see what I earned in my life, she’d be happy for me.”

Liking this thought a whole lot for him, I forgot all about the cake and leaned into my guy. “Yeah.”

“She’d be a lot happier recently,” he remarked.

Oh God.

“Yeah,” I repeated, but his time it was husky.

He bent and touched his mouth to mine.

Really , really loved it when he did that.

After he lifted away, though not very far, he said, “Those meatballs were insane.”

I grinned at him, “I know, right?”

“Ugh! Mommy! Uncle Eric and Aunt Jess are like you and daddy!” Maisie complained.

We looked to the living room.

Shirleen was coming our way, saying, “I’ll help pass those around.”

But my eyes had gone to Ava.

She was cuddled into Luke but twisted to gaze over the back of the couch at me.

She was smiling.

She approved.

Oh yeah.

I didn’t have to worry.

Eric had a ton of family.

I noted Jeff turning his head away when my eyes caught on him, but that didn’t hide his smile.

And Eric’s family was only going to get bigger.

And as things like this were wont to be…

Better.

* * *

For your edification, the Battle of the Best Christmas Song was hotly debated.

In the end, it became a girls versus boys thing, with the finalists being Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” versus Taylor Swift’s “Christmas Tree Farm.”

Jeff, Roam and Cap were blindsided when Eric, Moses and Luke switched teams at the last minute so Gracie and Maisie’s favorite song would win.

Listening to, singing with (and sometimes dancing) then ribbing each other through the voting process of all the songs was a blast.

But the best part was in the beginning, when I pulled out the posterboard brackets I decorated with red, green and gold glitter and Christmas stickers, something Eric hadn’t seen yet, and something that delighted Gracie and Maisie beyond imagining (they got to use the fat gold and silver markers to write in the songs).

That was when I caught him looking at me a lot like I suspected I looked at him when he and the girls were putting the batteries in the trees.

So…yeah.

It had been an amazing night.

But that was totally the best part.