Chapter 20 Austin Graham

Matching Sweater Day

Four Days Until Christmas

I'm surprised to find Asher in the locker room when I walk in. It’s not mandatory today since it’s our day off, but I’ve been working hard to show that I want to keep my starting position.

“You here for workouts?” I ask.

“Just finished. I usually come in after lunch on Mondays, but my son has a wellness check this afternoon, so I put in the work nice and early today.” He’s just finishing up, and I'm just getting started.

“How old?” I ask.

“Six months already. A whole half a year. How old is yours?”

“She'll be a year old next month.”

“Tell me it gets easier,” he says.

I chuckle. “I'm still pretty new at this, and I only get one day a week with her. For now, anyway.”

“For now?” He bends over to tie his shoes.

“Yeah, Kelly's moving in with me and…” I trail off, not sure how to end that sentence in a way that doesn’t get too deep. But then I realize that Asher and I have started to build a friendship, and if you can’t talk about this shit with your friends, then who can you talk to about it?

“And?” he prompts.

I blurt it out. “And I think I'm tired of wasting time. I know what I want, and I see glimpses of it when we're together.”

“Then make it official,” he says. He pushes to a stand. “What do you have to lose?”

Maybe he's got a point. We've wasted so goddamn much time, and I’m at the point where I don't want to waste another second.

But we have plans today, and she's leaving tomorrow. It's not like I can lock this thing up in the next couple hours, but I'll have a little bit of time while she's gone to make things happen.

I tilt my head before I finally answer. “I think you might be right. And no. It doesn't get easier. It seems like with every new stage we stumble on, something that was hard before gets easier, but then a new challenge pops up.”

“Feels like nobody tells you about those sorts of joys of parenthood, am I right?”

I chuckle as I shake my head. “No, nobody tells you.”

“Well, I better be on my way before I’m late getting home, but it was nice talking to you.”

He grabs his bag, and I hear the sincerity in his voice over something that should be so simple but never come easy between the two of us.

He heads out, and I head toward the weight room. Adrian is here, and he guides me through my workouts. Before I know it, I'm on my way back to Kelly's place, and I’m ready to execute some holiday fun.

She is wearing a knit sweater with a gingerbread man on the front, and Mia is wearing a matching one, both of my girls in jeans. What is it about jeans that makes babies look so adorable and grown-ass women look so bangable?

“Nobody told me it was matching sweater day,” I say as I walk in and plant a kiss on Kelly’s cheek first and then one on Mia’s.

Kelly grins at me as she turns and walks into the house. She grabs a sweater and tosses it over to me. I hold it up for inspection, and it's the same gingerbread man.

I laugh. “You actually expect me to wear this?”

“You told me you had a holiday adventure for us today, so...” She trails off at the end, but her point is clear. Yes, indeed, she expects me to wear it.

I peel off the long sleeve tee I wore over here, and I don’t miss as Kelly’s heated gaze falls to my abdomen. I shoot her a wink as I pull the sweater on, and Kelly grabs her phone and takes a selfie of the three of us.

She props her phone up and sets the timer at three seconds so we can take a family photo, and I realize it's the first one of its kind.

It’s not just me wearing an ugly sweater that matches hers and Mia’s, but this is our first actual holiday picture together as a family. I think it might be our first family photo period , and that thought fills my chest with a joy I wasn’t expecting.

She sets the timer to take another, and another, and another. In one of them, I lean in and press my lips to her cheek.

“Hey, send me a copy of those, would you?” I ask.

She taps a few buttons on her phone, inspecting each photo and doing some light editing before she texts four of them to me.

“Are you ready for our holiday adventure?” I ask.

She nods, and we head out to my Escalade. I strap Mia in the back, and when I fire up the engine, Kelly grins at me. “The Christmas station?” she asks, nodding toward the radio.

“Just for you.”

She reaches over and squeezes my hand, and it’s all because of her and our little girl that I feel a little less grinchy than usual.

I pull into the tree lot, and Kelly glances over at me.

“I figured you’d want to replace the one in your family room, and while we’re here, I was thinking we could pick one out for my place, too.”

She raises her brows in surprise. “Two trees? I thought you didn’t really celebrate.”

I reach across the front seat and wrap a hand around the back of her neck, and I pull her a little closer. “I never did. I never had a reason to celebrate. But you make me feel like I do.”

I press my lips to hers as she sighs softly into me, and I can’t believe how good this feels. How right .

“This is perfect,” she says, and she kicks her feet with a little bit of giddiness. I feel it too—the excitement and fun of this little adventure that’s sort of a date and sort of a family outing all combined into one.

We get out of the car, and I carry Mia toward the gate as my hand finds Kelly’s. There’s a hot chocolate stand to one side and rows and rows of evergreens in front of us. And then the magic really happens.

Little snowflakes start to fall all around us.

It's obviously some sort of machine that creates little bubbles that look like snow since we’re in Vegas, and it’s only going to be a high of fifty-seven today in the middle of the desert. Vegas isn't exactly known for its blizzards. I lean down and press my lips to Kelly’s, and I hear Mia squeal from the side of me where I'm holding her.

An attendant with a camera around her neck approaches us. “Photo for the adorable family?” she asks.

“Absolutely,” Kelly says, moving into place in front of the sign with the tree lot’s name on it.

Snow falls around us as we wear our ridiculously ugly knit gingerbread man sweaters to pick out Christmas trees, and this is exactly the sort of fun family adventure I feel like I never got to have in my own childhood. It's everything I want for my own kids even though I wasn't sure I ever wanted kids. I didn’t—until Kelly told me she was pregnant.

And then suddenly, just like that…I did. Mia was born, and there was this tiny little human who was part me and part Kelly and total perfection. I fell in love the second I saw her, and I’ll never forget the kiss Kelly and I shared after she delivered Mia. It was wrought with emotion, and I think that might’ve been the moment I first realized I was in love with her.

It just took me almost an entire year to admit it to her—in part because she kept pushing me away, and I chose my moment when I finally felt the two of us starting to reconnect again.

We meander through the rows of trees as these thoughts cross my mind, and Kelly stops in front of one. She backs up and looks at it from a few different angles, and she twists it a little to look at the other side. She backs up again, and I can see the way her mind is working. It’s fascinating to watch her, but she’s got an eye for these things—obviously, given her talent with wreath-making.

“This one,” she announces.

“Why that one?” I ask, chuckling.

“It has a halo.” She says it so matter-of-factly, as if I know what she’s talking about.

“A halo?”

She nods. “You know, like in those Christmas movies when they cast a light on the perfect tree with a little halo above it to show how angelic it is in its beauty. When I look at this one, I see the halo.” She shrugs. “It’s the perfect tree. Full, no bald spots, good height.”

“And a halo,” I add.

She nods and smiles. “See? You get the idea. What do you think about this one, Miamiga?”

I lift Mia closer to the tree, and she squeals and giggles.

“I think that means it’s perfect,” I say, and Kelly laughs.

The attendant swings by and grabs the tree to wrap it up for us as we search for one for my place next.

“Where are you putting it?” Kelly asks.

In your pussy is the first thought that comes to mind, and then I remember we’re talking about Christmas trees and not my cock. I clear my throat. “In the family room where the table with the lamp is.”

She nods as she squints a little, and I think she’s picturing the space in her mind. “The ceilings there are, what, twelve feet?”

I nod.

“And you probably want something on the skinnier side. I saw one over here…” She trails off as she takes off for another row, and she weeds through a few trees before she pulls one out.

She spins it around, backing up to look at it from a few different angles, and she turns her gaze to me. “What do you think of this one?”

“Does it have a halo?”

She studies it a few seconds, tilting her head and backing up before she nods resolutely. “I think it's got an even brighter halo than the one I picked out for my place.”

I laugh and press a kiss to Mia’s cheek, and she bursts into the sweetest little baby giggles. “Then let’s wrap it up.”

The attendant wraps it and tosses both trees into my car as we pay. We finish our hot chocolate and enjoy the snow, and then we take off for our next destination…the craft store.

“What are we doing here?” Kelly asks.

“Well, we need to replace the ornaments that broke on your tree, and we need to buy some ornaments for my tree. Plus, I'm pretty sure someone I know has a whole bunch of wreaths to make, so we can take care of it all right here.”

She turns her gaze to me, and wonder mixed with adoration is in her eyes.

I think I finally figured out how to do this the right way.