“I think we’re set,” Riley said, shoving the other biscuits into his pocket as he headed outside to help finish the lights.
As soon as he stepped outside, Sebastian squealed delightedly and turned up the volume on his babbling.
“Oh, I hear the boss is awake,” Lazarus said.
“He is,” Riley agreed. Riley looked up when he heard shuffling above his head and found Lazarus hanging over the side, looking at them.
“Hey, Bastian! How are you, buddy?” Lazarus asked, still hanging upside down looking at them from the roof.
Bastian twisted his head, looking for the source of the familiar voice. Riley turned enough for Sebastian to be able to find Lazarus. The minute he saw Lazarus hanging upside down, Sebastian laughed. He kept laughing, every time Lazarus would disappear back on the roof, then slowly let his head hang out over the edge again.
“Alright, we need to get this finished,” Riley said, chuckling himself at Lazarus playing with Sebastian. “One day, Laz, you’re going to make a wonderful father.”
“Naw, not me. Uncle? Yeah, I can do that. But I’m too broken to raise anybody to be a good person.”
“Seems to me the broken are sometimes the best parents. They know all the bad things to avoid and can teach survival like nobody’s business,” Riley said.
Up on the roof, Lazarus stopped stringing lights around the second floor windows and thought about what Riley had just said. He’d never thought of it that way. It certainly gave him something to consider.
~~~
Libby helped pull out all the decorations she’d found in the barn, then Travis and Roman helped her move one of the tables out into the sunshine so she could paint a few of the wooden ornaments. Roman watched Travis as they decorated. He could barely keep his eyes off Libby as she sat there, smiling to herself as she painted one of each shape of ornament so she could hang them around the table meant for ornament painting as samples.
“You can’t even stop looking at her,” Roman said.
Travis glanced over at Roman who was standing a few feet away from him on the roof. “I know. She’s so damn beautiful. And the simplest things make her happy. I mean, look at that smile — and all she’s doing is sitting outside painting a little piece of wood. Nothing fancy, just painting and she’s so happy.”
“Travis, it ain't the painting that’s making her smile. It’s you. It’s having you back in her life again,” Roman said.
Travis looked over at Libby again, then at Roman. “We’re not officially back together. She’s afraid to trust me, and I honestly can’t blame her. I don’t know if she’ll accept me fully or not,” Travis confided.
“She will. She has. She may not even be aware of it yet, but just look at her. She’s different. She’s happy. She’s content. She hasn’t been since I met her,” Roman said.
Travis finished attaching his side of the red and green ‘Merry Christmas’ light display they were mounting right in the middle of his roof and stood up. “I worry about Lucas. Maybe what they had…” he started to say, but Roman cut him off.
“They didn’t have anything. They’re just friends. All the nights she spent at Lucas’s house were innocent. They weren’t lovers, they’re friends. And a lot of it was her crying and him holding her, but they never crossed that line.”
“How do you know that?” Travis asked.
“Because I asked. You’re my friend. She’s your mate. It could get messy because Lucas is my friend, too. So I watched.”
“Thank you for that.”
Roman shrugged. “I care about both of you. He’s a good male, too. I didn’t want him getting hurt either. And he would have if they’d gotten involved before you pulled your head out of your ass.”
Travis stopped untangling the Christmas lights he held in his hands and looked at Roman for a moment before barking out a laugh.
“What? It’s true,” Roman said.
“Yeah, I know. And I do know Lucas is a good male. But she’s mine.”
“That’s what I told him whenever the subject would come up. I’d say, ‘Just don’t forget she belongs to somebody else’.”
“Thank you for that.”
“Don’t hurt her again this time,” Roman said. “This may be your last chance. Especially judging by the way she looks at you, and the relaxed feeling about her. She’s already let you in again even if she hasn’t figured it out. You hurt her this time there might not be another.”
“I’m not letting go again. No matter what I go through, if she’ll have me, it will be with her by my side,” Travis said, turning to look over at her again.
Libby finished painting the last ornament she was going to use as a display and looked up to see how much progress Travis and Roman had made. When she did she found them both looking right at her. She looked behind herself, but there was nothing behind her, then back up at them. “What? What’d I do?” she asked.
Travis laughed and Roman grinned at her. “Nothing. Just admiring the view,” Travis said.
“You better stop all that flattery. I’m going to get used to it,” she said, standing up and walking around the table to go stand closer to the house and look up at them.
“It’s not flattery if it’s the truth,” Travis said.
“Oh, now you’re just being all mushy and it’s not becoming at all,” she teased.
Travis smiled at her, then stood back and held his arms out to the sides. “So, how does it look? Is it even?” he asked.
“It is. The Merry Christmas is right in the center, and the Christmas trees are evenly placed on either side,” she answered.
“Alright. Then we’ll hang the icicle lights from the perimeter and trim the doors and windows with the multicolor strands, then we’ll move to the exterior of the barn and the work shop,” Travis said.
“Could ya’ll find a way to mount the wooden frames we made for people to take pictures with?” Libby asked.
“Got any T-posts?” Roman asked.
“Yeah. Keep spares for fixing the fences,” Travis said.
“We could attach two T-posts to them and drive them into the ground. Just have to pick a spot for anybody that wants to have their picture taken,” Roman said.
“There you go. Problem solved,” Travis said. “Where do you want the pictures to be taken?”
Libby looked around the farm. “I think it would be a pretty backdrop to have some trees in the background. So, can you place them somewhere they could see trees in the background?”
“I can. We’ll put the frames on T-posts today, then tonight we’ll work out the layout of where everything will be. We’ll pick a place to put the frames in the ground that has only the unharvested trees in the background.”
“Thank you,” Libby said.
“Thank you. This is you helping me, remember?” he asked.
Libby nodded and gave a slight smile. “I finished painting, and other than baking I’ve done all I can do. I think I’m going to run home and get a few changes of clothes, then go over to Lucas’s house and grab my laptop.”