Baby joined in asking for pets a second later, apparently making an executive decision that her time sitting on her rump was over. I couldn’t blame her.
The front door opened, and the sound of excited voices filtered down the hall. Baby ran in the direction of her family.
“Uncle Max! Can Jake do it yet?” Steph called out, right before giggling, “Hi, Baby!”
I grinned. The girls had only began calling me uncle a few months ago, and it still left me feeling all sappy. “That’s a definite nope,” I called back as Jake ran out of the kitchen after Baby. A second later, I heard the girls start to laugh, which meant the dogs were being funny again.
I turned around and checked the timer on the Instant Pot. Two minutes to go, and then my sherry-roasted London broil would be done to perfection. I had the potatoes done, the salad done, the rolls were done…
Warm arms wrapped around my middle as cold lips pressed a kiss to the back of my neck. I shivered, but not really from the cold. “Hey there.”
“Hey.” I turned around in Dominic’s embrace and kissed him, soft and slow, letting him warm up against me. “How was the hike?”
“Freezing,” he replied. “We were right not to bring the dogs. They’d have had trouble without booties on.” And neither of them liked wearing booties. Jake still couldn’t handle them without doing the ridiculous, straight-legged walk of a dog who knew something was wrong and didn’t know how to fix it. “It smells amazing in here.”
I leaned back against the granite countertop the Instant Pot was on, pulling Dominic with me. “It’s almost ready.” I flexed my feet against the hardwood floor, glanced around at the sunshine-yellow walls and white trim, and smiled against Dominic’s cheek.
“What?”
“What, what?”
“I felt that.” He pulled back and looked at me. “What was that for?”
“Nothing, just…” I gestured at the room. “It’s done.”
Dominic grinned brightly. “Yeah, it is.”
It had taken most of the year and more time than I’d imagined, but the house was finished. After I moved back to Edgewood in February, with the promise that I would continue to work long distance for the firm as the point man with the big client I’d brought in, I stayed at Hal’s place for about a month before it became obvious that Dominic and I spent most of our free time together anyway, so we might as well move in and make it official. It should have felt fast, but if anything, I wished we’d done it sooner. I was more comfortable with Dominic in his half-finished house than I was anywhere else.
Getting the house done had been this year’s project. Getting a local law practice up and running instead of only working remotely like I had been would be next year’s big project for me, and I was looking forward to tackling it. I’d found an office space not far from Mayor Clawson’s store—she’d pointed it out to me, in fact, and introduced me to the landlord. Dinah had given me a slice of pie on the house when she heard, and what Dinah heard, everybody got wind of eventually. Half a dozen people I barely knew had come up to ask me legal questions since then, which hopefully boded well for my future business.
I’d never thought I’d live here again. Now I couldn’t imagine leaving it.
Everything I loved was here. Everyone I loved was here. Especially the man in my arms right now.
“You look serious.” Dominic ran the pad of his thumb between my eyebrows. “You get a furrow here when you’re thinking serious thoughts. What’s up?”
“Just…thinking about being back here.”
“Yeah?” He looked a little worried.
“Yeah. All good things,” I promised. “I’m still kind of surprised by where I ended up and how much I like it.”
The tension eased from his back. “Good. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it surprised me, too, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”
That meant a lot, coming from him. I knew there were times it was hard living with me, letting me in when he was having a bad day or coming down from a nightmare. He was used to shutting it in and keeping it all to himself. Admitting he needed help to someone outside the VA, someone who didn’t share his experiences…that was tough. For the first three months we lived together, a rough night for him meant getting a lot of reassurance from me—assurance that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I didn’t think less of him, that I didn’t expect him to be perfect.
I wasn’t about to expect something from him that I couldn’t accomplish myself, that was for damn sure. Mostly it was great between us and sometimes it was rough, but no matter what, we made it through. That was what family did.
Dominic held me through my angst attacks over seeing and hearing about my dad’s antics again. We’d actually made eye contact half a dozen times since I got back to town, each time from a distance with no talking involved. I’d shared with Dominic what happened on that impromptu Christmas visit I’d made, and it had felt good to talk it over with my partner, even better to snuggle on the couch after I was done ranting and watch a comfort movie together.
In turn, I helped as best I could with his PTSD. And on the family front, both of us had spent last week with Hal when the girls were off in Jersey having Christmas with Ariel. They’d come back on the twenty-sixth, full of stories and laughter, and Hal had hardly stopped smiling since.
“Oh, hey.” Dominic pointed at the kitchen table. “I checked the mail before I came in. You got a card. A fancy one.”
“Yeah?” I glanced over his shoulder. The envelope was forest green, with a beautiful foil snowflake stamp in the corner. In perfect penmanship, the first line of the return address read The Stallers.
“It’s from Marcus,” I said with a smile, walking over to the table to pick it up. I slid my finger under the flap and pulled it open.
“That was nice of him.”
I took the card out—a cardinal on a snowy bough—and read the inside.
Happy holidays in your new home, Max. I wish you all the joy in the world, and a very happy new year. Best to you and yours, Marcus, Clara, Marcus Jr., and Zachary.
This was the first Christmas card I’d ever received from him that included his whole family. I hoped that meant he was spending more time with them. I listened to Hal and the girls play with the dogs in the living room and felt Dominic beside me, reading with interest and knew all the way to my bones that I couldn’t possibly be happier.
The Instant Pot began to beep, and Dominic whirled to take care of it as Jake ran toward us, barking with excitement and worry. “Hey, buddy, it’s okay,” Dominic said soothingly, kneeling in front of our dog and stroking his head until he stopped whining. “It’s okay, yeah, that’s a good boy. Good boy.”