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Taavi shot me a look back over his shoulder, and I flashed him a grin. He looked surprised, but then smiled back at me, that soft, kind of secretive smile he has that I’ve never seen him give anyone else, and my insides basically turned into goo.

“You know,” I said to Elliot after Taavi had turned back around to respond to whatever my mother had just said, “this means you’re going to have to help decorate this fucking thing.”

“Am I?”

“I am told there will also be cookie baking. And hot chocolate.”

“Will there be Bailey’s in the hot chocolate?”

“Maybe? Taavi’s in charge of it, so it might be tequila or some shit.”

“Kahlua, Val,” Taavi called from in front of us. Because canid shifter hearing.

“There you go,” I told Elliot.

“I can handle Kahlua,” Elliot replied. “As long as there’s equal parts Kahlua and chocolate.”

“You’re going to get shitfaced,” I told him.

“If there’s a better way to handle this, I’m all ears,” he replied.

“Meth?”

That got me a soft barked laugh.

Up ahead, my mother stopped and clapped her mittened hands. “Boys! What do we think?”

Elliot and I shared a glance—the same kind of glance we’d been sharing behind my mother’s back for the last thirty-five-plus fucking years. The kind that was mostly affectionate, but with an edge ofwhy do we put up with this, again?And it felt really fucking good.

For a few days there, I thought I’d lost the two people who mattered to me most—Taavi and Elliot. Taavi, because I was a fucking dumbass, and Elliot to grief. But I’d gotten my shit together enough that I’d managed not to completely fuck up my relationship, and it seemed like Elliot was starting to come back from wherever he’d gone.

I wasn’t judging him—grief is fucking awful and unpredictable. One day you’re fine and the next you feel like you’re staggering under a ton of bricks. Maybe tomorrow would be awful, and then I’d come over and make him food and let him lean on me again. But today was better, and for now, I’d happily take it… even if it did mean tolerating my mother’s delusion about joyful family Christmases.

We gathered around the tree she’d selected, which was probablybarelygoing to fit in their living room—which had a decently high ceiling—and was going to be an absolute bitch to get into the house.

But she did have two shifters and an elf to help do it, and I knew for a fact—from photos—that she almost never got a really big tree anymore because she and my dad couldn’t manage to get it inside.

My mother’s brown eyes sparkled, her cheeks were flushed with cold and excitement, and she looked so damn hopeful…

“I’ve got it,” Elliot said, brushing a gloved hand over my arm as he reached out to take the saw from my dad.

“Taavi’s shorter,” I pointed out, kind of enjoying the horrified expression that flashed over my boyfriend’s features.

Elliot looked over at him. “When was the last time you cut down a pine tree?” he asked Taavi.

“We didn’t really havetreesin Yuma,” Taavi replied. “My papá used to put lights on the yucca outside in the yard.”

Elliot barked out another soft laugh, then got down on his knees in the snow and stuck his head into the tree. My dad leaned in to help—not that you can do much to help somebody cutting down a pine tree other than make sure that it didn’t fall on them—not that Christmas trees are terribly dangerous if they do. But it is nice not to find yourself buried in pine branches if you have the option.

“Oh, that’s fun!” my mother jumped in with. “But you didn’t have a tree in the house?”

Taavi shrugged. “We had a little fake one that came with the lights already on it.”

“You didn’t get a live tree?” My mother sounded so disappointed.

Taavi blinked at her. “No. I think they turn brown too quickly for people to bother. Our neighbors lit up the saguaro in their yard. Some people had juniper or cypress, but Yuma’s too hot and dry for most of the bushier trees.” He shivered, and I stepped closer to pull him up against me. There were probably too many layers of coat between us for it to really make a difference in terms of warmth, but it was a good excuse to hold him that I wasn’t about to turn down.

“You’re not used to the cold, are you, sweetpea?” My mother made a soft noise that I’m sure was meant to be sympathetic.