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CHAPTER TWENTY

T he cordless phone crackled a little as Paul leaned back in the worn armchair by the window.

He cradled his coffee in one hand and the receiver in the other.

Outside, the late afternoon sky was fading into dusky blues and purples, the streetlights blinking on like slow winks against the snow-dusted sidewalks.

“You met someone?” His mother's voice was sharp with delighted disbelief.

“Finally!” his father crowed from somewhere in the background. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

Paul chuckled, feeling a rare, buoyant lightness inside his chest. “Yeah, I met someone.”

He let the words hang there a moment, savoring them like a secret unwrapped too soon. He hadn't told them that he was engaged. That he was getting married in the morning. He couldn't decide how to breach that topic. Maybe he could just bring her home over Christmas wrapped in a bow?

In his mind, Birdy's face appeared—vivid, electric.

That perfect, serious mouth made for arguing.

.. and kissing. Those dark, intelligent eyes that always looked like they were three steps ahead of whatever he was about to say.

The high, sleek twist of her hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun that dared anyone to underestimate her.

God, he wanted to see it down again. Loose and wild around her shoulders, the way he imagined it would look first thing in the morning, when she wasn’t bracing herself against the world. When she'd unfurled herself from the cocoon of his arms to greet both the day and him.

Paul thought about her sharp, fitted dress suits.

The confident click of her heels across courthouse floors.

And he wanted—achingly wanted—to see her in sweatpants.

Or sleep shorts. To see her barefoot, hair mussed, coffee mug in hand, glaring at him for smiling too much, smiling at her.

Because he had landed her. Because she was going to be his wife.

He wanted the whole picture. The polished Birdy. The unguarded Birdy. The lawyer who conquered courtrooms. The wife who fell asleep mid-book on the couch with her head against his shoulder.

And somehow the world had reshaped itself so that he would have it. Paul would have all of these things. Because she was going to be his wife.

The thought warmed him from the inside out.

But even stronger than the images—the suits, the hair, the disheveled mornings—were the words.

The ones they’d shared when they didn’t even know each other's names. Typed across a government chat window. Soft, sharp, teasing, vulnerable. Words that had built something between them before he’d ever touched her hand or tasted her mouth.

He wanted a lifetime of that. Of words—and arguments—and teasing, and fierce, furious kisses.

He couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. The way she’d surprised him. Surprised herself, maybe. The heat of it. The claim of it. How the whole coffee shop had disappeared until there was nothing but the feel of her mouth on his, the taste of snow-melt and longing and yes.

“Is she nice?” his mother asked.

“Is she pretty?” his father chimed in.

“She’s… a lot more than that. She’s smart. Fierce. Beautiful. And she’s got this”—Paul shook his head, searching for the right word—“fire in her that you just have to see to believe.”

His dad whistled low. “Son, you’ve always been picky. Picky about your food, picky about your toys, picky about your friends. If you’re this sure about this girl — sure enough to tell Captain Winters — then she must be something.”

Over the line, Paul heard the faint thump of a pillow hitting flesh, followed by his mother’s mock-outraged “Oh, you did not!”

Paul could see it in his mind’s eye—his dad grinning like a teenager, ducking as his mother lobbed another throw pillow at him across their worn-in living room.

She’d be half-laughing, half-threatening to revoke his dinner privileges, while his father called her “Ma’am” in that exaggerated way that always made her roll her eyes and kiss him, anyway.

It was their rhythm. Their language. Banter laced with bedrock love.

But his father had a point. About his mother, true.

But also about Paul and his pickiness. When he was a kid, Paul had refused to eat vegetables unless they were separated on the plate.

He once went three whole weeks without playing with anyone at recess because he “didn’t want to waste time on people who didn’t get it. ” Whatever it had been.

“Yeah,” Paul said, feeling the truth of it settle somewhere deep and sure inside him. “I think she’s going to be a keeper.”

He stared at the quiet little town outside the window.

Porch lights glowed gold against the early dusk, casting halos over shoveled walkways.

A kid in a puffy coat shuffled past with a sled dragging behind him.

Somewhere in the distance, wind chimes jingled softly from a front porch.

Smoke curled lazily from chimneys, and the glow from the bakery’s windows across the street painted the sidewalk with buttery light.

It looked like a town that tucked its people in. A place where strangers waved without thinking, where the coffee shop remembered your order and the post office clerk asked about your aunt’s hip surgery. A place where roots could grow deep and strong—if you let them.

“I think I could be happy spending the rest of my life with her.”

He tested out the notion to his parents. They weren't spontaneous people. They were both planners. They shared an electronic calendar and paper calendar to coordinate their schedules. It was planned down to the hour—especially when Mom had been away and Dad had been solo parenting.

There was a beat of silence on the line. Then his father whooped so loudly Paul had to pull the phone away from his ear.

“When you know, you know!” his dad said, laughter rumbling through the receiver. “That’s how it was with your mother. Saw her once at the PX, and that was it. Done for.”

Paul smiled, a slow, aching thing that filled up his whole body. Because it hit him then. Birdy reminded him of his mother.

Both women stood tall in a world that sometimes wanted to shove them down. Both women wielded intelligence like a weapon—his mother with her crisp uniform and gleaming medals, Birdy with her legal pad and pen sharp enough to carve out a space where she belonged.

His mother had his father at her side. Always at her back. And when necessary, stepping forward to take the hits so she could keep marching forward.

Paul’s throat tightened. Because he wanted that too. Not just to stand beside Birdy—but to protect her dreams, her fire, her future. To be her shield when the world didn’t deserve her brilliance. He set down his coffee, gripping the phone a little tighter.

“Guys,” he said, voice rough with something bigger than nerves, bigger than excitement. “There's more I need to tell you.”