Page 102 of Daddy's Little Christmas

My throat burned.

He shifted onto his side, facing me fully now, one knee tucked up on the couch, the firelight painting his face in shades of gold and shadow.

“Thank you,” he said. Simple. Bare. “For letting me be me. For not flinching when I went soft. For… building a whole little nest for me in the back of the shop.” He smiled, that small, shaky smile that wrecked me. “For being solid when everything else in my life felt like slush under my feet.”

Emotion rose so fast it left me almost dizzy. I swallowed hard, searching for words big enough to hold what I felt, and knowing I wasn’t going to find them.

“You don’t have to thank me,” I said, but my voice came out rough. “You deserved that. You’ve always deserved that.”

He laughed quietly. “Maybe. But wanting something and having it are two very different things.”

I cupped his cheek, thumb brushing the faint pink there. “You are young,” I said. “That doesn’t mean you’re fragile. It means you have time. Time to be seen properly. Time to be loved without conditions. Don’t let anyone convince you that you have to make yourself smaller to earn that.”

His breath hitched. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not,” I said. “It’s hard as hell. But—” I leaned down to press my forehead to his. “You’ve already done the hardest part.”

“What’s that?” he whispered.

“You walked away from someone who asked you to carve off pieces of yourself to fit their comfort,” I said. “You chose you. That’s brave, Rudy. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it isn’t.”

His eyes shone, lashes wet. “You make me feel…” He broke off, searching for the word. “Whole,” he said finally. “Not too much or broken. Just… me. And somehow that’s okay.”

I closed my eyes for a second, breathing him in. The smell of his shampoo. The hint of woodsmoke on his clothes. The faint sweetness of syrup still on his skin.

“You are more than okay,” I said. “You are—” I stopped myself before the word that wanted to spill out got loose. “You areextraordinary. And I am… so damn grateful I got to know you. To care for you. To see you.”

His fingers curled in the front of my sweater. “You make me feel younger,” he said. “Not little—you do that too, but that’s different. I mean… less tired. Less like I’ve burned out all my joy reserves. Being here feels like hitting reset.”

I huffed a soft laugh. “You’ve done the same for me, you know.”

He blinked up at me, surprised. “Yeah?”

“I’ve lived in this town my whole life,” I said. “I love it. I love Holly & Pine. I love these people. But I’d made a quiet sort of peace with my life being… this.” I gestured vaguely. “Good. Stable. Loved. But… settled.”

“Boring?” he teased gently.

“Comfortable,” I corrected. “Maybe too comfortable.”

His smile softened. “And then I walked in and broke all your routines.”

“You walked in and reminded me there were parts of me I’d put on a shelf and dusted around instead of using,” I said. “You let me slip into being Daddy in a way that felt… good. Right. Like I wasn’t just taking care of a town or a store, but of someone who let me in all the way.”

He was quiet for a long beat. Then he whispered, “It really was the opportunity of a lifetime, wasn’t it?”

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “It was for me,” I said. “Is.”

He took a shaky breath. “I don’t know what happens next,” he admitted. “I don’t know if this is just a beautiful, impossible two-week bubble that pops as soon as I get back to Chicago. Or if… ifthere’s something else we can build from it. But I know I’m going to be better because of this. Because of you.”

My heart thudded, slow and heavy. I brushed his hair back from his forehead, letting my fingertips linger.

“I don’t have answers either,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what long-distance looks like. I don’t know what you’ll want or need once you’re back in your world. But I know this—” I tapped my chest gently, over my heart. “You’ve made a difference here. And that doesn’t vanish just because you drive away.”

His expression crumpled slightly, like he was trying not to cry and almost losing the battle.

“Don’t let anyone steal your joy, Rudy,” I said, voice low. “Not a partner. Not family. Not fear. You have every right to softness and silliness and light. To your little space. To your grown-up ambitions. To all of it.”

“Even when the world says I’m weird?” he asked, a hint of humor cutting through the ache.