Page 28 of Daddy's Little Christmas

“Rudy,” I said softly, and kept my voice low the way I had last night. “Look at me.”

His gaze flicked up, panicked and bright.

“Easy,” I said. “Breathe with me. I’ve got you.”

His breath stuttered, then caught, then tried again. He held my eyes as if it was the only thing keeping him upright.

For a moment, he did breathe with me.

Then he blinked hard, like he’d realized how much he’d just revealed, and he took a step back.

“I should go,” he said too quickly. “I— I’m sorry. I really am.”

“You don’t have to—”

But he was already backing away, as if he was determined to leave before anyone could decide he was too much.

At the door, his hand paused on the handle. He didn’t look back fully, but his voice came out quieter.

“Thank you,” he said. “For… last night. And today. For being—”

He swallowed, like the rest of the sentence didn’t have words.

“You’re welcome,” I said, and let warmth live openly in my tone. “Anytime.”

The bell chimed as he stepped out into the cold.

I stayed where I was for a moment, broken ornament pieces still in my palm, listening to the shop settle again—the clock ticking, the heater humming, the faint hush of snow outside.

It was the same quiet as always, but it didn’t sit in the room the same way. It felt like something had passed through and shifted the air, leaving behind the kind of lingering impression you only noticed once it was gone.

I set the shards in the trash, washed my hands, and looked at the tree we’d half-decorated.

One small wooden star hung slightly crooked near the bottom branch.

I reached out and straightened it, then let my fingers rest on the pine needles for a beat longer than necessary because I could still feel the way Rudy had looked at me when I told him he wasn’t too old to want softness.

And I found myself thinking—quietly, plainly—that I hoped he would come back.

It had been years since someone stirred anything in me beyond simple friendliness. Years since I’d let myself linger on someone’s smile or replay a moment the way I’d replayed thebrush of Rudy’s hand when he gave back the mug the first time we met.

I’d felt that warmth all the way up my arm. Caught me off guard.

I wasn’t the eighteen-year-old boy who’d lost both his parents. I wasn’t the man I’d been at twenty-five, finally walking back into the old greenhouse after years of avoiding it, turning my parents’ place into something new so it wouldn’t break me anymore.

And I wasn’t the man I’d been at twenty-nine, letting Michael’s bright, restless energy light up corners of me I hadn’t touched in years.

I wasn’t thirty either—the year I learned that loving someone didn’t mean they could stay.

Michael left with kindness, not cruelty, but loss was loss.

I’d built a quiet life—routine, steady, predictable. After everything I’d lost, predictability felt like survival.

And yet—something about Rudy had slipped under my guard like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Chapter 6

Rudy