Page 55 of Daddy's Little Christmas

My foster homes had come with rules. The bad ones had come with rules meant to control instead of protect. Mrs. Davis had offered structure that made room for me to breathe. Nate had wrapped his expectations in the language of love and nearly erased my ability to want without fear.

Graeme was offering choice.

My hand shook as I reached into the basket and picked up one of the reindeer—the one I’d been staring at since the first day. Its scarf was crooked, the stitches a little uneven, like it had been made by someone who cared more about the feeling than the finish.

I held it to my chest, and for the first time, I didn’t wonder whether I was allowed to want this.

Its fur was ridiculously soft—the kind that made you want to rub your cheek against it without thinking. I pressed my thumb into its belly and watched the fabric give and spring back.

“I don’t…” I swallowed. “I don’t know how to start again.”

He didn’t rush to answer.

“You don’t have to start any special way,” he said. “We’re not following anyone else’s script.”

A breath left me in something that was half a laugh, half relief.

“You make it sound simple.”

“I’m not saying it’s simple,” he said. “I’m saying it’s yours.”

I looked down at the reindeer in my arms, then at the pacifier still resting in the basket. Want pooled low and warm in my chest, familiar and aching in equal measure.

“Graeme?” I said, because his name felt solid. Real.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

The word landed the way it always did—steady, reassuring, like a hand at my back. My shoulders eased without me meaning them to.

Silence settled around us—full and steady and waiting, like it had all the time in the world.

“I…” The words tangled. I forced them through anyway. “I want… I want to be… small. For a bit.”

“Okay,” he said, and I heard the care he put into keeping his voice even. “You can be as small as you want, for as long as you want. And if you want to stop, you say so and we stop. You’re in charge of that, Rudy. Always.”

My eyes burned hotter.

“Can you…” I licked my lips, heat creeping up my neck. “Can you stay? With me? While I…”

His hand came into view, palm up on the rug beside me.

“I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else,” he said.

I put my hand in his.

He didn’t pull or tug. He just shifted, moving to sit on the loveseat, then gave a little nudge so I could follow. My kneeswere unsteady when I stood, the reindeer hugged to my chest, but his hand was a warm anchor.

The cushion dipped under his weight when he sat back, then again when I perched beside him. For a second, I froze, stiff as a board, not sure what to do with my limbs.

Graeme’s arm came along the back of the loveseat, not quite touching me.

“If you’d like to be held,” he said carefully, “you can climb into my lap. If you’d rather just sit next to me, we can do that too. Both are fine.”

My brain scrambled to list pros and cons.

My body had already decided.

I turned, letting my legs fold under me as I shifted sideways. The reindeer ended up squished between us for a second before I readjusted, carefully placing it on my other side. I hesitated only a heartbeat before swinging one leg over his, then the other, until I was straddling his lap facing his chest.