Page 93 of Daddy's Little Christmas

I stopped first, letting my limbs fall still. My breath puffed into the air in short bursts. Rudy’s sleeve brushed mine.

“Three days,” he said suddenly.

I turned my head. He was staring straight up, eyes shining, cheeks flushed. “Three days until I screw up your quiet life by leaving a Rudy-shaped hole in it.”

“That’s one way to put it,” I said softly.

He swallowed. “I don’t… want to think about it yet,” he admitted. “But it’s there. Like a… clock somewhere in the background.”

I wanted to tell him to stay. The words pressed against my teeth.Don’t go. Don’t drive back to that small, careful life where people ask you to cut off pieces of yourself to be acceptable.

Instead I reached for his hand, snow dampening our gloves where they met.

“We’ve still got three days,” I said. “I vote we use them properly.”

He turned his head then, finally, to look at me. Something softer smoothed out the worry between his brows. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I squeezed his hand. “Starting with getting you back inside before you turn into a popsicle.”

He huffed a laugh. “But Mr. Wobbles hasn’t seen our angels.”

“Mr. Wobbles will cope.”

We stood carefully, stepping out of the impressions we’d made. Two imperfect angel shapes in the snow, arms spread wide.

Rudy looked at them and smiled. “Proof,” he said.

“Of what?” I asked.

“That we were here.”

The ache in my chest sharpened. I slung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. “Come on,” I said roughly. “You’ve got to learn how to chop wood before I’ll let you back in the house.”

He gasped, hand to heart. “Cruel.”

“You’ll survive.”

The woodpile sat near the shed, half-covered by a sloped tarp weighed down with cinder blocks. I pulled it back, revealing split logs stacked in neat rows. The block I used for chopping sat a few feet away, embedded in packed snow and frozen soil.

Rudy eyed the axe on the ground with theatrical suspicion. “That looks like something from a horror movie,” he said.

“It’s just a tool,” I said, picking it up. The familiar weight settled into my palms, handle worn smooth from years of use. “Like a kitchen knife. Or a laptop. Or a plunger.”

“Those are three very different vibes,” he said.

“Point stands.”

He snorted.

“Okay,” I said, setting a log on the chopping block. “First lesson: stance. Feet shoulder-width apart. Knees soft. You’re not trying to wrestle the wood into submission. You’re letting the axe do the work.”

“Very zen of you,” he murmured.

I shot him a look over my shoulder. “Come here.”

He stepped up behind me. For a second he hovered at a careful distance. I reached back, caught his hip, and pulled him fully against my back.

“There,” I said. “Closer.”