Page 31

CHAPTER 31

A NEW CONSTELLATION

EMORY

"What is that thing?"

It's a little before noon on Christmas Eve. With Kayden's hockey schedule and my work schedule, we've barely seen each other recently. And we certainly never talked about decorating for Christmas. But that hasn't stopped him from stepping off the penthouse elevator with a Christmas tree in his hand. If it can be called that. The needles are more brown than green, and even across the room, I can see several bald patches.

He marches the tree, barely taller than him, to the wall of windows in the living room and stands it right in the center. "Tomorrow is Christmas. I decided we need a tree."

I draw closer as he cuts the twine, and the tree puffs its branches proudly. I'm pretty sure a gasoline-soaked newspaper would be less of a fire hazard than this thing. But when the room fills with that unmistakable pine scent, I can't help but take in a deep breath.

"I hope they gave you a good deal."

"A great deal. Two thousand dollars for all the trees left on the lot. I called the director of the homeless shelter where Chloe used to live. He's going to give the trees to families who still don't have one. The workers on the tree lot even gave me this stand for free. "

Warmth spreads through my chest as I picture Kayden—the man everyone thinks is just a cocky hockey player—secretly arranging Christmas trees for families in need. I turn my back to him before I get any dangerous thoughts.

"Wait, you bought every tree there, and this was the best they had?"

He shakes his head. "Not the best. The one. As soon as I saw it, I knew this was our tree."

"Hmm, you sure know how to pick them." There are already more needles on the floor than on the tree. "Did they give you any decorations to go with it? To maybe hide the tree?"

"No need. I'll be right back. Give it some water?"

"Are you seriously going shopping for decorations on Christmas Eve?" I don't even get the words out before he's gone. Apparently that's a yes.

I turn back toward the tree. "I don't know what good tap water will be for you. You need a fountain of youth," I tell it.

I barely have the stand filled with water when Kayden bursts back in with a dusty, red plastic tote, wearing a grin that I have no business finding cute. "I'm the master of Christmas tree lights. Stand back and prepare to be amazed."

"I'll be amazed if they don't set this tree on fire. I'm not sure lights are such a good idea."

He pulls strand after strand from the tote. Each one is neatly wound, unlike the tangled mess of lights I left in storage in Boulder.

"LEDs. They don't get hot. I know what I'm doing."

I rub my temples and back away. For the next half hour, I sit on the couch and watch him wrap lights around the tree, sometimes unwrapping the last row or two when he isn't happy with their placement. But finally he takes a few steps back. And groans.

I quietly stand beside him, slipping my arm around his back. Just a friendly touch, that's all. But in the corner of my eye, I catch him turning to look at me. I don't need to see the expression on his face to know that even this touch is more than he wants, so I let my arm fall. It takes him a few seconds, but he finally turns away. When he does, I realize how warm his stare had been making me.

"I bet it just needs ornaments," he says. "It'll look great once those are on."

"Will it? Or will it look like you stuck a dead tree branch in a pot of water and then threw decorations on it?"

He ignores me as he roots through the tote. There are glass balls of every color along with obviously old ornaments made of felt. I take one of them from his hand. Maybe it's supposed to be Rudolph? There's a red fabric circle in the center of a larger brown blob. I suppose the black dot drawn above the red circle could be an eye. One eye. Singular.

"Is this one of the creatures that hauls Santa's sleigh when he visits the other planets?" I try to bop him in the nose with the… whatever it is, but he snatches it from me just before I can.

"You obviously don't have an eye for art." He hangs the alien cyclops reindeer in the center of the tree, right at eye level.

"That's smart putting it there. It'll help distract from how ugly the tree is."

He pretends to be offended as he tosses a package of ornament hooks at me, but he's laughing even before they bounce off the heel of my hand as I fail to catch them. "I made that ornament when I was ten."

"Was it the first time you used scissors?" I mock him.

Kayden's smile slips from his face. "It was the last year I believed in Santa. Dad left us just a few months before, and at the top of every Christmas list, I asked Santa to bring him back. Number two was for Mom to make snickerdoodles. I prayed for it every night. When I woke up on Christmas morning, I was sure Dad would be downstairs, sitting in his chair while he and Mom waited for me to start unwrapping. Between Santa and God, I knew one of them had to come through for us."

I know exactly what it's like to ask Santa—to beg God—for something neither one can bring. That disappointment leaves nothing but emptiness.

I take his hand and pull him closer. We both stare at our interlaced fingers, neither of us twitching a muscle.

"When he wasn't there, I knew the truth. I was ten when I learned there's no higher power who gives us things just because we ask. We're on our own. Alone, except for brief moments that trick us into thinking there's something more." His eyes flick up to me but dart away so quickly I almost miss it. "In the end, there never is."

I wish I could go back and hug that little boy. Tell him how wrong he is. Tell him he's not alone. There are people who will eventually care about him. There's a person who will care more about him than she should. So much more than he wants her to. But he would never believe me, just like he wouldn't believe me now. "And your mom?—"

"Mom was already mostly gone at that point. I think she still had a little hope, but each day more of her disappeared. That's why I made this Rudolph. I thought if I could just make her smile… But she didn't even notice it. Every year after that I made a new ornament for her. Hung them right in the middle of the tree. And every year passed without her saying a word about it."

I feel sick that I ever made fun of this ornament. Or this tree. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

He laughs, but it's harsh and filled with hurt. "When I moved out, I took all these decorations with me. She wasn't using them. But I never did either. This is the first tree I've had since I was seventeen."

"Why?"

"Christmas was something for other people. For me, it just became three days off work."

I press my hand to his cheek. His warmth seeps into my cold fingertips, just like it always does, and I wish he would let me give him something in return. "I mean, why this year? Why get a tree now? Why decorate it if it's just a painful memory for you?"

"Because maybe it doesn't have to be painful anymore." His gaze moves up to mine before settling on the floor between us. "It's silly. I know."

I lean toward him until my lips are barely an inch away from his. I close my eyes. Waiting. I'm willing to break my no-kissing rule if he just gives me a sign that he wants this too. All he has to do is close this little distance between us.

But he doesn't.

When I open my eyes, I find him staring at my mouth. His lips are parted, practically inviting me. But he's not. He hasn't moved that last inch that we need. I couldn't ask for a more obvious sign. "We should finish it."

He nods but doesn't take his eyes from my lips. "We're so close." He whispers. "It would be so easy to just…" He clears his throat, and the backward step he takes might as well be a leap over a canyon for the distance it puts between us. "It would be so easy to just put on the rest of the ornaments now that the hard part is done."

"Right. The hard part being those gorgeous lights."

He finally turns away from me, and my stomach drops all forty stories to the street below. "Right," he agrees. "Whoever did those sure knows what they're doing."

I blow out a breath and force myself to look anywhere except at him. "Oh absolutely. They're one of the best in the world."

For the next hour, we hang the ornaments in silence, emptying the plastic tote. The tree really does look pretty once it's finished. The light from the twinkling bulbs bounces off the glass ornaments, and the tree's reflection in the window looks like a new constellation that Kayden and I added to the night sky. One that's just for us.

When we're done, we sit on the couch, him at one end and me at the other, and stare at the tree. "You were right," I tell him.

"We do good work together, don't we?"

I don't answer. We could do great work together, if only we both wanted it.