Page 96 of Merry Fake Bride

He eventually succeeds and removes the blindfold with a triumphant cheer to the applause of everyone in the room.

Most attempts are similar to his and a haphazardly decorated tree gradually forms. Every year, the tree gets crazier and it’s one of my favorite traditions.

Finger food is shared around to calm appetites, and after enough drink has flowed, Mom brings out Dad’s cake, and he hugs me tightly, repeatedly kissing my cheek in admiration for my spun caramel nest and cream.

Kairo vanishes amid the celebrations and after the cake has been cut, I seek him out.

He stands out on the patio without his coat, staring past the railing toward the darkness shrouding the trees that line our property. His arms are crossed, and his stance is relaxed.

Is something wrong?

He doesn’t react when I open the patio doors, nor when I approach to join him.

The cold cuts around me like a thousand icy kisses, but I ignore it and focus on Kairo, who doesn’t acknowledge me until I lightly touch his elbow.

“Kairo? Are you okay?”

He nods once and turns his head to me. “You have a wonderful family, Devon.”

My lips twitch up. “Thank you. They’re quite something.” I’ve missed them dearly these past five years, and seeing all this delight and love again makes me wonder why I even left.

“In all my years… I don’t think I’ve ever experienced something like this.”

“Like the party?”

He nods, his lips pressing together.

“What do you do for your birthday?”

His eyes crease slightly and he grimaces. “Nothing like this. My birthdays were charity events with galas to catch people’s attention. Rich parties where my mother would heighten her social standing and my father would deepen business relationships by exchanging checkbooks. So I stopped celebrating.”

“You never had a party?”

He shakes his head again. “It’s so simple and yet…” Kairo sighs. “Your father… he’s a good man.”

Thoughts of Kairo’s own father come back to me, and it hits me with painful clarity why this must be difficult for him.

To come into our home and experience a birthday party like this, to be accepted by my father like he’s known him for years, to be treated like an equal.

I don’t know much about their relationship, but it strikes me as something Kairo never received from his own father, a cold, cruel man, by my understanding.

“He’s not perfect, but he tries his best.”

“That’s what’s important.” Kairo suddenly fully faces me. “He tries. He’s there for you. It’s…”

His face twists as he wrestles to find the right words. “It’s pitiful, I know, but your father… he’s like something out of my childhood dreams, and it hit me so suddenly that it took until I was thirty-nine for a man like him to make me feel like I actuallybelong.”

His voice cracks unexpectedly, and he presses his lips tightly together as if he’s suppressing something.

“I don’t think that’s pitiful,” I say softly, stepping closer. “Sometimes, we don’t know we’re missing something until it’s presented to us. What some take for granted, others crave. I know I took my parents for granted when I left and I… never again. So no, I don’t think you’re pitiful.”

Kairo’s eyes meet mine, and there’s so much unexpected, open emotion in them that I want to scoop him close to me and hold him until he understands that he is absolutely wanted.

And with that feeling comes a surge of guilt that I lied to his face and told him he wasn’t.

Snow begins to drift down around us, applying another glittering layer to an already pristine world.

Gigantic flakes settle in Kairo’s dark hair.