Page 75 of When in December

It wasn’t. If we stuck around. If I let Ozzy stick around even. I kept thinking about the party Barrett had said he was hosting when he got back from visiting family. He’d pick up Ozzy then. The thought of the dog not falling over himself in the snow orannoyingly trotting next to me like a shadow wherever I went in the house made me wonder if I wanted him to take him back.

But he wasn’t my dog.

“Why’d you come out here?” I asked Poppy. “I said you didn’t have to.”

“I know I didn’t have to,” she said, as if that was obvious. “I already told you Iwantedto.”

“And you just happen to have all the stuff?”

“The stuff?”

“For the gingerbread houses. I thought you said you’d pick that stuff up for the holiday.”

“And I think I told you the holiday already started,” she countered.

“At this point, you might as well just be done with the whole holiday experience,” I said.

“Who said I was done?” she asked, as if my questions were meant to be humorous.

“Seriously.”

She shrugged once more, as if everything she did was no big deal. There was still a bit of the day left, but she had filled most of it. And … at least the kids wouldn’t go running back to Sarah and tell her what a failure I was as an uncle.

A small weight I hadn’t known was there lifted off my shoulders.

“I told you I was planning,” she said. “I wanted to make sure everything went perfectly.”

“But I thought that you were making sure everything was ready for the job?” I repeated. “For when your boss or whoever comes to take photos.”

“The photos aren’t my job, Aaron. Not even a quarter of it.” Poppy sent a wave of her hand toward the kids. The holiday lights I’d haphazardly strung started to twinkle one by one, illuminating us in the snow. “This is.”

“You put a lot of time and effort in today.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t have to do all this already though.”

She met my eyes, her brows lowering a half inch, as if confused. “You can’t put a timeline on a perfect day. Things change. They’ll remember this day as much as the actual one. They’ll remember they had a great holiday season and got to spend it with their uncle.”

“I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who pulled it all together with the gingerbread houses with the frosting icicles and sugar windows …”

“You should stop that,” she said before I could add anything else.

“What?”

“The constant self-criticism.”

My brows creased as I turned to the kids, and then back to her. I was finding it hard to look anywhere else but at her.

Poppy’s eyes were soft and easy as she gave a small shake of her head. “I can’t imagine that you deserve it,” she whispered.

Then, maybe she didn’t know me as well as she thought she did yet.

This time though, there wasn’t as much anger in the thought.

Yet,I thought to myself.

I cleared my throat.

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