Page 42 of Single All the Way

“I bet so.” Ben had a daughter on each side, holding their hands like the loving father he was. I wasn’t sure which of the three of them was most excited.

“Douglas firs are through here,” Luke said, his words coming out with puffs of frost in the air. “As far as you can go that way.” He pointed. “Text me if you need any help cutting it?—”

“I won’t,” Ben said. “You’ve got plenty of other customers tonight who might.”

“Okay, then happy tree hunting, guys,” Luke said to all of us with a friendly smile that looked tired around the edges.

“Thanks, Luke,” I said as he headed back to the open-air shelter that served as tree HQ.

“Have fun, kids,” he called as he walked away.

“Come on, Sky,” Xavier said, bursting with enthusiasm as he took his sister’s hand. “Let’s find a perfect Christmas tree!”

“We’re gonna find a perfect one too,” Ruby said with more glee than competition. “Let’s go, Evelyn.”

“Here’s the deal,” Ben said, stopping all four of them in their tracks. “Xavier and Sky, you go down this row.” He pointed. “Ruby and Evelyn, you come over here and check out this row.” He indicated one row over. “Let us know when you find a good one. Miss Emerson and I get final approval.”

“Let’s go!” Xavier said.

Skyler let out a happy giggle as she looked up at her brother, and they rushed down the row. It never failed to make my heart contract in my chest when Xavier took his little sister under his wing.

“You and I will keep an eye on everybody,” Ben said to me as his kids skipped over to their assigned row.

“They’ll be okay even when we can’t see them?” I asked. Xavier and Sky were already a good forty feet away.

“We can hear them,” Ben said.

I realized he was right as I heard Evelyn ask Ruby what she thought of a particular tree. When Ruby replied, “It’s too little,” Ben and I laughed.

“While they’re busy,” Ben said, taking a thermos out of an inside pocket in his thick coat, “I brought us a hot adult beverage.” He handed the top, which served as a cup, to me, then unscrewed a second cup from the bottom.

“What is it?” I asked, catching a whiff of chocolate.

“Hot cocoa with Bailey’s. It’s cold tonight.”

He poured some for each of us, and we clinked our stumpy metal cups together, laughing.

The warm, sweet liquid went down easily as we kept an eye on all four kids and embarked in a lighthearted debate about which trees were contenders and which weren’t. His preference was for a fat tree that was nearly as wide at the bottom as it was tall. Knowing the living room corner we planned to put the tree in, I was worried about it fitting and pointed out thinner, more elegant-looking trees.

There wasn’t a lot of spiked cocoa, just enough for the beginnings of a warm, buzzy contentedness. As the huge snowflakes came down heavier and accumulated on the ground, I felt like we were in a magical, insulated-from-reality snow globe where everything was peaceful and beautiful and in harmony.

Ben and I kept things between us light and full of laughter as we checked in on both sets of kids from time to time and tried to convince them there wasn’t one perfect tree but rather many of them that could serve our purposes. They were having none of it and in no hurry.

For once, I embraced that. I let them go at their own speed, sipping my cocoa, enjoying Ben’s company, laughing more than I had in ages.

I didn’t want the evening to end.

When the cocoa was gone, I handed my cup to Ben. He returned them both to the thermos.

“Didn’t even have to fight the kids off from the adult beverages,” he said, grinning. “That was the objective all along.”

I laughed. “Mission accomplished.”

“Let’s go see if they’re close to deciding on a tree.” He extended his arm, and I wove mine through his.

The kids had disappeared from our current row, so we slipped between two bushy trees to the next row over to find Skyler and Xavier running in our direction.

“Mommy, we found one!” Skyler called out.

---