Page 184 of Season of Gifts

“It’s coming on midnight.”Lying on his side, his head propped on his hand, he nodded toward the clock.“If you wish, the fireworks ought to be visible from the roof deck.”Though not their nudity.That he would keep for himself.“Sadly, such an endeavor would require substantially more clothing.”

Jay mirrored Henry’s positioning, his pose enchanting with the glow of the fire behind him and shadows draping his front.Suggestive, subtle, he gazed at Alice, clearly prepared to defer to their wife’s choice.But she lay with heavy-lidded eyes fixed in the distance and kept her silence.

Jay wound a lock of Alice’s hair around his finger.“I’m better here.If you are.”Tugged, the curl slipped free.Bottomless brown eyes met Henry’s.Jay smiled with soft shyness, not the life of the party but the man beneath, the one who had so often feared to voice his desires.“Dunno that any fireworks can beat the ones we’ve had today.”

“No, they cannot.”He rewarded Jay with a fresh grape, swiped the sugar from Jay’s lips, and licked it from his thumb.Sweet victories, no matter their size, were to be savored.“Thank you for speaking your mind, my brave boy.”

Alice resettled herself in a slow undulation from head to toe.“I think we should have kids.”

Even the tick of the clock vanished in the unnaturally crisp silence.Alice gazed at the Christmas tree, the front side now rich with their personal histories and bisected by the cheerful banner from Jay’s nieces and nephews.Utterly relaxed, she held Henry’s heart in her hands, seeming not to notice the beats he’d skipped before stuttering back to life.

Ever so gently, he laced his fingers with hers and rested them atop her stomach.“Shall we run out and fetch some this evening?Two, five, a dozen?”

His voice held steady, droll even, a surprise given the quaking in his body.

Smiling, Alice bumped him with her shoulder but shook her head.“Not tonight.We’re not ready yet.We still have work to do on ourselves.”

A wise choice.His longing for a family had survived the last decade; it could stand a while longer.

Alice cupped Jay’s face, which gave away his joy in every crinkle and curve.She rubbed his cheek as he pressed into her hold.“You realize days like today will be tougher when we’re parents.”

Jay angled for a kiss, leaning in with his entire body.Granted one, he shook down through his toes.“I’ll cultivate babysitter friends.We’ll have a whole roster lined up.”

“In a year—” Alice gazed up at Henry, her hazel eyes clear and bright beneath lifted brows.“Can we write this into the contract tomorrow?”

Trying to modulate the eagerness in his voice, he fell into a deep, coaxing bass.“What do you wish to add, my sweet girl?”

Face scrunching in a smile, she shivered.“First, more of that tone.But second—” Lips pursed, she blinked twice.“Something like: In one year, if we unanimously agree that we’ve got a handle on our own childhood shit, and we think we aren’t going to fuck up our kids too badly, we start trying.”

Jay pumped a fist in the air.“Hell yeah!I’d sign that.”

Henry squeezed Alice’s hand, his throat momentarily too overcome.A lightahemcleared the obstruction, though Alice’s eyes were far too knowing to believe it anything but the emotional reaction it was.“I would be delighted to draft such an addendum.”

He approached her with eyes open, searching, his lids falling only as their mouths made contact.Noses brushing, they rode the currents between them, give and take, the kiss surging and retreating in turn.

The wall clock began to chime.Midnight had arrived.

Fumbling for Jay, he met Alice’s hand at the back of his head.The two of them hauled their husband into the kiss together, mouths awkwardly meeting, noses bumping, laughter chasing them.Dissolving into giggles, Alice sank into the pillow and left him to finish thoroughly kissing Jay senseless.

A distant booming sounded as they parted.The fireworks at the harbor showered the city with the joy of the new year.

Jay shook the haze from his eyes.“Oh!Should we be toasting?Want me to fetch that stuff from the kitchen?”

That stuff was a lovely Oloroso sherry he’d handpicked for the occasion.But the occasion did not need it.

“In a moment.”Henry nudged Jay back to the pillow and carried Alice’s hand with his to Jay’s chest.Heads bent together, dark and light, they embodied his sketches, his hopes.This view was his forever, as their faces lined with age, as their features someday peeked out from tiny new faces—how wondrous that he could draw a dream and Alice and Jay would give it life.“My heart is too full for anything but the two of you just now.Happy new year, my loves.”

Epilogue

Alice

Thewaveofnauseacrested again.Gagging, Alice spat bitter bile into the toilet.Her knees protested the morning’s rapid transition from cozy sheets to cold tile, but her wobbly stomach and heaving shoulders promised more retching to come.

“I refuse to be sick.”She had nothing in her stomach to throw up.Couldn’t be food poisoning; she hadn’t eaten since dinner last night.And Henry and Jay weren’t sick.Had anyone at the office been acting suspiciously flu-like?“We are not doing this today.”

Great that this little bug hadn’t shown itself over the weekend—this year’s commemoration of their inaugural dinner date had been one for the record books—but today was the actual day.Tonight was the actual night.Three years exactly since she’d followed Henry’s instructions to stand up and bend over the dining room table, and changed her life.If Henry didn’t have special dinner plans in mind, she’d eat her shoes.

Her stomach gurgled and rolled.Retching produced nothing.

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