Page 64 of His Innocent Omega
“It was on your list,” I said by way of an explanation, “so was eating a funnel cake. And I know the holiday festival wasn’t a fair but I figured it was close enough.”
He sniffled again, his voice shaky with emotion, “It was. This really was the best night. I lo–” my eyes found his in the darkness, and I waited for him to finish his sentence, “you make me really happy.”
My heart hammered, knowing that wasn’t what he had been about to say at all. But if I had learned anything the past few months, it was that I couldn’t push Wyatt. I had to be patient and wait until he was ready to say those three little words.
Kissing his palm again, I whispered, “You make me really happy too, Wyatt.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Wyatt
The knock on my office door had my fork full of salad pausing halfway to my mouth. Dammit, I was starving. It was two days before Christmas and the daycare had been hopping this week.
Silly me had assumed we would be slower, and things would be a little more chill. Instead, there had been last-minute coverage for parents who had scheduled time off but needed to get shopping done. Preferably without little prying eyes who didn’t need to learn there was no Santa just yet.
Since it was the week of Christmas we were already short-staffed, so accommodating the parents had caused some extra scrambling on my part. I had been fillingin as much as possible, and some of my staff that weren’t off for the holiday had also volunteered to pick up extra hours.
No one had warned me that kids were extra excitable in the days leading up to Christmas, either. When I had mentioned it to Ryan, as we’d each nabbed one of Quinn and Lachlan’s twins off of the shelves they’d decided to climb–who knew why–Ryan had given me a shocked look, then rolled his eyes.
“Really, Wyatt?”he had said in a disbelieving voice as he’d placed Rory safely back on the ground at his feet, pointing a finger at her and giving her a you’d-better-stay-put look. “It’s the most magical week on earth. Can’t you feel the anticipation in the air? It’s Christmas magic.”
“That’s a lot of magic,” I teased, wrangling Patrick down and sitting him next to his sister.
“Well, duh,” Ryan had given me side-eye. “That’s what it’s all about. I love this time of year. I’m as excited as the kids.”
Knowing what I did about Ryan and his Daddy, that news didn’t come as much of a surprise to me.
Christmas at the Cooper penthouse apartment had never been what I would ever call magical. There were no stockings on the mantle overflowing with candy and plastic toys. There were stylish stockings that were there for ornament only, placed there by stylish interior decorators for the perfect photo op. They stayed empty on Christmas morning, since Santa didn’t exist. You received one present, always something practical, like a new sweater, and then everyone went their separate ways until the cook had dinner on the table. Another perfectly prepared photo op.
It was a cold, emotionless holiday that I never got excited for. It seemed so different than what other people spoke of, or what I had seen glimpses of on TV when I would walk through the common area in the dorms at college.
Which was why I planned for Julianna’s first Christmas–and hopefully every Christmas after–to be the exact opposite of what I had known growing up. I had let out a relieved sigh that my parents had made plans over Christmas. Last week, my mother had sent a text with their itinerary,“In case the plane goes down, dear”. I had rolled my eyes reading that. They’d be spending the holiday in warm Turks and Caicos and didn’t plan to be back in the country until well after New Year’s.
I didn’t even feel a tiny bit bad that they had yet to meet their granddaughter. Once in awhile it made me sad, but mostly on Julianna’s behalf. Then I remembered the love that Miss Rose bestowed on my daughter every time she saw her. And the warmth that had been extended to us at the Sinclair Thanksgiving.
That’s what I wanted to give my daughter. All the joy and love at the holidays that I had been denied.
Grayson had helped me pick out a tree for my house, carrying the box in for me when I had insisted I didn’t want to have to try to keep a real tree alive. We’d had fun at the big box store on the edge of town, picking out all the tree trimmings. He had pushed the cart with Julianna securely fastened, carrying on a long and lively conversation with her. Doing a play by play of everything I was picking up, examining closely, putting back, then adding to the cart.
I had even caught him going behind me, grabbing all the items I had hesitated over, before placing them back on the shelf. There were just so many choices. All different colors and patterns. Glass and plastic, big and small. And the specialty ornaments were super cute. I had wanted to get Julianna one for her first Christmas, then spent twenty minutes trying to decide if she would prefer a Disney princess, or a cute animal, or agingerbread house.
Finally, he had quietly suggested, “Sweetheart, why don’t we just get the one that says baby’s first Christmas and she can pick one next year.”
The way the word‘we’had made my insides go all warm and gooey, like a chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven, should probably have disturbed me more than it did. Instead, it had just felt right. Like it–we–just naturally fit.
We’d spent hours that night stringing lights and placing ornaments on the tree. Grayson, I discovered in horror, just placed ornaments willy-nilly on the tree, in no particular order, which set my teeth on edge.
“You’re putting too many purple together,” I had let him know, moving two ornaments away from each other. “You need to mix it up.”
“Relax, sweetheart,” he had chided, while deliberately, I was sure, hanging two red ornaments next to each other, “it’s supposed to be fun. Nothing bad is going to happen if the same colors touch, Wyatt.”
Huffing, I had set about undoing the havoc he had created, but I’d been smiling each time I’d moved an ornament from where he had hung it.
Now, Ryan poked his head in my office, where I’d come to hide to eat my lunch and start getting a jump on the timecards. With the holidays, I would need to submit it to our payroll processor earlier than the usual deadline.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, eyeing my forkful of spinach and cucumber with a grimace. Ryan avoided most healthy green things like the plague. “But your parents are here to take you to lunch.”
Shocked, I swallowed air, choking. “What?” I finally wheezed, shaking off his hands that were smacking my back, trying to help ease my distress. Swallowing, I questioned again, “What?”
