Page 54 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
“Doomed in a good way,” she says, already picturing it—I can see it in her face. The leaves. The laughter. The bundle of chaos we’ll be chasing barefoot through the trees come next harvest.
We walk in slow circles around the courtyard, hands laced, our footprints trailing behind us in the fresh snow like proof we were here, that we’re real, that we’ve made it to something worth holding.
I glance around the square, watching the lights twinkle in the windows, the shop signs swaying gently in the breeze. Every storefront glows warm and soft, the village blanketed in silver, but it’s not the snow that makes it feel magical.
It’s the laughter behind those doors. The echoes of cider-slick voices and stories told beside fires. The soft creak of chairs and clatter of wooden mugs. The scent of woodsmoke and bread. The way the Hollowbreatheslike a living, breathing thing—alive in every soul that chooses to stay.
I never used to understand what it meant to stay.
Not really.
I used to build towers. Make decisions. Sign deals with pens that cost more than a family’s week of meals. I used to count success in quarterly profits and the size of the skyline I owned.
But none of it ever made me feel likethis.
Not like this.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Tessa says suddenly, bumping her hip against mine. “I can hear it all the way over here.”
“Just… appreciating things,” I say, a little gruff, a little raw.
“Hmm,” she says, tilting her head. “You getting sentimental on me, Mr. I-Don’t-Do-Winter?”
“I do you,” I reply, smirking.
She groans. “That was terrible. Absolutely unforgivable.”
“Admit it. You’re still gonna kiss me.”
She pretends to consider it, then rises on her toes and kisses me like she’s proving a point—slow and soft and so full of promise it makes my bones ache. When we part, the snow has started sticking in her lashes, and I want to kiss every flake off one by one.
“I still don’t like winter,” I murmur, cupping her cheek.
She leans into the touch. “You likethiswinter.”
“Only because you’re in it.”
We stand there like that until the fireflies come out—real ones, not enchanted this time, their little glows flitting through the frost like stars that got lost on the way to the sky. Somewhere down the lane, Glenna’s goats bleat in complaint over their snow-dusted dinner hay, and Tara’s laughter echoes faintly behind shuttered windows.
Tessa nestles into my side, hand resting over her belly. “You ready?” she asks softly.
“For what?”
“For all of it. Sleepless nights. Crayon walls. Maple syrup in our bedsheets.”
I just look out at the snow-covered town, this place that healed me, held me, gave me a second chance I never thought I deserved.
Then I lean down, press a kiss to her temple, and whisper the only answer that matters.
“I already am.”
