Page 124 of One Foggy Christmas
“Nash?” My eyes open, meeting his half-open gaze. “Tell me a memory about us. Something happy.”
“A memory?” He lifts his chin to the glass ceiling, thinking. “Right after we got married and moved into our brownstone, you accidentally locked our bedroom door, and we couldn’t find the key to unlock it. It was late, and I wanted to go to bed, so I said I’d just drill through the doorknob, but you were adamant we needed to call a locksmith because the doorknob was brand new and expensive. I was irritated, but you got your way.”
“Wait.” I stop him. “I said to tell me ahappymemory.”
His head flops to me. “It is happy, I promise. So anyway, we wait one hour for the locksmith to arrive, and by this time, it’s twelve-thirty in the morning, and we’re both grumpy and tired. The punk kid?—”
“Why was he a punk kid?”
“I don’t know. He looked like Nick Jonas with black skinny jeans that barely covered his butt, so we saw his greasy boxers when he leaned over. The kid tries all of his tools, but nothing seems to work, and the whole time he’s blatantly flirting with you.”
“He was not.” I laugh.
“He totally was, right in front of me too. He kept turning over his shoulder to make bedroom eyes with you, as if I couldn’t seeit. Then he decides to drill the doorknob like I wanted to do in the first place. Shrapnel gets everywhere, and he doesn’t even try to clean it up. But the final blow was when he handed me his receipt pad with the total cost. We had to pay double because it was after hours, and he drove across town. It was, like, four hundred dollars. I was furious. I took his stupid receipt pad and chucked it across the apartment.”
“No, you didn’t!”
“It literally spun through the air in slow motion. You picked it up and paid the guy, and when he left, you were so mad at me. We got in our very first fight.”
“Out of all the memories you could’ve chosen, why did you pick our first fight?”
“Because after you chewed me out for being mean to Nick Jonas”—Nash rolls to his side, draping his arm over my body—“we started uncontrollably laughing, and then one thing led to another, and we ended up spending the next hour making up.”
I smile. “I like that story. It feels real.”
His fingers skim my face as he whispers, “It was very real to me.”
The delicate way Nash touches me makes me feel wholly loved and adored. I don’t think I’d ever get sick of being treated this way.
“I need to let you go to bed.”
“No,” I whine as I snuggle into his body. “Don’t leave me.”
“I have to. You need to save your energy for skiing tomorrow.”
My head rears back, feeling like he just killed the mood. “Skiing?”
“Yeah, let’s get you on the slopes tomorrow.” His fingers trace the scar on my forehead. “Only if you want to.”
“What if I can’t do it? Or what if I get hurt again?”
“I won’t let that happen. We can do a small hill together.”
“I don’t know.”
“Sadie, I know you, and I know you’ll regret it your entire life if you don’t at least attempt to ski in Zermatt.”
“It’s not even about skiing or the accident. I don’t remember any of that. It’s the waking up from the coma and feeling so helpless and not recognizing myself or my life. I hated that feeling and don’t want to do anything to make it happen again. It’s irrational, I know.”
“It’s not irrational, but I’ll stay with you and make sure nothing bad happens.”
“You’ll stay with me?”
He hugs me closer. “The entire time. I promise.”
One thing I know about Nash is that when he promises something, he never goes back on that promise. He promised to love me forever, no matter what, and he’s already kept that.
“Okay, my time is up.” He presses a kiss on my forehead.
