Page 11 of Saint Nick
“Thank me for what?” he asked.
“Well, for inviting me to hang out, and for not running from the party, even when you didn’t want to be Santa. You were incredible with those kids, Nick,” she said.
He gave a short laugh and sank onto her couch. “Yeah, well, I think one of them put a candy cane in my boot. I’m still sticky.”
Sandy smiled, curling up across from him, legs tuckedbeneath her as she sat in her favorite chair. “You were smiling the whole time, though.”
“You caught that, huh?” he asked.
“I did,” she whispered. For a moment, neither spoke. The only sound was the faint crackling of the fire and the muffled wind outside. Then Nick leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“I haven’t done that in a long time,” he said finally. “Smiled like that. Not the fake kind I throw out to shut people up. The real kind.”
Sandy tilted her head. “What changed?” she asked.
“You did,” he said simply.
Her heart gave a little lurch. She knew that they were treading on dangerous ground that neither of them might know how to navigate. “Nick,” she breathed.
He shook his head, his eyes distant. “You asked me when we were at the diner why I hate Christmas.”
“I did,” she breathed.
He exhaled, slow and heavy. “I actually have some memories of my mom,” he admitted. “I’ve never told anyone else that. Hell, maybe I’m remembering fantasies that I made up about my mother, but they seemed so real. I remember her making a big deal out of Christmas. I remember there being a tree with lights and ornaments that went up the day after Thanksgiving, all of it. And from what I remember, my mother loved it. And she tried her best, even when things got bad, she still tried to make things special. But then, it all ended when I was four. That’s when she disappeared from my life. It was almost as though I woke up one day in foster care hell, and there was no going back to the happiness that I had once known.”
Sandy stayed silent, letting him talk, knowing that he’d need to get everything out that he had come to tell her. “One Christmas Eve, a man showed up at our tiny apartment drunk. He broke half the ornaments, knocked her into the tree.” His jaw tightened, the muscles in his throat working as he swallowed. “I didn’t know it then, but I think he was my father. I tried to pull him off her, but he—” He stopped, forcing a breath through his nose. “He hit her so hard that she didn’t wake up. That was the very last memory that I have of her, or him.” Sandy’s eyes stung as she tried to hold back her tears. “Nick,” she whispered.
He gave a small, humorless laugh. “After that, Christmas stopped being about magic and turned into a reminder. Of everything I couldn’t fix. Everything I had lost.”
She reached out, laying her hand gently on his. “You were just a kid.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said quietly. “I still see that tree when I close my eyes. The lights still blinked while everything else fell apart.”
She crossed the room to sit on the sofa next to him and squeezed his hand. “You’re not there anymore.”
He looked at her, his expression raw, unguarded. “Sometimes it feels like I never left, and sometimes, it feels like I was never there.”
“You did get out of there,” she whispered. “And you built something better for yourself. The club, the people who care about you—they’re family, Nick. Maybe not the kind you were born into, but the kind you chose.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then gave a small nod. “You really believe that?”
“I do,” she whispered.
He let out a breath, some of the tension easing from hisshoulders. “You make it sound easy. You know, forgetting my past and moving on with my life.”
“It’s not,” she said softly. “But it’s worth it.”
He leaned back, watching her for a long beat before murmuring, “You’re dangerous, Sandy Cove.”
“You keep saying that,” she said, smiling faintly.
“Because it’s true,” he breathed. “I think that you pose the most danger to my heart.” Hearing him say that to her had her own heart stuttering, because she felt the same way about him.
He shifted closer, his hand finding hers again. This time, he didn’t let go. They sat like that, the snow falling quietly outside, the glow from the tree painting the room in soft gold and red. For the first time in a long time, Sandy didn’t feel so lost. She just felt like she was finally home, and that had everything to do with the biker sitting next to her on her couch.
“I should get going,” he whispered. She didn’t want him to leave. Nick had just given her so much of himself, she wanted him to stay, but she wasn’t about to beg him to do so. Maybe she was trying to rush things, but she wanted the next step with him. Sandy knew that he might not feel the same way, but the way that he touched her, and God, the way that he had kissed her at the Christmas party earlier, told her differently.
“You don’t have to go,” she whispered before she could stop the words from leaving her lips. He hesitated, and for a split second, she thought that he was going to reconsider, but he didn’t. Nick stood, and she did the same, walking with him to her front door.
