Role Playing(97)

“Open yours first,” she said, sounding strangely shy.

He did . . . and burst out laughing.

“A cast-iron skillet?”

“Building up your arsenal,” she said, with a wink. Kit rolled his eyes. “You never know when a strange Asian woman is going to need something to arm herself with.”

“You’re not that strange,” he said, leaning up and kissing her instinctively. She smiled against his lips.

“Ew, nobody wants to see that,” Kit groaned. “Thanks for the T-shirts, Aiden.”

Aiden nodded. Then he looked at Maggie. “Your turn.”

She nodded, opening his lumpy, home-wrapped present. Her eyes widened. “Auntie Mame, His Girl Friday, the original Sabrina?” she said, her eyes shining. “And a new sweater? Wool socks!”

She was incandescent, and he felt his chest warm. She liked them. Thank God.

“You get her,” Kit noted. “All right. You get the stamp of approval.”

Aiden smiled broadly.

“For now,” Kit temporized, and Maggie tossed a sock at him.

After they finished with their gift exchange and had the aforementioned cake, Kit left to have an all-night gaming session with Harrison, whose girlfriend had dumped him and moved out. There was going to be a bunch of the high school grads from Kit’s class over. “Just make good decisions,” Maggie admonished. Kit rolled his eyes, but gave her a big hug before leaving.

From there, Aiden took her back to bed. “Merry Christmas,” he said, kissing her soundly. “I love you, Bogwitch.”

She kissed him back, and it was soft and warm and just like he’d always imagined home felt like.

“Love you, too, Otter.”





EPILOGUE


BATTLE COUPLE


Three and a half years later . . .

Maggie rushed through the front door of their house in Woodinville, a suburb that was . . . well, nowhere near Seattle, honestly, but was on the west side. “I know, I know!” she called, quickly putting the take-out bags she’d grabbed on the dining table. “Am I late?”

“Don’t worry . . . the official run doesn’t start for half an hour. Although the guys are talking shit,” Aiden called back, humor evident in his voice. “Dork is saying you might be getting too old to play this late. Asking if it’s senior hour at the community center.”

“You tell Dork that I’ll kick his ass,” she answered as she walked into the spare bedroom. That’s where Aiden’s gaming computer was set up. She leaned down, giving him a quick kiss. Or at least, she tried to give him a quick kiss. He countered by taking his hands off the keyboard and tugging her onto his lap, giving her a much more thorough kiss. By the time he released her, she was breathless.

“We don’t have to play tonight,” she reminded him.

His gray eyes gleamed. “Yeah, we do. The new guy hasn’t done the FireMiser quest, and it’s all hands on deck for that. You know how hard it is, and we’ll need your tank.”

She sighed, standing back up. “Fine. But after we eat some dinner. I grabbed food from Ooba Tooba. You know how I feel about their carne asada.”

He made a humming noise of food happiness before typing rapidly. “Sorry, guys, gonna have to hold off for a little bit,” he narrated. He laughed. “DangerNoodle is saying that we’d better not be going off to have sex. We’ve been married for a year, and, I quote, ‘you ought to be done with that shit.’”

“I am so teasing him about that,” she said, with a laugh of her own. “C’mon. How was your day?”

He smiled, and she felt a feeling of quiet, all-encompassing happiness. “Good day,” he rumbled, following her to where their delicious-smelling food was waiting. “The new guy at work has been a game changer. Malcolm and I wondered why we hadn’t brought on a third partner when we started. Malcolm’s wife is thrilled too.”

She beamed at him. Ever since he’d bought back into the hospice business and they’d moved to the west side, he had focused much more on a work-life balance, something that Malcolm appreciated as well. They’d brought on a few more key employees, and they’d made sure to harmonize growth with their personal lives. She’d enjoyed getting to know Malcolm, his wife, their kids. They’d even been over to the house for barbecues, and met Kit a few times when he’d been home.

“How about you?” Aiden reciprocated, stroking her cheek.

“Finished the marketing-book edits and got a new high-fantasy project in the pipeline,” she said, sitting next to him and opening packages, handing him his burrito, and grabbing her own soft tacos. “Also went out and grabbed a few books from the library, grabbed a few groceries. Ran into Janie—she wants us to have dinner with her and Richard, maybe next week?”

He nodded. “As long as it’s not Thursday, should be fine.” He took a bite, then groaned. “How are these so good?”

“I know, right?” She smiled at him.

They spent a little while like that, eating and talking.

She’d been with Aiden for six months before deciding that she wanted a change. Fool’s Falls was a wonderful small town . . . but it wasn’t her small town. She’d known that, but hadn’t been ready to do anything about it, until Aiden. He gave her confidence, even while being patient.