“Hey, man!” I can hear Adam say. The guy puts his arm around Adam and they hug, bumping shoulders and shaking hands at the same time. Adam slaps some cash into the guy’s hand, and the guy passes his axe to Adam. They walk to the far end of the porch and the guy points to the field of trees on the side of the house. Adam nods. They shake hands again.
Adam gets back in the car, resting the axe carefully on the back seat. “Okay. Billy says the trees on the far end of the lot are the best.”
“I like his hat,” I say.
Adam laughs. He drives us further down the bumpy dirt road until we can’t see the farmhouse anymore and it’s just me and him and this miniature forest, like we’re in a fairy tale. It’s starting to snow, even though there are hardly any clouds. We walk around, holding hands, looking at trees from every angle as if we’re making the most important of decisions.
When my teeth start to chatter, Adam takes his hat off and drops it on my head. “You can wait in the car if you want,” he says.
“No, I’m fine.”
He kisses me, and then we decide that the tree we’re kissing in front of should be our tree, even though it’s a little sparse on one side.
“Are you sure?” Adam says.
I nod. “It’s part of our history now.”
Adam walks to the car and comes back with the axe. It’s that time of night just before it gets dark when the light is orange, and everything looks brighter, and seeing him chopping at our Christmas tree, looking golden, his breath forming clouds, makes me wish I took pictures or painted or had some way of keeping all of this in my mind exactly as it is so I’ll never forget.
* * *
When we get home, Adam cuts the rope on the car and we haul the tree up the stairs together. It’s heavy and we’re clumsy and the needles scratch my hands, but it smells like a whole entire forest right in our stairwell. We get to the top of the stairs and then realize we should have unlocked the door to the apartment first. Adam put the keys back in his pocket after he unlocked the downstairs door.
“You got it for a sec?” Adam asks.
“Sure,” I say. He lets go to dig for the keys. The tree is too heavy. My hands slip and it slides down the stairs until the trunk hits the wall with a thud.
“Shit,” I say.
Adam laughs. He opens the door to the apartment and then runs down the stairs to grab the tree, carrying it back up all by himself like it’s not even heavy.
“I dented the wall.” I point to the trunk-shaped gash. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey,” Adam says, “it’s part of our history.”
* * *
We don’t have a stand, so we put the tree in a bucket of rocks and Adam moves it around the living room looking for the perfect spot.
“A little to the right,” I tell him, and he scoots the tree, shuffling his feet along the floor. “No, left.” He shuffles back. “No. Maybe if you turn it just a little and then move it to the right?”
“Are you seeing how long you can get me to move this tree around the living room?” Adam asks, grinning.
“Yes.” I run away from him and jump on the futon like it’s base and I’m safe as long as I’m touching it.
Adam puts the tree down and charges at me, laughing. He picks me up by the waist and swings me around. “What am I gonna do with you, huh?” he says.
“Love me?” I say. We haven’t said the L-word since he said he thought he might love me the other day at the falls. We’ve avoided it. But then I just blurt it out, what I want most, like those are the only words that make sense.
“I already do,” he says, and puts me down. He takes his hat off my head and looks at me. “I love you, April. I completely and totally love you.”
“I love you too,” I say, and they are the biggest words I’ve ever said.
Adam scoops me up in his arms and carries me into the bedroom, and when he lays me down on the bed and kisses me, it’s totally different from all the other times we’ve kissed. He grabs my hair in his hands, and there’s an urgent feeling between us that hasn’t been there before.
This time when he goes into the bathroom, he doesn’t run the water, and he doesn’t stay in there. He comes back with a condom. And when we do it, it’s better than everything that led up to it. It feels like more than sex. Like I finally get it—all of it—understand what the fuss is about. It’s about him holding me tightly, my skin pressed against his skin and the way he kisses my neck, how he whispers, “I love you, April,” over and over again, and it all turns into something big and powerful and so much more than just two little people in a bed.