“Not sorry,” Kit replied.
“You’re right, Maggie,” Aiden called out with a grin. “He couldn’t be more your kid if you designed him in a lab.”
The words seemed to make both of them happy.
By the time the dishes were done, it was evening, and the stars were out in the clear, pitch-black sky.
“C’mon, time for presents,” Maggie said. “Then dessert.”
Kit made a big show of mock solemnity. “I was told,” he intoned, “that there would be cake?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yellow cake with chocolate fudge frosting, of course. And Aiden brought chocolate chip cookies.”
Kit gave him an appraising look. “You bake, huh?”
“Kinda.” Aiden smiled. “I’m okay.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Kit said, but cracked a smile.
Before Aiden could answer, his phone started buzzing. He didn’t expect anybody to call him—the fights had been too fresh, and he’d reconciled himself to that. He had a little ache of melancholy that things hadn’t worked out better, but he was also in a good place about it.
But it wasn’t his mother, or Davy.
It was Sheryl.
Why the fuck is Sheryl calling me?
He felt a stab of panic. “I’m sorry, I have to take this,” he apologized to Maggie. “It’s Sheryl. It might be . . . my mom’s supposed to go there for Christmas, and . . .”
“No problem,” Maggie said quickly, nudging him to her office and shutting the door behind him as he answered.
“Sheryl? Is Mom okay?”
“What?” Sheryl said. “Yes. She’s okay. She’s here, watching Frozen with the kids.”
He frowned. “Is Davy okay?”
He heard her take a deep breath. “I have to assume he is.”
Now his jaw dropped. “You don’t know?”
“He’s with Maria and Bug for Christmas.”
Holy shit. “What happened?” he asked, then shook his head. “No, never mind. I don’t care. Why are you calling me?”
She paused. “We got in a horrible fight,” she said. “About you. About how I’ve treated you. And, um, him. I guess it’s been bothering him for a while, and he finally just snapped.”
Aiden thought of what Riley had once told him. Sounds like a “you” problem, not a “me” problem.
“Still not seeing what this has to do with me,” Aiden said. “And I’m about to open presents with Maggie and her son, so I have to go.”
Another pause. “I know I haven’t treated you well.”
His eyes widened. This was new.
“I told you,” Sheryl said slowly, “when I went off to college . . . I got a little wild.”
“The experimentation?”
“That. And, um, drugs. I didn’t tell you about that.” Her voice had lowered. “I went off the rails a bit. Almost flunked out, got in some bad situations.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But that—”
“My parents helped me out. I realized that all the freedom I wanted was more of a . . . trap. I needed to get my life back on track. I finally saw that even though they can be kind of overbearing, they genuinely care about me, and they had a point. So I cleaned up my act. Then I found you again, and it was like I was getting all my mistakes cleared off the board.” Her voice was breaking with emotion. “I thought we had a second chance. I thought, finally, life was going my way. We could do it right this time.”
He swallowed. “Then you found out I was bi, huh?”
“It just felt like I was being punished for my past,” she said. “And I was so angry. Although I guess I should’ve been angrier at myself.”
He shook his head. She’d been sweet, once. He’d loved her, and on some level, he really did still love her. “I’m going to go, Sheryl,” he said, but with kindness.
“Please,” she said. “Please tell Davy I apologized. I don’t want to screw things up with him. Let him know I—”
“You’re going to have to tell him yourself and see how that goes,” he interjected. “Merry Christmas, Sheryl.” He would’ve asked her to pass it along to his mom, but he knew there was no point. Then he hung up and shut off his phone.
He didn’t know how things were going to go from here. Parts of this still stung . . . but he had hope. Things were different. With Maggie, he was happy. He was himself.
He was going to keep it that way.
He rejoined Maggie and Kit, out in the living room. Maggie looked at him with concern. “Everything okay?”
He nodded. He wasn’t going to get into it tonight. Maggie was sitting on the couch, while Kit sat in the old recliner. She distributed the packages. He sat on the floor, leaning against the couch by Maggie’s feet.
“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.”