Naughty or Nice

27. Rora

27

RORA

DECEMBER 4

I wake up to kisses being peppered across my face, Henry’s soft beard tickling my jaw.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” I ask, opening my eyes just long enough to confirm it is, in fact, my boyfriend and not someone who’s snuck into the cabin to murder us. But murderers don’t usually smell like candy canes.

“Nothing’s wrong, sugar. Just something you need to see. Sit up a sec.”

I’m still mostly asleep, but I let Henry pull me into a sitting position and lift my arms when prompted so he can tug a long-sleeve shirt over my head. He pulls the covers back and puts socks and snow boots on my feet.

“Bring the blanket,” he says, before lifting me into his arms.

I snuggle into the warmth of his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

The mountain air is freezing when Henry opens the cabin door and carries me out onto the porch. I hear the creak of the wood as he trudges down the steps, the soft crunch of snow beneath his boots.

He pauses a few steps from the cabin. “Rora, baby, look up.”

I grumble as I drag my cheek from the warmth of his skin. “Wh—” The word dies in my mouth as I open my eyes and look up into the sky. I’m only semi-aware of the blanket slipping from my grip .

It’s like someone dragged a paintbrush across the horizon, leaving behind streaks of violet and green. The aurora borealis. No picture, nothing I’ve ever conjured up in my imagination, comes close to seeing it in person.

“Oh my god,” I whisper, but it still feels too loud. “It’s… I have no words.”

He tightens his hold on me. “I know, sugar.”

For a second, the world stands still, and it’s just me and Henry and a million little stars in a moment I’ve been dreaming of my whole life.

“I’m so glad I get to have this moment with you,” I tell him. I don’t realize I’m crying until a hot tear spills down my cold cheek.

“Me too, baby. All the times I’ve seen this… Not one of them meant as much as this.”

I look up into his face to find silver lining his eyes, his irises swimming with the reflection of the starry sky.

“It feels full circle, doesn’t it?”

Henry nods, swallowing. “Like it was an invisible string tying us together all these years.” He presses a gentle kiss on the top of my head. “And now, we get to spend the rest of our lives together.” As if his words were a cue, snowflakes flutter down from the sky, landing on his hair like confetti.

He crouches down to pick up the blanket and carries me back up the porch steps. I fluff the blanket and pull it over us both when Henry sits down on the bench. We can still see the aurora glimmering over the mountains, the sight breathtaking.

Something about the wonder of it all makes me feel a little braver to bring up the thing I’ve been avoiding since I climbed onto Henry’s lap in the grotto last night.

“Henry?”

“Yeah, baby?”

I hold my breath, the mountain air doing little to untangle the knots in my chest. “What if we didn’t take a year to figure out how to start a family?”

Henry’s eyes widen a fraction before his mouth curves into a perfect smile. “I’d have a baby with you tomorrow if I could, sugar. If you’re ready, we’ll make it work.”

“Yeah?” I don’t dare take a breath yet.

“Hell yeah. It might be hard figuring out how to balance everything at first, but isn’t it always? We can travel until we need to stop, then settle somewhere—here, or wherever you’re most comfortable. When you’re ready to start working again, we’ll figure out how to travel with a baby. I’ll be a stay-at-home—or hotel, I guess—dad, and you’ll make incredible art during the day and come home to us at night.”

Deep inside me, surprise and hope meet somewhere in the middle. “You would give up your job to take care of the baby?”

“Getting to raise a family with my favorite person in the world and watch her do her dream job at the same time isn’t giving anything up. Rora, I don’t want you to compromise on your dreams for one second, whether that’s a family, your career, or both. We’ll find a way to make it work, and our kids will grow up watching their mom have it all.”

He makes it sound so simple, and I know that’s not how easy it would be in reality, but for a moment, I let myself pretend.

Once, our babysitter fell through on Charlie and Kate’s anniversary, and they took us with them on their date night. We had dinner, saw a show, and all squeezed into a hotel room in Jackson. After sweeping the floor with us all at Monopoly, Kate fell asleep, snuggled into Charlie’s side.

Felix, thirteen years old and nursing his first heartbreak, asked his dad how he knew Kate was the one .

“I woke up one day,” Charlie said, smiling down at her, “and realized there was nothing that mattered more than her. Nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Because, in the blink of an eye, she was my whole world. And I was so sure I’d never feel that way about anyone again until you and Noelle came along. And then Rora. It makes me feel like the luckiest man in the world to get to have that kind of love four times over.

“Your mom… She’s given up a lot for us over the years, you know? She packed up and left her family, like we all left Mamaw and Pops, just because I’ve always dreamed of owning a toy store.”

“I wasn’t giving anything up,” Kate cut in, sleepily, from his side. “When you love someone like we love each other, dreams are a shared thing, and it doesn’t feel like you’re losing anything when you leave things behind to watch the person you love live their dreams.”

That’s where my parents went wrong, why it didn’t work. Their dreams worked perfectly when it was just the two of them, but neither of them dreamed of being a parent. For them, loving me meant giving something up. They chose me over each other.

There’s no fear, no resentment, in Henry’s eyes when he talks about leaving his job to be a full-time dad. This is his dream as much as his job is.

“We’ll find a way to make it work,” I echo, my voice once again thick with tears.

Henry’s face lights up, brighter and more beautiful than any aurora. “So, you want to start trying?”

“About that…” I wipe my face with my hands, well aware I definitely look like a teary mess. “The odds of getting pregnant with the implant are, like, less than one in a thousand, but?—”

“Oh my god.” Henry jolts back, his hand flying to his mouth. “Are you… Are we…”

The second I nod, joy spreads over his face. I can probably blame the hormones for being so worried about telling him; of course he’s thrilled. This is Henry.

It feels like the heaviest weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I can finally be excited about this, about our next chapter .

“How— When—” He opens and closes his mouth, and doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, so I take pity on him and pull down the blanket enough to lay them on my tummy. There’s no bump yet, but he places his hand flat on my abdomen and stares like it’s the most incredible thing he’s ever seen.

“When I visited for your birthday. I only found out a few days ago, but I’m eleven weeks. You know how I’ve been really tired for a few weeks and having heartburn? Turns out it’s not jet lag.” The second I explained my symptoms to a pharmacist in London, she grabbed a test from behind the counter.

Henry looks up at me with concern, and I have a feeling he’s going to be online looking at symptoms and how to help me the second we go back inside. “Do we need to be worried about that? Are you feeling okay otherwise?”

“It’s normal,” I promise him, placing my hand over his. “And I feel better since I started taking prenatals. But we have an appointment on Tuesday with an OB, and she’ll check everything over and do an ultrasound and… Honestly, I’ve forgotten half of the tests and stuff I need. It’s been a lot to take in.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you found out, sugar. You must have been so stressed.”

“I was, at first,” I say with a shrug. “But I knew I was coming home to you in a few days, and even though I was a little worried about telling you, I knew everything would be okay. I thought I’d be scared out of my mind at the idea of raising a whole person, but I’m really just excited because I get to do it with you.”

“You’re going to be such a good mom,” Henry sniffs, his voice thick.

“And you’re going to be the best dad.”

I clasp his face, and a single tear falls from the corner of his eye.

“I’m so fucking happy, sugar.”

“Me too.” I rest my head on his shoulder, and we both look out at the mountains. “I can’t wait to bring them here. To our place.”

“Our place, huh?”

“It doesn’t feel like just mine anymore. Nothing does. Everything that means something to me feels like ours : you, me…” I look down at Henry’s hand on my stomach. “The baby. Ours.”

“Ours,” he agrees, smiling softly. “So, are you going to make the most of hating Christmas for the last year?”

“I think that ship sailed the day I met you, went home, and looked up Santa porn,” I admit. “Who’d have thought?”

Henry chuckles. “I, for one, am glad you didn’t let your hatred of Christmas get in the way of your Santa kink.”

Rora from last Christmas wouldn’t believe where I am now. She had no idea how amazing things would turn out. “To Santa kinks,” I say, wishing we had hot chocolate or something to toast with.

“And a happy ending better than any Christmas movie,” Henry chimes in.

I cup his face and tug him closer, brushing his lips with mine. “Not a happy ending; this is just the start. A happy beginning , Santa.”

Henry’s smile is blinding. He looks down, rubbing his hand over my tummy. “I guess Santa Baby has a whole new meaning this year.”