Mia's wide eyes fling over to me while June makes praying hands at Sadie's, working the pout like a professional.
"Can we go again, Mommy?" she asks.
Mia bounces in the seat beside her, eyes pleading with me. "Can we?"
Sadie nods to the train operator and shoots the girls a commanding index finger. "One more time. That's it. Uncle Tommy has a very special stop to make before we go back to the house."
The girls erupt in cheers as they re-buckle themselves and gear up for another trip around the gigantic Christmas tree in the middle of the mall. The happy notes of Jingle Bells are streaming all around us and it smells like sugar cookies and coffee. I think I can hear actual sleigh bells coming from somewhere, too.
It reminds me of Mia's collection that Amber adds to each year on Christmas Eve and my smile is back. I wish she was here and that I didn't have to basically lie to her and scheme with Lacy to keep her at Ed and Amelia's house this evening.
It's all for a good cause though. A very shiny and good cause.
When we left, Amber was happily baking cookies with Mom, Amelia, Gemma, and Lily. Harper and Evie were fighting over who got to hold Tucker, while Lacy and Trevor were definitely sneaking off to make out somewhere under the radar. Austin and Ed were doing God knows what with the Christmas lights outside, again.
And all the while, under the guise of taking Mia and June to the mall since they're the newly founded Best Friends Forever Club, the four of us are out to visit the jeweler so I can finally choose the perfect ring for Amber.
Just as soon as this train makes its final stop.
I think I'm gonna puke.
It's not that I think she'll say no. It's just that I'm pretty damn sure she's definitely gonna say yes and I've never been so fucking happy in my life. Yes, so happy that I might puke. It's not the first time this girl has made me a glorious mess of nerves.
"What did Mia say when you talked to her about proposing?" Sadie asks, her voice going soft as we both stare at the girls. They've been attached at the hip since everyone arrived in town a few days ago.
Although I know it's unrealistic that all my family would actually make the move out here, I can't help thinking this new friendship of theirs will survive the distance between California and New York and truly last, as the two of them keep insisting, forever.
"She was great about it actually," I answer Sadie, my mind traveling back to the day I sat Mia down at the kitchen island with some hot cocoa and told her I wanted to marry her mom. Our mugs were filled to the brim with marshmallows and topped with a sprinkle of cinnamon and her reaction put the sweetness of our dessert drinks to shame. "She told me if anyone was gonna marry her mom, she hoped it would be me."
Sadie's hand reaches for her heart. "Oh my gosh, Tommy. That's... she's the sweetest."
"Yeah, she is."
I leave out the part where Mia made me promise, crossing my heart and all, to always be nice to her mom and never hurt her. The look in her eyes broke me as she seemed to revisit a painful memory right there from her perch at the counter with me, sipping from her mug. I know what she really meant to say.
Don't hurt her. Like he did.
Though it went unuttered, the rest of that sentence was pretty fucking loud.
She wasn't worried so much about Amber's heart that day. I think she's a bit too young to wrap her head around the woes of a broken heart. Instead, she was worried about her bones, her body. The parts of her that she's seen mangled before. The parts that I'm pretty sure still haunt her at night when she wakes up screaming for Amber. It's been happening ever since the incident with Vince.
3. Sleigh Bells Ring
Start from the beginning
