His mouth came to mine and he muttered, “I’m up for that.”

I pressed my lips to his, opened my mouth and slid my tongue inside. Tate’s head slanted and his hand sifted into my hair, tilting mine the other way as he took the kiss far deeper and made it much, much better.

When his lips broke from mine, he whispered, “Happy birthday, baby.”

To which, I whispered back, “Love you, Tate.”

His neck bent, his lips brushed mine and then slid to my ear, where he kept whispering, “Love you too, babe.”

I melted completely into my old man thinking how could I ever have not wanted him to call me babe?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

December

The garage door was going up, Tate was turning the key in the ignition and I was strapping in when I remembered to ask Jonas, “Did you get the gift for your teacher?”

“Where was that again?” Jonas asked from the backseat.

I twisted to look at him. “On the kitchen island.”

His eyes hit mine and he muttered, “Whoops.”

“Go get it, Bub,” Tate said from behind the wheel.

I twisted to forward as I heard Jonas unbuckle his seatbelt, open his door and jump from the SUV. As he ran across the front of the truck, I remembered something else, unbuckled my own seat belt, leaned clean across Tate, hit his electric window opener and shouted as the window rolled down, “Did you get your Secret Santa gift?” right before Jonas hit the door to the mudroom.

“It’s in my backpack,” he yelled back.

“And the cookies for your class party?” I bellowed.

Jonas was inside and his disembodied voice could be heard hollering back, “Backpack!”

I closed the window and sat back. I’d buckled my seatbelt again when I felt eyes on me and I looked at Tate to see he was staring at me, a strange look on his face.

“What?” I asked.

“Christ almighty, Ace, you’re like the Christmas Beast.”

My eyes narrowed, Tate watched them and his lips twitched so they narrowed further.

The Christmas Beast, easy for him to say.

He didn’t buy Christmas cards, write and festively design a witty Christmas letter (with pictures, which I sent to all my old friends in Phoenix because any picture with Tate in it, and I included loads of them, would make them all green-eyed with jealousy), print out dozens of letters, sign the cards, address them and send them.

He didn’t buy presents for everyone we knew, wrap them and deliver them, packing up the ones to send to Indiana because, with baggage restrictions, we couldn’t carry them with us. This meant I had to memorize the post office’s schedule and rush around so I was sure the packages were away on time.

He didn’t bake twelve dozen Christmas cookies to sell at the Junior Football League’s table at the Christmas Fair in Carnal in an effort to help the Moms raise a bunch of money because the boys needed new jerseys and equipment for the next season. He also didn’t man that booth for five hours in the Colorado Mountain cold.

He didn’t organize, put together party trays, coordinate the staff Secret Santa gift exchange and throw the Christmas party at Bubba’s for staff and regulars and whoever was around including a big bowl of spiked eggnog and another big bowl of spiked, spiced Christmas punch on the bar with the trays covered in cheeses, cold cuts, veggies, varied Christmas treats and bowls of chips in the office for the staff (as well as Jim-Billy, Nadine, Steg, Wings, Stoney and select other regulars) to munch on through shift. He also didn’t decorate Bubba’s. Me, Wendy, Jim-Billy, Amber and Krys did.

Further, he didn’t have many Christmas decorations at his house but even so, he didn’t run around Carnal, Chantelle, Gnaw Bone and the mall finding decorations, lights, Christmas cookie jars (for the personal cookies I made us), Christmas dishtowels and bathroom hand towels (because even bathrooms needed Christmas cheer). Okay, so he set up the tree and he and Jonas did a really good job on the outside lights and they both helped decorate the tree, but the rest of the house was all me. We were going to Indiana for Christmas, leaving the next day, but that didn’t mean we didn’t need a little bit of Christmas at home on the lead up to it.

He also didn’t pack for the three of us to be away for two weeks which I’d already done, mainly because there was a lot to do between now and leaving and I didn’t want to pack in a rush but also because I was excited to go home for Christmas.

And lastly, he wasn’t helping to plan the wedding, which I’d already started doing. Sure, it was a small wedding but it was still a wedding which required planning and a lot of it.

He went after a skip and was gone for two weeks. Sure, that skip was a high bond and the payoff was mammoth, so mammoth Tate didn’t really have to work for months if he didn’t want to (and it meant I could double the flower and catering budgets for the wedding which Holly, who was doing our flowers, and Shambles, who was doing the catering, were ecstatic about). But still!

“The Christmas Beast?” I asked on a warning whisper.

“Yeah, babe, seriously, half the shit you been doin’ you don’t need to do,” Tate answered.

I felt pressure in my head indicating it was about to explode.

“I’m sorry?” I was still whispering. “Which part would you leave out? Do you want the boys in Junior Football League to have tatty jerseys? Do you think we shouldn’t have decorated and given Jonas a festive house, especially this Christmas, his first one with us and without his Mom? Do you think I should bypass the opportunity to shove my smokin’ hot, badass biker fiancé down the throats of my ex-friends in Horizon Summit? Do you think Jonas shouldn’t give his teacher a present when all the other kids are going to do it which will make her think we’re bad parents or Jonas is a shit kid? Hunh? Which part would you leave out, Tate?”

He studied me then deduced on a mutter, “I see the shit you been doin’ is shit you need to do.”

“Damn straight,” I muttered back, straightening in my seat.

“Next year, Laurie, we’re goin’ to a beach,” he told me and I twisted to him.

“We can’t go to a beach!” I screeched. “My mother would have a stroke! Christmas is about family!”

He again studied me and I was thinking that he was thinking much what I thought the night he asked me to marry him (or, more accurately, gave me a ring and told me we were getting married next April which I decided to think was the same thing). That was, there were many of my ways that had or would become clear to him. There were others that would remain a mystery.