A Snowfall Kind of Love
Summary: There's one thing on my grown-up Christmas list, and while it includes a number of specifics in varying degrees of dirtiness, it really all boils to the one thing I've wanted for a year and a half: a do-gooder with unruly hair and a Mister Rogers sweater, and a lifetime of nights that would land me squarely on the naughty list.
December 17
(Eight days until Christmas)
"I come bearing ornaments," I say, holding three carrier bags aloft, and Edward's eyebrows jump.
"Enough to decorate the tree in Millennium Park?" But his anticipated Scrooge act is cut short when he spies my companion. "And I know people have different ideas of appropriate tree-toppers – stars, angels, bows – but there's no way that's going to fit."
"Oh. Right. Edward, this is Holly. Holly, Edward." I pat the dog's head.
"Holly?" As if used to her name already, the dog's ears perk up, and her tail wags – not the half-hearted, uncertain half-wag of yesterday, but a full-fledged, side-to-side sweep. "I didn't know you had a dog."
"Well, I don't, really. She's a stray. I found her while Alice and I were running yesterday. I just took her to a vet to have her checked out. The no-kill shelter isn't accepting any dogs at the moment, and I couldn't bring myself to send her to the pound. So…she's my holiday guest."
"And…Holly." It isn't a question, despite the softly teasing look in his eye and the slight cock of his head.
"Holly is a totally legitimate name."
"Hm." Edward rounds his desk slowly and crouches down, holding out a hand, palm-down. "Hey there." His voice is soft, low, soothing, and if I were the focus of it, I'd have no problem surrendering completely to it, laying myself belly-up on the carpet of his office. The wary dog of yesterday is a memory; Holly walks slowly but surely toward Edward and thoroughly sniffs his hand before reaching up and licking him once along the jaw line. Lucky little punk.
Edward laughs, steadying himself with a gentle hand on the dog's new red collar. "Whoa. I thought you were shy."
"Well, she was."
"You know what they say," he says, smug grin in place. "Dogs are great judges of character."
I roll my eyes. "Yeah, well, everyone makes mistakes."
The grin widens, but as I begin to unzip my coat, he rises and shakes his head. "No, don't—"
"What?"
He crosses the office toward me and plucks his own coat from the rack just inside the door. "Keep your coat on and come with me."
"Where?"
"Just…come. I want to give you something."
"But I don't have your gift ready—"
He holds up a hand. "Doesn't matter." But he drops his gaze to Holly, standing between us, looking up – not at me, but at Edward. "Huh. You want to hang out with the guys for a bit?"
The dog wags her tail, and Edward grins. "Okay." Poking his head into the living room where Seth, Jake, Riley, and James are engrossed in what appears to be homework, he asks, "Anybody allergic to dogs?" At the chorus of negative responses, he steps aside. "Okay. This is Bella's dog. Holly. Watch her for a bit."
Edward steps back, but I can't just walk away until I'm sure she'll be okay. I watch as she hovers on the threshold of the door, eyeing the four boys warily. She jumps slightly when an ember in the fireplace cracks with a loud pop, and Jake slides from the sofa to the floor, leaning his back against it and holding a hand out, palm up, the back of it flush against the floor. Holly watches all this with wary eyes, and I scratch her softly on the head. "It's okay," I promise, and she ducks out from under my hand, taking a tentative step forward.
"Hey," Jake says softly, making no move toward her. She approaches slowly, sniffing the floor as she draws near, then sniffing Jake's unmoving, upturned hand. "Hey," he says again. After the dog has satisfied her curiosity, she sits beside him, not close enough to touch him, but close enough to be a vote of tacit trust.
Jake glances up at me and grins – that rare, wonderful grin – and I return it before backing up slowly and turning to find Edward waiting by the front door.
Leading me out into the driveway, he rounds his nearly-old-enough-to-be-vintage Toyota pickup truck and reaches for the passenger side door handle, pulling it open with a creak that sounds not entirely unlike the one my own car door makes. It has the potential to be kind of cute, really: his-and-hers jalopies.
"Where are we going?"
He tips his head toward the waiting bench seat, but says nothing. Sliding in, I shiver slightly, watching as he circles the car to open his own door.
"Here," he says, handing me a red paper coffee cup with gold snowflakes printed all around it.
"What's this?"
"Hot chocolate," he says, putting his key into the ignition. "It's not diner hot chocolate, but Shelly made it, and it has whipped cream, so…"
It takes me a beat to catch on; when I do, it takes everything in me not to let tears gather along the rims of my eyes. He can see I'm clueing in, and he shakes his head slightly, embarrassed. "And, sadly, I don't have a police cruiser. Not that I don't wish I did, because speed limits really are inconvenient, but…"
"Edward," I say, but he's throwing the truck into reverse and backing out of the driveway, and I'm not entirely sure what I wanted to say, anyway. Instead, I peer out the window, watching houses drift by, decked out in their holiday finery. Rainbow lights and white lights and lights shaped like icicles dangling from rooftops. Illuminated reindeer in front yards and deep green wreaths with bright red bows hanging on front doors. Santas and angels and snowmen and the occasional Grinch. And, oddly, an inflatable Dallas Cowboy.
As the houses and the minutes pass, I forget about my feelings for Edward and the implications of this moment and let myself just enjoy it, let myself feel Christmas in a way I haven't since Charlie died. After a short while, we start pointing out houses to each other. The grand, with their brilliant displays, and the less so, with confusing if earnest decorative choices. It isn't until we reach the outskirts of the city that I realize that, instead of crawling up and down random streets willy-nilly, Edward seems to have a destination in mind. When I ask, he says, "There's a really cool neighborhood just outside the city. I think you'd like it."
"Okay," I say, sinking back into my seat and sipping on my hot chocolate, listening as Bing Crosby croons about silent nights from Edward's tinny speakers. As we drive, the houses become larger and farther apart, and the light displays become less tacky and more tasteful. Finally, the truck swings into a circular driveway before a beautiful brick-faced house with at least ten steps leading to the front door, from which hangs a wreath with a red bow outlined in gold. Lights line the house's trim and the porch railings, and tiny wreaths hang in the top of each window, suspended by red velvet ribbons, while white candles glow from behind each pane of glass. There's a spotlight somewhere in the front lawn, trained on the front door but illuminating the entire façade of the house, and white lights are draped deliberately around each bush in the flower beds. There's a bow on the bottom of each porch railing that matches the one on the wreath, and in the circular window in the middle of what looks to be the honest-to-God third floor, there's a single, glowing star.
"Holy shit," I say, ever irreverent, and Edward laughs.
"Thought you'd like this one. It looks the same every year."
It's all of my favorite things about holiday lights: bright and soft and elegant and beautiful. "Do you think they hire someone to do this?"
He laughs again. "Probably."
"Well, there it is. I've found my dream job."
"A seasonal one, at least."
Leaning forward, I peer up at the star. If someone had tried to describe it to me, I'd have thought it sounded somewhat tacky, but glowing softly there in that lone round window, it just looks…hopeful. Promising. Like something to wish upon.
When I glance over at him, he's staring up at the house, a small smile on his lips.
"Edward?"
"Hm?"
"Why did you do this?"
When he turns his face toward me, it's all bathed in the soft green of his dashboard lights, which dulls the color of his eyes. He looks like a younger version of himself, his almost-beard and the faint lines at the corners of his eyes smoothed out by the darkness. In this second, I can almost imagine him years ago, before he decided to try to save the world. Or, at least, all the lost boys in his corner of it. "Why?" he echoes.
He's buying time, but I let him. I'd wait forever for an honest answer to this question. For a clue to the truth of how he feels about me: if it's just a fraternal or, God forbid, a paternal affection, or if it's something more. Genuine friendship. Affection. Attraction. Love? After Burl Ives makes his way through a few verses of "I'll Be Home for Christmas," Edward turns once more to gaze at the face of the house before us, all illuminated in the glow of the season.
"I know what it's like to have a dud parent," he says finally. "I know what kind of hole that can open up in a person. I wanted you to remember that even though your mom is a dud, your dad…he was the opposite. I mean, obviously, I never met him. But just based on what you've said about him…he sounds really special, Bella. And I didn't want you to forget him. Not at Christmas. I wanted you to focus on him instead of her. To remember doing this with him, instead of thinking about your mom and…wherever she is. To…be happy." When he looks at me, there's a fierceness in his eyes. "You should be happy. You are happy. Bella unhappy is like…" He frowns, then finishes, "Christmas on a tropical island somewhere. There's just something…unnatural about it."
And even if it wasn't what I expected, or even what I hoped for, somehow…it's more. That he cares enough to want me to think about Charlie, that he wants for me what I want for him – happiness – it's enough, tonight, sitting here in his darkened truck with Christmas carols murmuring softly beneath our conversation and the fairy lights before us bathing everything a soft golden-white.
"Thank you," I whisper, and here in the darkness with him, in the wake of some of the kindest words anyone's ever said to me, I wish like anything that I were brave enough to reach across the bench seat and hold his hand. In this moment, I don't want to kiss him or lick him or screw him or anything else. I just want to hold his hand.
The song ends and another begins, and something in my chest flips. "This is my favorite song," I say aloud in barely more than a whisper.
Edward glances over at me again, one eyebrow arched. "You mean your favorite Christmas song," he supplies, but suspicion is pulling that lone eyebrow ever higher. When I say nothing, the other eyebrow joins it. "Bella? Bella Swan. Tell me you mean your favorite Christmas song, and not your favorite song-song."
"Shut up," I say by way of response, and dawning understanding is pulling his lips into the teasing smile I love. I'd be sad at the disappearance of the earnestness, if not for the emergence of that smile. "It makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I hear it, no matter how many times I've heard it already. Tell me a single song you've heard on the Top 100 radio station in the past decade that's done that to you."
The smile dims slightly, and there's a look on his face I can't decipher, but Jesus, I wish I could. It's a brand new look on a wholly familiar face, and the possibility behind it makes my stomach leap. "Your favorite song," he echoes, almost to himself.
"Yeah." I barrel on, only slightly embarrassed at the fact that I'm pretty sure I'm becoming more and more ridiculous to him as time wears on, which is sort of the opposite of the effect I'd hoped to have in my last weeks working with him. "I mean, maybe that's what makes it special – that it's only ever on the radio one month out of the year. But I don't know; sometimes when I'm shuffling music it'll come on, and it still gets me, even if it's August. Okay, sure, it's not the kind of song you play at dinner parties, and you never really get to slow dance to Christmas carols, but still…it's my favorite anyway. And you can 'Bah Humbug' all over it all you want to, it's a great song."
Edward stares at me for a full minute, all affection and befuddlement and disbelief, before turning the dial up a good few notches until the chords bounce off the walls of the truck's cab. Then, he's gone, disappeared in the whirl of cold air that sweeps in from the open driver's side door. I watch in the blaring white light of his headlamps as he rounds the front of the truck and opens my door, treating me to another blast of icy air.
"Where are we going?"
"Just…get out here," he says instead of answering, and as much as I hate the cold, I'm pretty much a goner when it comes to Edward at this point. I'd likely make naked snow angels on the front lawn of rich strangers if I thought it'd keep that indecipherable look in his eyes. Or if, you know, he'd be naked right along with me.
"What are we doing? You should know that I didn't bring my TP with me, so if vandalism-inspired hijinks were on the agenda for tonight, a heads-up would have been good."
"Stop talking, Bella," he says, leaving the car door open behind me and backing away as if in challenge. When he draws to a halt, he's standing in the pool of light spilling from his car's headlights out over the snow-covered lawn. Still baffled, I watch as he holds his hands out at his sides, as if in question. "Here's your chance. I'm not much of a dancer, I admit. But I'm willing to take one for the team if it's gonna be the only chance you have to dance to your favorite song."
"I…what?"
"Consider it part of your Christmas present."
If I thought he looked kissable standing in the middle of a Christmas tree lot, it was nothing compared to him in this moment, a blanket of stars twinkling overhead, a gorgeous house glowing behind him like a giant, illuminated gingerbread house, and those words wafting from his car stereo as errant silver snowflakes drift lazily down from the dark winter sky.
O night divine.
Stepping into the car's makeshift spotlight, I try not to shiver when he holds out his gloved hand, and I wish with a fleeting fervor that our hands were bare, subzero temperatures be damned. He places his other hand politely at my waist and, after only the briefest hesitation, we begin swaying gently from side to side, Edward turning us in a slow circle like figure skaters in a snow globe. Barbie Dream Houses and BMX bikes be damned – I never could have had the gall to wish for a moment like this, a moment wherein I don't even want to blink, don't want to close my eyes against it for a second.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming.
"Thank you," I whisper, breath puffing out visibly into the frigid air between us.
He grins down at me, cheeks and ears growing pinker by the minute, taking me back days to a snowball fight and Edward gazing down at me in the snow. Why these minutes always happen with both of us wearing seventeen layers of clothing, I'll never know. If I didn't know better, I'd almost think it was Charlie, still proudly wearing his protective-dad-cop hat from the great beyond to meddle in the affairs of…well, me. "You're welcome."
And this is it. This moment. It's my Christmas wish, come true. Even if I don't get to have him, this is a moment I will remember for the rest of my life: when the man I loved gave me my father back for a brief moment, and then gave me this. A slow dance in the snow to my favorite song, surrounded by snowflakes and fairy lights.
As the chords of the song fade and another picks up, Edward treats me to a faintly embarrassed smile. "This is actually my favorite," he murmurs, and when I let my surprise show on my face, he hastens to add, "Christmas song. Because, y'know, I'm not a freak."
"Duly noted," I reply, grateful only that he hasn't let go of me yet. While I'm surprised to find out that he even admits to having a favorite Christmas carol, I'm not at all surprised by what it is. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" somehow fits Edward perfectly, with its equal blend of hope and melancholy. "Favorite version?" I ask, as James Taylor warbles from the radio. He considers me for a second, almost as if assessing whether or not I can be trusted. I roll my eyes. "I promise I won't think you've been converted."
He battles a smile before admitting, "Sinatra."
I beam up at him in reward. "That's my favorite version, too." Tipping my head toward the car, I add, "But he isn't doing a half-bad job of it."
He shakes his head, smile spreading. "No, not half-bad at all."
We're barely turning now, barely moving in fact, our feet staying nearly planted as we simply sway from side to side.
Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow.
As the final chords play out, Edward gazes down at me, and I can't stop myself from saying it again. "Thank you, Edward."
"You don't have to thank me."
I do, for so much, so much more than I could ever find the words for. Mostly, I want to thank him for being him – for teaching me what he's taught me, for being a friend, for being who he is, for this moment, for every single moment of the past month when loving him was nearly enough to temper missing Charlie. "I should actually be thanking you," he's saying. "For…everything you've done. For the House. But for me, too. I…I know I'm sort of a bummer about Christmas, but…you make me like it more. I haven't…really liked it in awhile. So…thank you. For that."
I shake my head, wordless. He's thanking me for being me, and I want to thank him for being him – it's so perfect and so inadequate, all in the same moment. Just as the silence begins to slip down the slope toward awkward, his voice, low and gravelly, says, "Bella?" So many different things are in his voice – uncertainty, vulnerability, hesitation – that my heart trips.
"Yeah?" Hardly even a whisper, that.
He blinks once, slowly. Sniffs. Presses his lips together. "I…can't feel my face."
And even as the mood that may or may not have been there bursts and fizzles around us, I can't help laughing. "Me either." But I don't want to move, don't want to leave this shiny crystal snow globe moment, just Edward and me and the snow and the stars and the songs. And yet, I'm suddenly aware of the cold, the damp, and the fact that we're standing on the front lawn of some rich people who, given the fact that Edward's car is barely more respectable than my own, likely wouldn't hesitate to call the cops about the two loony-birds acting like idiots on their front lawn. I step back from him, smiling and clapping my hands together.
Dropping his gaze and his hands, Edward's eyebrows jump. "Hey! You finally got new gloves!"
"Oh," I say, glancing down at the red and white alpaca wool encasing my hands. "Yeah. A friend gave them to me."
He nods. "Nice. Your old ones were pretty sad. I didn't want to say anything in case you had some emotional attachment to them – I know how you are about all things winter – but they really were pathetic." His grin turns teasing. "Plus, these ones match your coat. Now you're less Michelin Man, more…snowman."
"Snow-woman, thank you very much."
"Snow-woman," he amends, retracing his footsteps through the snow to stand beside my car door. Following his unspoken direction, I slip back into the passenger seat, leaning in as he pushes the door shut with a quiet thunk and gazing down at my gloves.
A friend gave them to me. Whether it's Emmett, Edward, or someone else entirely, it occurs to me that I'm right. And, at the end of the day, that's pretty damn special.
"So…I'll see you tomorrow?" But it's a question, and I realize that whether or not we crossed any easily discernible line tonight, something is different.
"Yeah. Do you…I can meet you here?"
But he shakes his head. "Your place is on the way. I can pick you up."
"Okay," I say, trying to hide the small smile.
"Okay," he echoes, and he's opening his mouth to say something else when the front door of the house opens and Shelly appears in the doorway, backlit, before closing it behind her and making her way toward the stairs. In a flash, Edward is out the car door, bounding up the stairs to hold out an arm to help her.
"I didn't have a chance to salt these this afternoon," I hear him saying as I step out of the truck's cab, clutching my now-empty hot chocolate cup and hugging my coat around me. "Careful."
"Thank you, Edward," Shelly says, descending carefully. "Did you have a nice drive?"
She gives Edward a pointed look before turning her focus to me, and I hold up the empty cup. "Thank you for the hot chocolate. It was delicious."
She waves a hand. "Of course, Bella. I usually opt for marshmallows, but Edward was adamant that it be whipped cream." She shrugs. "Men. Stubborn. Been married forty-two years, and it's never been any different."
"We have our reasons," Edward says, but he's very much House Director Edward now, all traces of Dashboard-Light, Snow-Slow-Dancing Edward chased away by our return.
"Of course you do," Shelly says indulgently, patting his cheek with her gloved hand. "Well, goodnight, you two. See you tomorrow. Edward, there's leftover lasagna in the fridge. Reheat it at 350 and take it out when it starts bubbling."
"Thanks, Shelly."
"Here," I say, holding out my arm. "I'll take her the rest of the way."
Shelly's smiling as Edward holds her arm out for me to link mine through. "You two," she says, but leaves it at that.
"Goodnight Shelly," Edward says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and glancing at me, a small smile on his face. "Goodnight, Bella."
"Goodnight," I say, grateful that we're standing in the cold and any potential pinking of my face could be explained away by the chill. "Thank you again."
He nods once and turns, climbing the porch stairs. I help Shelly to her car, and as I'm putting the key into the ignition of my own, I see him, rock salt in hand, sprinkling it over the porch steps. He's barely more than a silhouette against the lights from the house, but as I recall his words from when we were stringing popcorn, I can't help admit to their truth.
Burly. Masculine. Strong.
I could sit for hours in my chilly car, watching him do just this, and the truth of Alice's words hits me like a snowball to the face: loving someone isn't in the romance. It's in the little moments when you're not even really doing anything. I loved him like crazy, dancing to O Holy Night in the snow. But the love I have for him now, watching him salt those stairs…it's constant. Simple. Something else entirely.
He looks up and waves, and I wave back before reversing out of the driveway and heading toward home.
Just as I'm pushing the front door of my house open, my phone chirps from the pocket of my coat.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey," comes Alice's voice. "I just wanted to let you know I'm staying at Jasper's tonight."
"Okay," I say, equal parts relieved and disappointed that I won't have to decide whether to divulge all the details of tonight before I've really had a chance to process them. "Tell him I said hi."
"I will. So, what was it today?"
"What?"
"Your secret Santa gift."
"Oh." I frown. "There wasn't one."
"Huh?"
Just in case I didn't notice it on the way in, I peek out through the window at the front stoop: deserted. "There wasn't one. I just got home, but there was nothing on the stoop."
"That's weird. Maybe somebody stole it?"
"Maybe," I allow, but I'm sort of baffled, myself.
It isn't until I'm in the kitchen, tossing out my coffee cup, that I notice: it's the same colors as the elegant gift wrap.
And that tiny flicker of possibility bursts to flame again.
Let's see the lights
Light up the sky
We'll drink cocoa
And watch the snow
And oh, my heart's glowing
A life here we're sowing
And our love keeps growing
More and more
Throughout the year.
You make the cold disappear.
(Amy Stroup, "You Make the Cold Disappear")
. . .
Thanks, as always, for reading. Thanks also for the kind words regarding the A/N in the last chapter; this fandom remains such a wonderful, loving place.
I hope to post another chapter tonight, if my tiny ones cooperate. Holiday-cookie-sweet love to you all. xo
