Chapter 24: Five of Us

Milo wrote slowly, with his tongue between his teeth and the bag held in both fists.

I did not look.

I had been told not to, in a voice that allowed no argument.

Emmett stood beside me with his arm along the back of my chair, and I felt him not looking, too.

"Done," Milo said. "Don't touch it. It has to dry."

We put the cookies in the five cradles and the cradles in the white carton.

We hid the carton on top of the refrigerator, behind the cereal.

That night the shop was full of people asleep.

Zoey was in the spare room with her phone on the pillow beside her, and for once she hadn't looked at it.

Milo had the cot in the kitchen, so he could keep an eye on the tree.

The children's mother had slept on the sofa under my mother's quilt and was gone by dawn to bring back coffee.

I woke in Emmett's bed to the smell of snow and cedar and him.

"It's morning," he said into my hair.

"I know."

"It's Christmas."

"I know that too."

"Rent's due on the first."

I lifted my head.

His eyes were closed, but his mouth was doing something I recognized.

"Put it on my tab," I said.

He laughed so hard the bed shook, and I laughed with him, and somewhere below us a small voice yelled, "Are you guys awake? It's light out!"

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