Page 54 of Checking It Twice
The comment, delivered low enough that only I can hear, sends heat crawling up my neck. I focus very hard on the ornament in my hands instead of the way his voice does things to my nervous system.
“Behave,” I whisper.
“I am behaving. This is me on my best behavior.”
“Terrifying thought.”
His laugh is quiet, intimate, and way too close to my ear. “You have no idea.”
“Mitch!” Karen calls from across the room. “Bring Clare over here. I want to show her the ornament from your first NHL game.”
I’m saved from having to respond to whatever dangerous territory we were wandering into, but as Mitch guides me across the room with his hand warm on my lower back, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re playing with fire.
The ornament Karen wants to show me is simple—just a small hockey puck with “Dallas Stampede - Mitchell Drake - First NHL Goal” engraved in tiny letters. But the pride on her face when she hands it to me is unmistakable.
“We were all so proud,” she says, her voice soft. “Tom cried during the game.”
“I didnotcry,” Tom protests from his position by the tree. “My eyes were watering from all the damn arena lights.”
“You bawled like a baby,” Evan adds helpfully.
“It was emotional,” Tom admits. “Sue me.”
I turn the ornament over in my hands, imagining a younger version of Mitch scoring his first professional goal, picturing his family gathered around a TV somewhere cheering him on.
“That’s amazing,” I say, and mean it.
“He’s worked so hard for everything he’s achieved,” Karen continues, her maternal pride evident in every word. “Sometimes I think he doesn’t realize how special he is.”
I glance at Mitchell, who’s gone slightly pink around the ears. “I think he’s starting to figure it out.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, loaded with more honesty than this fake girlfriend performance probably warrants. But watching him with his family today—helpful when I had a migraine, patient with the kids, gentle with his pregnant sister, quietly helpful without making a show of it—I’m seeing the man beneath all the hockey star polish and practiced charm.
He’s special. And I’m starting to think Karen’s right—he doesn’t know it.
“Alright,” Grandma June announces, clapping her hands together. “Time for the star.”
The star ceremony, it turns out, is a Drake family tradition that involves way more pomp and circumstance than seems strictly necessary. Tom has to lift Sophie up so she can place it on the top branch while everyone else holds their breath as if we’re defusing a bomb.
When it’s finally in place, Karen dims the lights and plugs in the tree. The living room fills with warm, golden light that reflects off decades of collected memories, and for a moment, everyone just stands there appreciating their handiwork.
“Beautiful,” Karen breathes.
“Perfect,” Tom agrees.
And looking around at this family that’s accepted me without question, at the man beside me whose hand somehow found mine during the star ceremony, I have to agree.
It is perfect.
Even if it’s all pretend.
Even if Monday morning will come and we’ll go back to being colleagues who maintain professional distance.
For now, standing in the warm glow of the Christmas tree with Mitch’s fingers threaded through mine, I let myself pretend it’s real.
Just for tonight.
As the family starts to disperse—Maddie settling into the recliner with a tired sigh, the kids being corralled toward baths and bedtime stories—Mitch leans closer to me, his voice low in my ear.
