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Like Christmas ghosts and french hens and wise men, the incidents come in threes.
The first one doesn’t bear repeating; Ferdinand refused to let it overshadow the far more splendid day it preceded, though Hubert could see it tensing Ferdinand’s mouth all through the ceremony. The second comes a few days after Dorothea and Edelgard’s wedding on the Winter Solstice, after they’ve returned their tuxes, seen the brides off to Dulles International (so much less painful with the new Silver Line extension open now), brushed the last stubborn flecks of birdseed and baby’s breath out of Wellington’s coat (hopefully), and finished delivering all the tips to the caterers, florists, musicians, event staff, nondenominational but vaguely witchy officiant and public notary.
“I still refuse to believe they didn’t coordinate their dresses,” Ferdinand declares, as they trounce through the soggy smear of dead leaves lining Pennsylvania Avenue. “They worked out far too perfectly to be chance.”
“That’s Edelgard and Thea for you,” Hubert says. The drapey, pearlescent silvery-white column of Edelgard’s gown didn’t match Dorothea’s velvet burgundy one, exactly, but it certainly didn’t clash with it. Like everything about the wedding, it had been blissful in its artful chaos.
“Hnph. Maybe they just tried to guess what the other would pick. Wellie, leave it! Ah, you’re finally learning!” Ferdinand stops to heap rubs and praise on his oversized collie. “Sorry our own holiday prep’s a bit rushed, though.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me. I’m the one who let the wedding prep consume me.” Hubert flushes slightly, and tugs his black turtleneck up higher.
“You were more of a bridezilla than either of the brides. Honest, Hubert! I hope that isn’t a portent of things to come!” Ferdinand reaches out to squeeze his fiancé’s gloved hand. “But no, I’m more sorry for the, ah. The . . . hastily altered holiday plans.”
It’s the closest Ferdinand’s come to discussing it. He’d simply called up his sisters this morning, and they agreed to the Christmas Eve invitation, and that had been that. Hubert glances back at him from the corner of his eye, trying to read his expression, but it’s the bravely neutral efforts at having no expression that makes Hubert’s heart squeeze.
“You aren’t the one who should be apologizing. Feh. You aren’t the—” Monster. Bigot. Ingrate. Tyrant. He’s called Senator Aegir all of them and plenty worse, but it’s nothing new, it’s nothing that can ever change. He hasn’t bothered to point out that The Hill Scoop somehow caught wind of the senator’s little proclamation, and that it’s been ping-ponging around the wretched mirror-world blogs and social media sites where the senator’s (ugh) fans (ugghhh) vomit up their vile alternate realities. He doesn’t need to saddle Ferdinand with it any more than Ferdinand’s already saddled himself.
Intentionally or not, though, Ferdinand is swift to change the subject as they near Eastern Market. “Ah! Look, Hubert. And you said it’s gotten too commercialized. This is perfect!”
Hubert can’t argue with the charming little holiday village that the long pedestrian promenade of Eastern Market has been transformed into. Garlands wrap the iron trellis entrance and strand lights cris-cross the path overhead, spangling the charmingly disordered rows of tent stalls with golden light, bright and warm against the woolly gray sky. Hubert can already smell mulled wine as they approach, and all Ferdinand has to do is take his arm for him to know he’ll be buying two cups straight away.
Ferdinand simpers eagerly as he sips his wine from the paper coffee cup. “We should have mulled wine at our wedding.”
“Our wedding is in March.”
“Well, there’s sometimes freak snowstorms in March in DC, who knows.” Ferdinand rests his head briefly against Hubert’s shoulder, long orange locks bunching against his tweed and wool coat and clinging to it as he rights himself again. “No, you’re right, though. By next week I’ll be craving a return to outdoor mimosa brunches. Real outdoors, not the silly plastic sheeted things that make me feel like I’m in a meat locker.”
They pause to scoop up some interesting spice assortments and preserves from a booth, but hardly miss a beat.
“Usually I’m the one talking about abattoirs,” Hubert teases.
“Indeed. A terrible influence. Oh, Wellie, no, not for you—”
Hubert jolts back as an unholy little-girl screech accompanies a blur of fluffy pink that lobs itself at Wellington. Wellington, for his part, handles the attack far more graciously than Hubert ever could, staying perfectly still as the girl wraps herself around his fluffy ruff. “Oh my god. You’re soooo pretty! And soft! Daddy, I want oneeeeeeeeeee.”
“Kaede-chan, remember what we talked about.” One of the men seated behind the next merchant’s stall leans over the table, boisterous brown curls swaying as he does so. “You gotta ask beforehand!”
The girl—Kaede-chan, apparently—immediately lets go and stands stock-still beside Wellington, who is, apparently, taller than her. “Sorry, Daddy. Ummm.” She glances up at Ferdinand, wide-eyed. “May I pet your dog?”
And like some kind of clown car unfolding, two more children pour out of the booth, a slightly older one with giant headphones around their neck, and a stocky tween boy, nose crooked like he’s already seen a few too many rugby matches. “Hey, Kaede, don’t hog the dog!”
And Hubert knows that if there’s anything Ferdinand’s weaker over than his beloved animals themselves, it’s sweetheart children. Or even less-than-sweet ones. Hubert’s heart thaws at the way Ferdie’s face brightens, freckles crisp against windswept cheeks, and he kneels down to speak on her level. “Yes, of course you may! Just be gentle with him. His name is Wellington and he can be a bit anxious, but he is almost as full of love as he is full of hair.”
Kaede-chan’s ‘daddy’ laughs brightly at that. “Yeah, can’t imagine how much you have to vacuum to keep up with him!”
“Tch, you’re one to talk.” The man beside him, stern-faced and spectacled, flicks his fingers through the first’s curls. “I’ve learned to treat Ichi hairs as a condiment.”
“Baaabe, you can’t say that word around the kids—”
Ferdinand clears his throat briskly. “Ah. I should be the one apologizing. Wellie was, after all, diving for a bag of your . . . Er. What are these, exactly?”
“Ichiban Senbei! Errr, that’s me. Ichiban. Senbei’s the cracker.”
“Cookie. Call it a cookie.” The other man presses on the bridge of his glasses as he winces. “We’ve been over this, Ichi.”
“Oh, so sorry, my husband Masato here doesn’t think white people wanna buy senbei if I call them crackers.” Ichiban holds out a crinkly cellophane sleeve of the cookie-cracker-senbei for Ferdinand’s inspection. “But hey, you’re the customers, you tell me!”
Masato. Hubert cuts his gaze toward the other man with an unpleasant jolt of adrenaline in his blood. Masato. “You’re—Masato Kasuga. From Bleach Consulting.”
Something palpable passes over their cluster: Hubert, Ferdinand, Ichiban, Masato, their three dark-haired kids fawning over Wellie, even Wellington himself. A chill worms it way under Hubert’s coat and down his spine.
“Hubert von Vestra,” Masato says crisply. “From the Hresvelg Group.”
Ferdinand sucks in his breath, the only noise in the abject silence for a moment. Then—”S-s-so. Uh. T-tell me about these . . . s-senbei, you called them?”
Ichiban looks from Hubert to Masato, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh. Yeah. They’re a traditional Japanese rice cracker—uhh, cookie—”
“Nicely done taking on the image clean-up for Rhea,” Hubert says, his tone venomous. “A lost cause, and a disdainful one, but I suppose someone had to do it.”
“—Uhh, so there’s savory ones and sweet ones, this one’s got a nice soy glaze on it—”
“Wouldn’t have had to if the Hresvelg Group would have left well enough alone,” Masato retorts. “But then I should thank you for the fat bonus that job netted me, really.”
“Dad,” the oldest boy says, tipping his head back from Wellington, who’s lick-licking at his crooked nose. “Don’t be a dick.”
“Yo, Toshio, don’t call your father a dick even if he’s being one—well, don’t make a habit of it—”
“And sweet ones too?” Ferdinand asks desperately, trying to put himself between Hubert’s line of sight to Masato.
“There’s no money in the world worth representing monsters like that. Like Rhea. Like that dreadful CEO with the complex, what’s his name—”
“Acheron?” Masato offers.
“Yes, that one. And really, Senator Aegir? You of all people should—”
Hubert stops himself, a moment too late. There’s an ominous crunch as Ferdinand’s fist tightens around the package of senbei, and the middle kid takes a step back. “Dude.”
“So these senbei—” Ferdinand’s eyes are brimming, now. “Are they gluten-free? Hubert, he can’t . . .”
“Y-you’re Senator Aegir’s son,” Masato says, shoulders slumping. “Well, fu—”
“—Fuuuuuuunny you should ask! As a matter of fact, they are! We only use tamari—uh, that’s gluten-free soy sauce—”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Masato insists. “One of his own team must have leaked the details of their call.”
“L-leaked?” Ferdinand stammers. “Hubert . . .” Finally, one of the tears breaks free as he glances toward Hubert. “You didn’t tell me it had . . . That everyone knows my father thinks I’m . . .”
Several things happen in quick succession. Hubert lurches forward—to what end, he couldn’t really say, afterward; just an urgent desire to make Masato stop, to drop the dreadful subject, even though it’s already far too late. Kaede squeezes tight on Wellington’s fur, which prompts him to headbutt her affectionately, or perhaps his collie instincts are urging him to try to soothe the situation when he can sense the obvious upset of the other humans around him. And then Hubert’s knees and thighs are colliding with the oversized dog, displacing his already wiry and precarious sense of balance, causing him to squeeze his paper coffee cup full of mulled wine.
As he stumbles forward, the cup lid pops off, ejecting mulled wine right into Masato’s face.
And then the rest of Hubert lands on the display table covered in neatly bundled packages of cracker-cookie-senbei, naturally gluten-free, both savory and sweet.
And that was how the second incident transpired to find Hubert having to buy an entire food stall’s worth of senbei while mentally composing the rueful text he’ll have to send Edelgard on her honeymoon, warning her of the high likelihood the Hresvelg Group is about to get sued.
“I cannot believe you,” Ferdinand finally says, once he deigns to speak to Hubert at all, after hauling the few salvageable bags of senbei back to their Capitol Hill townhome in silence and immediately taking an hour-long bath in the clawfoot tub.
“Trust me, Ferdie, that guy’s an asshole. Oh, and the opposition dirt I’ve dug up on him—goodness, the real reason he and his husband left Japan—”
“I don’t care about that!” Ferdinand busies himself in the kitchen, scrubbing the dusty serving dishes and punch bowls with ruthless precision. “Everyone’s done something that someone else frowns on. You should damned well know that better than most.”
“All right, Ferdie, but on a cosmic scale—”
“My father already thinks I’m worthless, not even deserving of the briefest of Christmas visits now that I have a fiancé who isn’t one of the daughters of some important whoever! A man! Did you really have to make it worse by acting like an utter ass in front of his PR man? Of all the people to pick . . . !”
Hubert’s hands fall uselessly to his sides. “Ah.”
“And that my father’s damned edict—forbidding us from attending—that that has apparently been plastered all over the digital town square and you didn’t think to give me a heads up—”
“I only just learned about it myself,” Hubert protests, which is at least somewhat true. “We’d been so busy with the wedding—”
“—And obviously this Masato man, sure, he may have a detestable job, but in case you didn’t notice, he and his husband and three children are probably at least somewhat sympathetic to our situation!”
“Oh, yes, only doing his job, heard that one before.”
Hubert folds his arms again. There’s no use in pressing the issue; he can’t quibble the small details when it’s really the larger matter that Ferdinand cares about. At least he’s learning this much—certainly better than their schoolyard disputes. He takes a deep breath.
“Ferdie, I . . . I’m sorry. I did make a mess.”
“Mm.”
“. . . And might have taken out my frustration on the nearest available person rather than the man really responsible.”
“Mmmmm.”
“And . . .” Hubert swallows heavily. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kept it from you that the conversation details were leaked. I knew, and shouldn’t have left you to find out for yourself.”
Ferdinand’s hands splash down into the soapy dishwater as he slumps forward. “Thank you.”
Hubert moves behind him, cautiously, then slowly slips his hands around Ferdinand’s waist. With a fierce exhale, Ferdinand leans back into the embrace, and they stay there for a long minute.
Finally, Hubert speaks. “I’m sorry, love,” he says again, softer this time. “You don’t deserve any of this.”
Ferdinand sighs and turns in the gentle circle of Hubert’s arms until they’re face to face. He reaches up to touch Hubert’s cheek, looking into his eyes with his old determination returning. “We’ll get through it,” he says. “No matter what anyone else says or does.”
“What can I do to make it better?”
Ferdinand smiles, his expression almost amused. “Well, you could apologize to the Kasugas for your behavior.” Hubert grimaces but Ferdinand gives a slight shake of his head. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Hubert nods slowly and sighs again. “All right,” he says quietly. “I will.”
The Kasugas’ townhouse is only about eight blocks north of their own, on the opposite side of East Capitol up by Union Station. Hubert knocks on the heavy door with a bottle of red wine tucked under one arm and a box of breathtakingly expensive gourmet cookies under the other. Strange bubbly music emanates from inside, along with shrieks of laughter, so he knows someone’s home, but he has to knock a second time before finally Masato answers the door.
“Oh. Von Vestra.”
“Kasuga.” Hubert holds out the peace offerings. “I just wanted to . . . apologize. Again.”
Masato eyes the wine bottle like he half expects to end up wearing it again, but straightens, and flicks his bangs to one side before claiming the bottle from Hubert. “Apology accepted.” He hesitates a moment. “Well, you might as well come in and enjoy a glass of it.”
Hubert’s stomach churns, but then he remembers he’s not only fulfilling his promise to Ferdinand but also potentially trying to avoid a lawsuit for the Hresvelg Group, so he nods.
“Leave your shoes there.” Masato gestures prissily to the stack in their tiled foyer before leading him into the townhouse’s main corridor. To the right, Ichiban seems to be leading the kids in some kind of brightly colored, noisy game on a massive flat-screen. “Jiro, headphones off! You’re taking over for me!” Masato shakes his head and gives Hubert a weary look. “They’re such a difficult age. Especially as a middle child.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Masato’s expression softens as they reach the kitchen, obviously paused in the “chill dough and wait” stage of some kind of massive baking project. He fishes out a corkscrew and opens up the bottle. “Ichiban set up Splatoon to work with the RingFit controllers. Keeps them busy.” He grimaces as he pours out two wide stemless goblets of red. “Me too, now. Hm.”
Hubert tilts his head to one side. “How do you mean?”
But Masato’s mouth only twitches in a half-smile and he jerks his head toward the back door. “There’s a fire pit.”
The backyard is small, but carefully curated into a lush garden fairyscape with strand lights, a fire pit, and all kinds of complicated meat-based devices, probably for smoking and/or curing and/or grilling and more. Masato perches on a lawn chair in front of the fire pit and motions for Hubert to take the opposite seat as the sky changes from gray to dusky blue overhead.
“Aegir’s son. Ferdinand. You’re getting married soon, right?”
“Yes,” Hubert says cautiously, unsure where this is going. “The plan right now is for March.”
“And the senator . . . I take it he won’t be attending.”
Not if I can bloody help it, Hubert thinks. “Signs point to no.”
Masato considers his wine as he swirls it, then takes a sip, and Hubert follows suit. “It’s a strange business, ours, isn’t it? In a previous life, I was all too happy to follow whatever was the path of least resistance, of greatest public approval.”
Hubert, who assembled the Hresvelg Group’s oppo file on Kasuga himself, declines to comment.
“Then Ichi and I came here—could actually marry, could start a family—but it was still the only thing I was good at. Not for myself anymore, but for others. Carefully crafted statements, massaged public images, consulting the scum of K Street on how to be everything to everyone, or at least enough people to make it count.”
“The Hresvelg Group doesn’t quite work that way,” Hubert says. We’re very selective in our clientele. Working toward a larger purpose.”
“Yes, and you’re the spook-in-chief, the intelligence operative unburdened by silly constraints like Congressional oversight like they are at the CIA.” He smiles without warmth. “But I can understand the appeal. I miss having a cause.”
“I don’t recommend taking up Senator Aegir’s causes.”
“Trust me, I won’t.” He pulls his phone from his slacks. “I . . . actually resigned from Bleach Consulting last week. Technically I’m on paid leave through the end of the year but after that I’m a free agent.”
Hubert blinks. His sources certainly hadn’t dug up that information. “What are you planning to do, then?”
“Probably be a bored wine mom for a few months until it bores me out of my skull and I beg my husband to let me work for him, or something. But that’s not the point. The point is, I still have access to all my accounts with Bleach, and an incredibly generous and open-ended contract with Senator Aegir’s office that includes a sizable charitable contributions fund that I am free to employ at my discretion.”
Hubert’s mouth opens slightly.
“I know a few things about shithead dads,” Masato says. “And this seems as good a new cause for me to take up as any.”
The next night and final incident is Christmas Eve, and Hubert is able to thankfully distract both himself and Ferdinand with the excessive amounts of cooking required to feed the three Aegir sisters and their honored guests. The only chance they have to pause is whenever Edelgard and Dorothea update their honeymoon reel with new batches of photos from the Bridge of Sighs, or Piazza San Marco, or their disgustingly opulent hotel room with elaborate stone lattices over the vast window overlooking the canals. “Honeymoon,” Ferdinand sighs exaggeratedly after about the fifth round. “We haven’t settled on a honeymoon.”
“There’s still time. Where do you want to go?”
“A ranch in Wyoming,” Ferdinand says decisively. “No, wait. Let’s go to Hong Kong.”
“Those are . . . two vastly different—”
“Where’s that postcard Linhardt sent us from? Azerbaijan? It looked lovely.”
Hubert sweeps Ferdinand’s hair to the side and kisses his neck. “Just let me know when you decide.”
By the time dusk falls and Hubert and Wellington have only had to make three increasingly frantic trips to the corner bodega (and one solo one to Trader Joe’s), the roast lamb is filling the townhouse with spicy-warm fragrance and Hubert is dolloping whipped cream onto the holiday punch. Wellington has finally tired of ripping off his reindeer antlers and resigned himself to his indignity, curled up in the foyer as if he knows guests are due any moment.
Even he seems shocked, though, by the full force of Annamaria, the middle Aegir sister, kicking the door open and screeching. “FERDIE WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!?!?”
Hubert peeks out of the kitchen as Wellington dances nervous circles around her. “Uh. Hello, Annamaria.”
“Turn on the TV. Wait, wait, everyone’s coming in, Mags just has too much crap like usual.” Annamaria has ditched her usual glamour, as Ferdinand predicted, for “breakup chic”—ripped jeans, a mediocre printed “ugly Christmas sweatshirt”, and her ginger curls crammed under a beanie. “Ooh, is that punch? I’ll take some.”
Hubert dutifully ladles out a cup for her. “What seems to be the issue?”
She takes the punch and shushes him as the others spill inside—Beatriz and her boyfriend Mikel and their Pomeranian Dandelion, eyeing Wellington suspiciously from Beatriz’s arms; and the eldest sister, Magdalena, with her husband Tomas, their three-year old Ines, one-year old Caleb in a carrier, and a suspiciously prominent bump pushing at Mags’s green turtleneck.
Ferdinand rushes in. “Oh, my. Let me get you all—err, can I offer you—” He glances at Magdalena. “Uh, some water, maybe . . . ?”
“Here we go, here we go.” Annamaria has commandeered the TV over the fireplace as news chirons march past. Committee Findings. Patriot System Pledged. Snowstorms Strand Thousands. “Everyone shut up!”
“. . . But in more heartwarming news, Senator Ludwig von Aegir’s press office announced a more than five million dollar donation to the Capital Immigration Rights Fund, a nonprofit organization where his son, Ferdinand, works as a lawyer. According to the statement, issued by the senator’s PR representative, this will serve as the first of more than twenty-three million dollars pledged to establish an ongoing grant to aid LGBTQ youth fleeing persecution.”
Hubert glances sideways at Ferdinand. The dish towel he’d been wringing in his hands has gone limp, defeated, and what started as a grim set of his jaw has slackened into one of disbelief. Hubert presses his hand to the small of Ferdinand’s back, but says nothing as the broadcast continues.
“The announcement comes as something of a shock after Senator Aegir voted against the Respect for Marriage Act earlier this month, and just a few days ago, details leaked regarding a conversation the senator had with his son Ferdinand, barring him from attending any of the family festivities with his soon-to-be-husband. But it would seem the holidays are a time for miracles, wouldn’t it, Peter?”
“You’re right, Cindy, they certainly are. I hope this is the start of a larger shift for the senator, because it’d sure look terrible for him to distance himself from such a generous gift! According to a flash poll on our website, more than two-thirds of you think this signals a positive change for the senator . . .”
“Ferdie,” Annamaria repeats. “What. The hell.”
“Serves the dick right,” Magdalena says, and the Aegir-adjacent men, Mikel and Tomas, lift their drinks with a Hear, hear.
Ferdinand glances toward Hubert. “Hubert . . . ?”
Hubert smiles thinly, and tells him the truth: “I didn’t do a thing.”
“Yoooo! Heard you needed some senbei for this party?”
The Kasugas flood into the living room next, Kaede-chan leading the charge as she makes a beeline for Wellington, which prompts Ines to finally break free of her mother’s deathgrip on her hand and join her. Ferdinand looks from Hubert to Masato and back, and undergoes a face journey so convoluted even Hubert can’t keep track.
“Oh, dear. This isn’t—You’ll lose your job for this, at the very least,” Ferdinand says.
“Hey, look, Dad,” Jiro says, tugging on their father Ichiban’s sleeve to gesture to Dandelion the Pomeranian. “That dog’s got your hairstyle.”
“I won’t,” Masato assures him, “because I already quit.”
“Dude, nice Naruto shirt,” Mikel tells Toshio. “I’ve been watching it since I was your age.”
Toshio laughs. “Dad’s an even bigger fan than me.”
“We’ll have to give the money back, though,” Ferdinand says.
“Oh? Trust me, that’s a PR nightmare even he’s too savvy to wade into.” Masato smirks. “I wouldn’t expect any significant change in his stances, of course, and I can’t promise he’ll be even a bit less shitty toward you. But now that the public eye is on it? His hands are tied.”
“Thank you. Truly,” Ferdinand says softly, then turns toward Hubert. “And thank you.”
Hubert pulls Ferdinand to his side and kisses his temple. “When reason and basic human decency fail, I see nothing wrong with the petty approach.”
“You’re a menace,” Ferdinand says fondly, and kisses him properly, hand curling over the back of Hubert’s neck.
“Ew,” Annamaria says.
“Jealous much?” Beatriz elbows her.
They part, and Hubert twists one finger in Ferdinand’s locks. Then blinks as a timer wails from the kitchen. “Oh, dear. The lamb.”
“I’ll get it!”
Ferdinand bounds off, and Hubert only just manages to pass out punch and soda and lift the towels off the gluten-free quiche h’ors d’oeuvres when his phone buzzes in his back pocket. A FaceTime call from Edelgard. He hits accept, but glowers at the screen. “Isn’t it midnight over there? My lady, you really should be enjoying your honeymoon.”
An image of Edelgard and Dorothea, in absurdly fluffy bathrobes, pixelates and resolves. “Yeah, and the parties are just getting started on the canals!” Dorothea says, and lifts a champagne flute to the camera in toast. “Trust me, we’re enjoying it plenty.” She presses a kiss to Edelgard’s cheek.
“Especially since we have such . . . mmm . . . hilarious news to celebrate,” Edelgard concurs. “Your doing?”
Hubert smiles. “Not precisely. I’ll tell you more when you’re back in the States.”
“Oh, fine. Let us see everyone at least, though!”
Hubert turns the camera around and has to hold it overhead to get the full view—the Aegir and Aegir-adjacent sprawl, the Kasuga brood, the dogs, the sparkling tree, and Ferdinand in his hunter green corduroys and handsome sweater striding back into view after pulling the lamb out to rest. “Hey, Edie!” Magdalena calls—they’d been the same age at school—and everyone else waves and clamors over each other to crow about the wedding, or their honeymoon reels.
When Hubert pulls the phone back down, Edelgard points at him accusingly. “Wasn’t that the Bleach Consulting guy?”
“Long story.”
“Short version?”
“Not anymore.”
“Good. The rest can wait till we’re back,” Dorothea answers for her, and Edelgard groans and pinches at Dorothea’s hip.
“All right, all right. Enjoy your meal. We love you all lots,” Edelgard says, and Ferdinand joins Hubert’s side to wave goodbye to the giggling brides.
“Just think,” Hubert says, “Next year that’ll be us.”
“Yes. Live from our suite in Buenos Aires.”
“Argentina now?” Hubert asks, and grins as Ferdinand cups his face. “Whatever my beloved wishes, he shall receive.”
“You’ve already given me everything I could possibly want,” Ferdinand assures him. “A full home for the holidays and a life with you.”
“Then I’ll have to think of something even better for next year,” Hubert murmurs.
“I’ve no doubt you will.”