He didn’t ask if I liked the lights, of which he seemed to have a lot done, which meant he’d been there awhile.

He didn’t even mention I wasn’t in a jacket.

He just told me Brooks didn’t have one, something, by the way, I knew.

“You should get inside,” he advised, and turned back to the lights.

“Dodo!” Brooklyn shrieked.

I waited.

Tobe stapled some chord to the eaves.

Cold stung my cheeks.

Woodenly, I walked my son and dog back into the house.

I closed the door.

“Dodo!” Brooks screeched at the closed door.

Dapper Dan barked at it.

“He’s working, baby,” I whispered, put my lips to his head, felt his skin was chill and mentally kicked myself in the ass and rubbed his head warm with my hand while Brooklyn angrily jerked it away.

I put him down and stared at the door.

Okay, so that fight on the sidewalk had been bad.

But things, clearly, were worse than I’d thought.

The Gamble Men were raised by Margot. This meant, even if they didn’t know you well, they were gracious and polite. If they knew you, they were open and friendly, and depending on your gender, affectionate.

But if they didn’t like you a whole lot, they weren’t assholes, but they weren’t about bullshit.

So you might get a “Yo,” but that was all.

I’d just gotten a “Yo.”

And that was (mostly) all.

And okay, Toby was right in all he’d said on that sidewalk, and I was wrong in fighting my corner, and maybe I stepped over the line with that last dismissive comment, accusing him of being dramatic.

And okay, I knew him, but even if I didn’t, one could sense simply from the magnificence of his beard that he was an alpha and perhaps accusing him of being dramatic, something that might be a nasty prick to a normal male’s pride, was a poke to a man like Toby’s bear.

But he’d gotten in my face too.

He’d started the whole thing pissed and aggressive.

Innocently walking back to work, I was confronted on the street and I didn’t handle my reaction well.

But he’d started it.

And as weak and immature as that sounded, well . . .

He’d started it.

And he was now at my house putting up fucking Christmas lights without knocking on my door first to say “Hey” and “I’m here,” and then give my kid a snuggle and my dog a pat, and I go outside to say hey and all I get was a yo?

“Hell no,” I said to the door.

So, I was out of line.

When he wasn’t being a dick, I would share I was out of line and apologize.

But I wasn’t going out of my way to do it.

I had company coming over and cards to make.

To hell with Toby Gamble.

I got my kid, who screeched again, not quite over Toby’s snub (which pissed me off even more) and took him back upstairs to the office.

Dapper Dan followed.

My head no longer involved with all I had to do, I heard it when, forty-five minutes later, Toby’s truck took off.

Without a goodbye.

I put Brooks in his playpen and walked outside.

Then I walked around the house.

Lights at the eaves all around the house and winding down the posts of the front porch. It was way more than a few strings and when it was lit up it’d be bright and cheerful and vintage and awesome, and on that old farmhouse, it didn’t look ugly.

It looked perfect.

Damn it.

I stomped back into the house, retrieved my son, and got back into making Christmas cards. And let me tell you, being pissed way the hell off and trying to fashion unique, festive, jolly or elegant cards that shared the Christmas spirit was not easy.

An hour later, no longer having a million things on my mind, I didn’t miss it this time when I heard a car approach.

We’d had lunch, and it was nearing time to get Brooks down for a nap, I was in a foul mood about Toby, so I didn’t want company.

And sadly, I no longer wanted to have everyone over to put up Christmas decorations either.

But I was stuck.

And I blamed this on Toby.

I got up from the desk, rounded the side, reached to the curtain, pulled it back and saw Toby’s truck had returned.

He was out and unloading a six pack from the passenger side.

“Oh no you don’t,” I snapped at the window. “You don’t get to be the generous-with-booze-and-Christmas-lights hero and an asshole all at once.”

I caught up Brooklyn mid-throw of a ball Dapper Dan was bored of retrieving for him (but he still did it because he was that good of a dog) and got a screech from my needs-a-nap, bordering-on-cranky son.

I ignored it, stomped down the hall, the stairs and stood five steps down from the bottom, stunned to see Toby already in my house, loaded down with bags on his shoulders, walking toward the kitchen.

He always knocked.

He never just strolled in.

“Dodo!” Brooklyn squealed.

“Hey,” I called right before Tobe turned into the kitchen.

He said nothing.

I made it to the bottom of the stairs just as he was walking back out.

“Hey,” he belatedly replied, looking me right in the eyes. “Got more.”

With that, he ambled with his awesome male grace to the front door as I stared at him doing it and my son struggled in my arms.

He closed the door behind him and Brooklyn wailed, “Dodo! Dodo! Dodo!”

Feeling my son’s desperation for attention from someone he adored, something he was not getting, I was not pissed.

I’d never felt this feeling before.

Not even with his father.

I wasn’t sure what it was.

But if pushed, in that moment, I’d describe it as outright fury.

So I stood rooted where I was, containing my distressed son, and watched Toby walk in with hands carrying two six packs (when I knew he’d already brought in at least one) and shoulders weighed down with more bags.

But this time I saw they were those killer, burlap grocery bags Macy sold that were one of the few things I’d spied in a long time that I wished I could buy (two with the black thistle flowers printed on the side, two with the black-eyed Susan, which would have been my call since both designs were fabulous).

“Dodo!”

“This is it,” he declared, sauntering right by me, not even looking at Brooklyn.

Automatically I followed him to the kitchen.

Dapper Dan came with us.

When I arrived, my son’s struggles went into overdrive, so I put him on his feet on the floor.

He was walking, not about to enter any 5Ks, but he could get around, and all wobbly he was adorable as hell doing it.

Right then, he didn’t fuck around with walking.

He dropped to his hands and knees and used what he had down pat to crawl swiftly to Toby.

I monitored that action until Toby spoke.

“Christmas cookies.”

At these bizarre words, my eyes lifted to his.

He was looking at me, but when I looked to him, his gaze shifted to Izzy’s island.

I turned my attention there and saw it was covered in burlap bags.

Eight of them, as well as four six-packs of beer.

“Flour,” Toby said, “sugar, butter, milk, food coloring, shit like that to make Christmas cookies, ’cause every kid should have Christmas cookies at Christmas.”