Together, Hope and I work the living room. Making sure to check in with everyone. She even talks me into going downstairs for a tour of Sparky’s latest crop—decked out in red Christmas balls. When the tour’s over, Hope convinces Sparky and Stash to join us upstairs for dinner.
“Enjoy it now,” I say before dinner. “We’re going away for New Year’s.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yup. I’m thinking somewhere warm where you can prance around in bikinis for me all week.”
“Mmm. I like the sound of that,” she says, reaching up to kiss my cheek.
After dinner, I pull Hope’s chair closer to me and curl my arm around her shoulders. “Did you have a good Christmas?”
She glances around the table at our extended Lost Kings family and smiles.
“The best one yet.”