If someone had told him Gael loved him, Carlos would have scoffed at the idea. Called it impossible. Yet, when Gael had done this - all of this, the decorating, the dinner he could smell warming in the oven still, the rings and Gael's words - he found himself unexpectedly able to believe.

He wasn't sure he could say he was impossible not to love, really, but he shook off thoughts of his parents - probably having Christmas dinner at home with his siblings now, after Midnight Mass the night before - and took Gael's weight as he leaned on him. "I love you," he said. "The ridiculous and the cheesy is just right, honestly." The ring was like a promise, he thought as he watched Gael put it on his right hand, and he took his out of the box and followed suit.

"Liam's mother wears one," he murmured as he looked at the rings on his and Gael's hand. It was a simple piece of jewelry that sometimes seemed out of place on the polished, elegant Spade. "That's how I recognized it." He smiled at Gael, and it was without the tinge of discontent that had darkened his expression for the last couple of months. "The future is something we can deal with together," he said, and tilted his head to one side. "Even Christmases. I've heard they're supposed to be fun."