“Right. Of course.” I tried not to let my emotions show.

I dished myself an egg and wondered if I’d be able to sneak in making a cup of green tea without my mom pulling out the mother tea, which, lo and behold, was on the counter. Maybe I could get Andrew to do it for me.

Speaking of, where was he? These were prime winning-the-’rents-over hours, especially before I was awake. Had he gotten overzealous with pajama designing last night and stayed up too late? Damn, did I want to tell him that joke, but it would only make everything harder.

“Besides, isn’t it already done?” my father added.

I hurried to the den, scurrying past the couch with a recumbent Andrew, who got up and followed me wordlessly.

A gorgeous—I mean, it was freaking luminous—tree stood before me, perfectly frosted and decorated with familiar ornaments that evoked too many childhood memories to count. But there were also new touches: crisply folded origami cranes and stars, flowers assembled from cut construction paper, little 3-D paper mooncakes with googly eyes and tiny smiles, and… a few sheep. One dressed as a mooncake, another with a sheepdog on its butt, and one with the cutest little antigravity boots, floating near a half-moon.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you did this,” I said, still staring forward even though he was behind me. I couldn’t look away.

I touched the three sheep individually, purposefully, so he would know I’d seen them. But I wasn’t sure if I should do more than that.

I finally turned to him. “Did you stay up all night doing this? Why?”

He shrugged. “Because you thought it could help.”

“It’s stunning,” I said, gesturing to the whole tree. “It’s like something you’d see in a model home or a Christmas issue of Architectural Digest. Or it’s the work of… an artist,” I realized.

I stepped closer to the tree and fingered one of the mooncake faces. “You’re so talented.”

His cheeks flushed. “I was just playing around.”

“Well, then, that’s all the more impressive.”

An electrically charged moment passed between us, and, shockingly—pun intended—he ended it first.

He cleared his throat and took a step away from me. “I was just trying to turn the mood—the bad one I created, sorry,” he said without meeting my gaze. Then he leaned toward me and whispered, “It’s what any good operative would’ve done.”

His breath on my ear made me shiver. “Right. Of course. Thank you.” Even though I had asked him to distance himself, to stick to his rule, his words etched a painful crack in my glass heart.

He quickly changed the subject. “Do you want a pear for breakfast?”

“Sure. Only if we each get one.” Then I sputtered, “Just because I want my own. No other reason.”

“Of course.”

Drew