“I know you were supposed to have Nia all Christmas this year…”

“No.”

Lorraine visibly deflated, her dark brown skin losing some of its glow as she moved to sit next to him on the couch. “You haven’t even heard my proposition.”

“I’ve been looking forward to having Nia for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day all damn year, Lorraine. I don’t want to renegotiate the days. I bought the largest Christmas tree that can fit in my house and paid someone to decorate it in all her favorite colors. Nah…”

The indignation flowed out of him when he took another look at his ex-wife and realized she might just burst into tears. He sighed. Lorraine and Tristan’s marriage had been disastrous, but they had come together to do their best to put Nia’s well-being first. They were better co-parents than they’d ever been partners, and Lorraine never tried to make life difficult for him just for the hell of it. He owed it to her, he guessed, to at least hear what she had to say.

“What’s going on?”

Lorraine took a deep breath, and as the words started spilling from her mouth, Tristan began to kiss the idyllic Christmas he’d planned to have with his daughter goodbye.

“Jack and I planned to get married in Barbados in the summer,” she said. His gaze dropped to the engagement ring she’d been sporting for a little over six months now. She’d started dating his exact opposite about a year after their divorce. Jack was light-skinned where he was dark, solidly built where he was on the slimmer side, shorter where he was tall, and worked in insurance while Tristan owned a tattoo shop and dabbled with selling artistic prints on his website. They were alike in the one way that mattered to him, though, and that was when it came to their adoration for the little girl sleeping in the next room. He liked Jack enough that he’d been delighted when he proposed, knowing that Nia was gaining a great bonus dad.

“Yeah?” he said. “I doubt I’m on the invite list, and I’ve got no idea what that has to do with you wanting to change our Christmas arrangements.”

Lorraine laughed softly, more at ease now Tristan had dropped his attitude.

“If you would just let me get it out, TJ.”

He chuckled. “Damn. It’s been forever since you called me that. You must really be down bad.”

“One of the reasons we wanted to get married in Barbados besides me liking the idea of a tropical wedding is because he’s originally from there and liked the idea of having all his family present. We just got news that his grandmother, who practically raised him, isn’t doing very well, so we want to push the wedding up to Christmas. I don’t want to get married without my baby, Tristan.”