Mistletoe Along Balsam Row Seven

“And rule two?”

Her mouth curves, brief and certain.

“I am asking you to share the bed.”

I cross the room and stop close enough that I can smell the apple cake from service caught in her hair, cedar from the hall, the clean wool of her dress.

“Start slowly,” she said.

I kiss her.

Her mouth is warm and deliberate beneath mine, not tentative, not performing for anyone beyond the locked door. She catches the front of my shirt and draws me nearer until the back of my knees meets the mattress, then places both hands beneath the hem of my sweater and lifts.

“Off,” she said.

I pull the sweater over my head and drop it beside the chair. She unbuttons my shirt with efficient hands, pauses when the last button comes free, and runs her palm across my chest as if checking the heat of a pan before adding butter.

“May I take this off?” I said, touching the side zipper of her dress.

“Yes. Slowly.”

The zipper gives beneath my hand. I ease the green fabric down her shoulders, over her hips, until it pools at her feet. She steps out of it and reaches behind herself for the clasp of her bra. I stop her.

“Let me.”

She lets me, turning while I undo it, and when the straps fall away I set my hands at her waist before lifting them to her breasts. Her nipples firm under my palms. She leans into the touch, then guides one of my hands lower, under the narrow band of her black underwear.

“Here first,” she said.

I slide my hand between her thighs. She is already wet, heat gathering against my fingers, and I move carefully until she takes my wrist and adjusts me.

“Like that. Keep the pace.”

I do exactly as she asks, watching her shoulders loosen, then draw my thumb in slow circles where she has placed it. Her hand closes around the back of my neck, not forcing me anywhere, only keeping me close.

“I want your mouth,” she said.

I kneel before her.

Her skin is soft along the inside of her thigh. I kiss my way upward, then put my mouth on her and let my tongue work where she is most sensitive, steady and patient, refusing every instinct to hurry because she has asked for precision. Della braces one hand on the wall and sets the other in my hair.

“There,” she said. “Do not change it.”

I keep the same rhythm. Her hips move against my mouth in small, controlled motions at first, then harder. The sound she makes is low and open, one I remember from college only in fragments, one that belongs entirely to this room and this woman who has told me exactly what she wants.

“Russell.”

Her body draws tight, then releases. I stay with her until she eases my head back with a hand under my jaw.

“Come up here,” she said.

I stand, and she pushes me gently onto the bed.

“No,” she said when I reach for her. “My turn.”

She removes my belt, opens my trousers, and pulls them down with my underwear. My erection rests hard against my stomach. Della sits beside me, takes me in her hand, and looks at me with the same direct attention she gives a difficult recipe.

“Tell me if you need me to stop,” she said.

“I will.”

She bends over me and takes me into her mouth. The first pull makes my hands press flat into the quilt. I keep them there until she reaches for one and places it against her breast, her nipple firm under my palm. She controls the depth, the pace, the pressure of her mouth, drawing me close enough to the edge that I have to force myself to stay still.

“Condom,” she said, lifting away.

I reach into the overnight bag, find the packet, and hand it to her. She tears it open and rolls it down my length, then climbs across my hips.

“How do you want this?” I said.

“On top. I want to set the pace.”

“Always.”

She settles over me, guides me to her entrance, and lowers herself inch by inch. I feel her take me in, close and slick and deliberate, until she is fully seated against my thighs.

“Still good?” I said.

“Yes. Stay still.”

I stay still while she finds her rhythm. Her hands rest on my chest. Her breasts move with each careful rise and fall. When she has decided what she needs, she takes my hand and places it low between us.

“Here,” she said. “Do not rush.”

I press where she directs me, matching the pace she sets. She moves over me with growing certainty, her hair falling forward around her shoulders, her mouth open on each measured exhale.

“I am not renewing New York,” I said.

She stops, still wrapped around me.

“What?”

“The contract came this week. I have not signed it.” I hold her hips without moving her. “I am staying at Pine Notch. I want to build something here that lasts longer than a season of service. I planned to tell my parents after midnight, but I do not want you thinking I am saying it because we are having sex.”

Della studies me for a moment, then begins moving again, slow enough that I have to focus on every inch.

“I want a life that has room for you,” she said. “Not a version where we meet when work leaves an opening. Room in my calendar. Room at my table. Room to make plans before either of us accepts a job and calls the rest practical.”

The words land deeper than anything I could have prepared.

“I want that too,” I said.

“Then stay with me.”

I do.

She increases the pace, directing my hand again when I stray from it, telling me when to press harder, when to keep still, when she wants more of me. Her body tightens around me as she comes, her face turning into the curve of my shoulder while she holds me close. I keep moving beneath her until she lifts her head and says my name once more.

“Now.”

I come into the condom with my hands steady at her hips, every muscle in my body giving over at once. She stays over me until the last of it passes, then folds down beside me on the bed.

For a minute, neither of us reaches for the clock.

Then Della looks toward the mantel.

“Eleven fifty-seven,” she said. “Your mother will come looking for us.”

“She would bring a flashlight.”

“And a practical question.”

I dispose of the condom, pull on my trousers, and help Della into her dress. She fastens my shirt crookedly, then leaves it that way. We take our coats from the hallway and go downstairs together.

Outside, Mavis and Grant stand near the firepit with two bottles of champagne, wool hats pulled low, the farmyard silver under fresh snow. My mother hands Della a glass without comment. My father gives me one, then looks toward the sky as if the clouds might keep time better than the clock in the kitchen.

The countdown begins at ten.

At zero, I turn to Della and kiss her in front of my parents, the cold sharp at my face and the champagne bright on her mouth. There is no role left to maintain, no family dinner to survive, no agreement ending at midnight.

When she takes my hand, I hold it as the new year begins.

New Year’s Day arrives bright enough to turn the snowbanks beyond the kitchen windows blue, though the farmhouse is warm with coffee, fried potatoes, and the last of Mavis’s Christmas ham. Grant sits at the end of the table with the farm ledger open beside his plate. Russell takes the chair next to mine rather than the one across from it.

Mavis looks from one of us to the other. “Before I put anyone on a January schedule, I would like the truth.”

Russell lays his hand beside mine on the table. “Della and I invented the arrangement. I asked her to be my girlfriend for dinner. She agreed through last night.”

“I did,” I say. “That part is finished.”

Mavis pours more coffee. “And the part that begins today?”

I have tested enough recipes to know when a result can survive repetition. What happened in this house survives daylight, numbers, and a roomful of people asking sensible questions.

“I want to develop Pine Notch’s winter menu program,” I say. “I can complete my book deadline, then work with Russell on menus built for the farm: Friday suppers, private dinners, shelves stocked with things that grow or keep here. I will invoice properly.”

“Please do,” Mavis says. “Romance has never convinced the tax office.”

Russell laughs, then turns serious. “The pop-up worked. I am not renewing New York. I want to make this a seasonal restaurant project, beginning with winter and expanding only when the farm can support it. No temporary contracts. No leaving a decision for someone else to accommodate.”

Grant closes the ledger. “The grading shed needs better insulation before you expand.”

“That sounds like approval,” Russell says.

“It sounds like a work order.”

After breakfast, Russell and I take a clipboard, a pencil, and the first shared version of January down Balsam Row Seven. The trees stand in clean ranks, their branches carrying fresh snow, each tagged section giving us another practical problem to solve: access, storage, lights, seating, what can be brought through a storm and what has to be made before it arrives.

We stop halfway down the row while Russell writes service dates in the margin. I add testing blocks, supplier calls, and a meeting with Mavis.

At the bottom, he turns the clipboard toward me.

“Next Friday,” he says. “Dinner?”

I write it in myself: seven o’clock, no menu meeting, no performance.

Our first ordinary date.