"Ally? Als, are you home?"

"I'm in the kitchen!" I yelled to Austin.

"Als?" He rushed in looking flushed and eyes frantic.

He came over and took me into his arms, squeezing the life out of me. At first I stood there confused but then I pushed him away slightly to get a good look at him. I reached out and wiped some leftover soot from his jawline.

"Austin what happened?" My eyes were worried.

"Nothing, nothing it was just an apartment fire."

"Where?" I asked, turning back to the stove to check what I was cooking before Austin rushed in.

"Marshall Street." He said in a low voice and my heart stopped.

"You mean like.." I trailed off, refusing to turn around to face him.

"Yeah" His voice broke. "No one was hurt. The apartment owner wasn't home and by the time it spread to the neighboring units everyone had evacuated."

"Was it...was it on my floor?"

He didn't respond, then again he didn't need to the silence was enough.

"Als?"

I braced myself against the counter. "So, that could have been me. I could have been there cooking dinner right now and I could have been…"

"No, Als it couldn't have been, don't think like that. I mean you could have been at the bakery, at my house, visiting me, or you could have been right here, in our home, waiting for me to get home." He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my temple.

I turned in his arms, tears stinging my eyes. "I don't know why this is effecting me so much. I mean fires happen all the time, I haven't lived there in 2 months and everyone was okay. No one was hurt or...worse. So why is it that my stomach is churning?"

"Because at one point that was your home, and at one point you could have been there when the fire started and at one point you would be sitting on the curb trying to figure out the damage, but at this point you are sitting here safe and sound, in my arms. Where you belong."

I smiled up at him, he was simply amazing. He had managed to come home from a full day of saving people's homes and lives and yet still had enough energy and compassion to calm me and put my fears to rest. I would never understand how or what I did to deserve this magnificent human being.

"You okay?" He asked, looking at me with concerned eyes.

"Yeah, I am..now." I gave him a reassuring smile before breaking away to continue cooking. "Go get cleaned up, dinner's almost ready."

"We have to get a tree soon." Austin said as he dug into the stir fry I had made.

"It's only like the first week in December, don't we still have a while?"

"I guess but with our schedules time seems to escape us sometimes. That's why it took us 3 months to find a home."

"And find a home we did."

"Let's just hope christmas tree hunting doesn't take as long as house hunting or we'll find one just in time for easter."

"What if I'm jewish, you never did ask."

"Are you?" He asked, pretending to be a know it all.

"No, but what if I was?"

"We would celebrate both."

I smiled. "Well, I'm not, so a christmas tree will work just fine."

"We could go next Thursday." He said, continuing to eat.

"Why next Thursday?" I asked, as it was such an odd and random day.

"I thought you girls were supposed to be obsessed with this stuff?"

"Us girls?" I asked, laughing a little.

"Next Thursday is actually our 6 months." He said and my heart strings pulled.

"Austin, we started dating on the 19th. Next Thursday," I paused, doing the math in my head, "is the 11th."

"We met on June 11th." He said, halting all eating and looking directly at me.

"So that's our anniversary?" I asked, kinda confused but flattered he remembered that.

"Until I put a ring on that pretty little finger of yours, yes, that's our anniversary."

A wide smile slowly crossed my lips. "I like the sound of that."

"Austin we have been looking for a tree for hours and my feet hurt."

"Oh come on it's only been," He checked his phone, "an hour and a half."

"What about this one?" I picked the next one I saw and in my opinion it wasn't bad.

"That's perfect." He said, his eyes lighting up.

"Really?" I asked, genuinely surprised.

"Really." He grabbed the saw and began to cut down the tree. "Now we just have to drag it back to the barn."

"I think you mean you have to drag it back." I said a matter-of-factly.

"You're not gonna help me?"

"No, I found it. Now, come on big, strong fireman, we've got a dinner to get to."

"You are something else."

"You like it."

"Not gonna fight with that one." He smirked smacking my butt and starting to drag the tree.

We got the tree into the back of his truck and started back to the house. Once home Austin took tree duty and I took finish dinner duty. I had set up a pot roast in the crockpot and only had to make the sides. I threw together a quick salad and popped some steamable corn in the microwave. Once it was all done I plated it and brought it into the morning room.

We had set up a smaller christmas tree in the corner, it was short and stubby, just the right fit for the room. It was real like our other tree but we found this one outside the grocery store. I had decorated it with a few ornaments that I had found in storage. They were from when I was a kid, Austin asked his mom to send him some in the mail since they lived in Florida. They actually told him they were planning to come visit for the holidays, which made me nervous.

"Als, trees up. I put on the lights it just needs the ornaments and stuff."

"Cool, dinners ready, I was just about to call you in."

We sat down to eat and had a nice dinner with light, airy conversation. It was nice to have both. Sometimes we would talk about super serious stuff like my mom and our feelings and the future, but then we could also sit down and just talk about our day and funny or interesting things that happened that we couldn't wait to get home to share with each other.

"Ready to decorate?" He asked as we cleared the table.

"Yeah, you go get started I'm just gonna load these dishes into the dishwasher."

"Alright." He said, eyeing me for a long second.

I had loaded most of the dishes so it only took me a few minutes to completely clean up. I didn't want anything in my way tonight. Once I was in bed with Austin I wasn't getting out, especially to do dishes.

I decided to make some hot cocoa and finished them off with mini marshmallows. Right as I was putting the mugs and some cookies I made on a tray I heard Austin getting antsy.

"Als, almost done?" Austin called. "I'm getting awfully lonely in here."

I smiled and walked into the living room. "Austin it looks amazing, I love it in the corner like that." I admired the tree.

"Yeah, I like it too. You sure picked a nice one." He said, taking a cookie from the tray.

"Yeah, I seem to be pretty good at picking good ones." I smiled up at him.

We decorated the tree together but ended up taking twice as long because we kept getting...off track. An hour later though it was finally complete and looked beautiful.

"It looks good." Austin said, sitting next to me on the floor.

"It does, doesn't it?"

"I used to hate the holidays" He confessed.

"Me too." I said, looking at him.

"Not anymore though?" He asked, cupping my cheek.

"No, not anymore." I leaned my face into his hand.

"Is it hard, because of your mom?" He asked, wiping away a stray tear before pulling me to sit between his legs.

"She loved the holidays, and for the longest time I was a scrooge because I guess I didn't really have anyone to spend the holidays with. I would always go to Trish's and that was nice but it wasn't the same." The tree lights blurred through the tears brimming my eyes.

Austin didn't say anything, just kissed the top of my head and held me closer to him. I could feel the comfort seeping into my soul with each minute that past. I knew that it was different now, we had each other and his family was coming up to visit. It would be different, I just knew it. He bent down and laid his head on my shoulder.

"You ready to head up to bed?" He whispered into my ear.

I turned to face him and smiled. "Yeah, but sleeping is the last thing on my mind right now." I winked before jumping up and sprinting towards the stairs. "Race ya!"

Heyy guysss! So its been a little while, like what couple weeks...maybe years? Haha so I am sooo sorry about the long ass wait. I have no excuse except life man. It got crazy and I lost writing for a bit but recently I had a spark to write again. Im trying to get more and more writing done these days! So thank you to all of you who have stuck around and those new comers too! XOXOX