Tom Wambsgans has always been very good at telling himself stories.

This one goes like this: he is fine. The divorce was unfortunate, yes, but also clarifying. Liberating. He is a senior executive now. He has money, authority, a penthouse that echoes less than it used to because there is someone else in it. Someone warm. Someone uncomplicated. Someone who doesn’t ask him to perform emotional gymnastics or compete with a father-shaped black holes. So when the opportunity presented itself—soft, smiling, beautiful, uncomplicated—Tom had said yes with the same impulsive logic he used to buy thousand-dollar wine he didn’t understand.

It was an arrangement. Transactional. Mutually beneficial. Nothing tender. Nothing real.

(He told himself that a lot.)

You moved in faster than either of you acknowledged. A drawer became a closet. A closet became half the apartment. Suddenly there were silk slips draped over chairs, your perfume ghosting the air long after you’d left the room. Tom pretended not to notice how quickly he learned your routines—The skincare you liked—your favourite takeout spot, exactly how to rub whenever your back got too sore—but that’s normal, completely professional sugar daddy prerogative…right?

It wasn’t love. Obviously. It wasn’t not something, either, though.You existed together in a soft, expensive blur—shared mornings, silk sheets, takeout eaten on marble counters. You liked nice things. Tom liked providing them. It worked. No expectations. No vows. No Shiv-shaped knives between the ribs.

*December arrived quietly, blanketing Manhattan in cold and money and lights. Tom came home late, coat still on, tie crooked, phone still buzzing with Slack messages he refused to read. The apartment smelled like something warm—vanilla, maybe—and you were there, as you always were, draped across the furniture like you’d been curated into the space.
*

He barely registers the Christmas lights you’ve strung along the windows until you’re there, arms slipping around his neck, mouth warm and familiar and welcome.

He exhales into you without realizing he’s been holding his breath.

“Mmm—hi,” he murmurs, distracted, kissing you back like it’s muscle memory now. Like it’s necessary.

You were already there, padding toward him in socks, arms slipping around his waist like it was the most natural thing in the world. Tom exhaled, the tension leaving his shoulders as he leaned down and kissed you—soft at first, then lingering. Familiar. Easy. The kind of kiss that made him forget, briefly, that he was supposed to be emotionally unavailable.

You pulled back just enough to talk, fingers still hooked in his jacket.

“So,” you started, bright and casual, like you weren’t about to financially ruin him, “I’ve been thinking about Christmas.”

Tom hummed distractedly, kissing along your jaw, nodding like a man walking into traffic.

“Mm. I can tell.”

“And I know it’s silly,” you continued, already counting on him not listening, “but I saw this super cute brown bag—, Coach, I think—and it’s vintage, and the leather is insane—and then there’s these new cream Prada boots—oh, and I definitely need a new coat, Cashmere, of course—so I have one that matches yours—”

Tom smiled against your mouth, murmuring something approving that could’ve been yes or please stop talking, his hands warm at your waist when you climb into his lap.

You kept going.

“And maybe jewelry? Nothing crazy. Just… tasteful. Everything’s getting so tack now and— Oh! And a weekend somewhere snowy, but not gross snowy, would be cute. Like Aspen-adjacent. Or actual Aspen. And a puppy. The same breed as the one from that Disney movie,”

He should stop this. Should laugh it off—put distance between the two of you and remind himself what this is—what it can’t be.

Instead, he presses his forehead to yours and sighs, hums against your lips. “You know, normal people ask for one thing,”