𝐢𝐱.

They say dogs are excellent judges of character. So it was absolutely no surprise to Chris that once he and Faith got to his apartment and got settled in that Dodger took an instant liking to her.

"He's usually super shy with strangers," Chris remarked as he put the last Whole Foods bag on the kitchen table. "But it looks like you're well on your way to becoming best buds."

"He's so adorable," Faith said with a giggle as Dodger circled a spot on the floor by her feet and sat down comfortably. "Hope and I always wanted a dog when we were kids, but our mom always told us no."

He grinned softly. "Look, if you wanna see Dodge more often, that can certainly be arranged."

"I'll keep that in mind," A couple of minutes later she got up from the couch and joined him in the kitchen as he unbagged the groceries. "I could've handled that, you know."

Chris shrugged it off like it was nothing. "You're a guest in my home, it's the least I can do."

"Fine. You have anything in mind for dinner?"

"I was planning on ordering pizza..." He trailed off a second, taking a peek at the last bag. "Though it looks like you've got all the ingredients for making some right here."

"Yeah, I was planning on it. You wanna help me cook up something? It'd be great practice for Christmas."

She made a good point. Plus, Chris found it harder and harder these days to turn Faith down for anything. "You know what? Sure, why the hell not. Just show me what to do."

Faith clapped her hands excitedly. "Great! First things first, where can I wash my hands?"

He pointed towards a door down the hall. "Powder room's that way."

She made it a quick trip and was back before Chris even had the time to grab out a pan and a skillet or two so they could start cooking. "What are we doing first?"

Faith pointed to the package of ground beef closest to where he stood. "I'll start cooking the ground beef. Where's your seasoning cabinet?"

Chris hesitated. "My seasoning cabinet? I...I've got some salt and pepper."

She gave him an incredulous look. "Please don't tell me you're one of those basic white boys. You didn't think we nicknamed you Jamal for no reason, did you?"

He paused a second before bursting into laughter. "I'm just messing with you," He squeezed past her and walked over to the pantry, opening it and pulling out a shelfful of herbs and spices in glass jars. "Take your pick, ma'am."

Joking around with her was worth it if for nothing else but Faith's look of surprise at the reveal. She walked over and took out a few bottles, setting them on the counter. "Hold up, is that what I think it is?"

"Depends on what you're looking at."

She bent down to the bottom of the shelf and pulled out a plastic bottle that was bigger than the others. "Lawry's? You use Lawry's?"

Chris shrugged and smiled. "I've learned a few things here and there. So, to answer your question, I'm pretty sure I'm not your basic white boy."

Faith laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. "Okay, wow. Almost every black person I know swears by this stuff, at least when I was younger. Probably still does."

"Mackie told me about it years ago and I've sworn by it ever since," He closed the pantry door with his hip and then leaned against it. "You look surprised."

"At first, yeah—but now I'm just realizing the more I learn about you, the more I like."

Chris hoped she didn't notice the light blush on his cheeks as he rubbed the back of his neck. "That's sweet of you to say."

The magic of the moment passed, and they began to work on dinner. Faith got the ground beef seasoned and into a pan while Chris was tasked with sautéing mushrooms and onions. The television was on in the background, and he could hear ABC promoting the Oscars with yet another commercial.

Nominations had been announced yesterday, and so the buzz was starting, which meant Chris was automatically reminded that he'd been asked to present two of the smaller awards during the night. "You excited?"

She glanced at him after shaking some more pepper into the pan. "...Yes?"

"Wow, that was really convincing."

She let out a light scoff. "I mean, of course I'm excited because it's my first time going after watching it from my couch for the past few years. And you'll be with me—but I'm also kind of nervous. I'll be in the presence of all these Hollywood royals, and I already know I'm going to make an idiot of myself."

"You are not," He responded in earnest. "And listen, you're talking to a guy with social anxiety. We'll get through it together."

She seemed to accept that, albeit with reluctance. "Meat's about finished. How are the veggies coming along?"

"Coming along good," He answered. "Onions are sautéing and I've already started slicing the mushrooms."

Faith got a little closer to inspect his work, one eyebrow raised. "Oh well, that's...something."

"What?" He asked with a light chuckle. "I'm doing what you asked, chopping veggies."

"Yeah, but you're cutting them kind of thick. Any thicker and we might as well be eating them whole..."

Chris feigned a hurt expression, dramatically placing a hand over his chest. "Well excuse me, Gordon Ramsay."

"Oh my God, shut up," Her laughter was so bright, so warm—and in that moment, Chris wished he could make her laugh like that for the rest of her life. She deserved nothing less. "You want to pull off the best Christmas dinner of your life? These are the basics you learn now."

"Alright then, show me what to do. I'll get out of the way and let you work your magic."

"No need," Faith sidled closer to him and without warning, carefully placed her hands over his as he held the knife in one and the portobello in the other. His heart just about leapt into his throat. "Okay, now follow my lead. Move your fingers back a little bit, we don't want you to lose any of them—just like that. Then you want to angle the knife, so you'll get a thinner slice each time."

"Like this?" Chris mirrored her movements, their hands moving perfectly in sync. He was honestly surprised by how he was able to keep his breathing even, considering his heart was off to the races.

"Yup, exactly like that. Think you can handle the rest of these?"

She stepped away far too quickly for his liking, and all Chris could do was muster a light nod in response to her question.

What is she doing to me?

• • • •

For their first time cooking together, Faith considered dinner an overwhelming success. Better than most takeout, that was for sure. "Okay, let's hear one of your weirdest fears."

She and Chris sat next to each other on the couch in the living room, huddled under a throw blanket—hey, could you blame them? Winters in Boston weren't exactly balmy.

"My weirdest fear..." He surmised, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. "Okay, don't laugh—ducks."

"Ducks?!" She repeated, letting out a disbelieving chuckle. "What did they ever do to you?"

"Okay, look—one or two ducks may be cute, but a dozen ducks swarming you one day when you run out of bread at the park? Utterly terrifying."

Faith pushed his arm playfully. "That sounds like a personal problem."

"It is very much a personal problem and it's resulted in a deep fear," He chuckled right along with her. "Okay, you next. Weirdest fear."

Faith thought back to a series of moments in her childhood, figuring that no matter how embarrassing it was or wasn't, he'd probably get a kick out of it regardless. "Promise you won't tease me."

"Oh, absolutely no promises are being made tonight, babe," He replied with a grin. "Come on, spill."

She rolled her eyes. "Alright, so when I was like five or six, I had an overwhelming fear of cantaloupes. I found a box of them in the kitchen one day and Hope convinced me they were brains. To this day I don't like eating them."

Chris laughed like she'd seen so many times in interviews when something was too hilarious—complete with the left boob grab—and it gave Faith butterflies. Mostly because it was moments like these that made her realize just how lucky she was to know him in the first place. Seeing a side of him that no one outside his inner circle did was the best of dreams come true, and she wasn't going to take it lightly.

"That is way better than me being scared of ducks," He said once he'd managed to catch his breath. "I'm guessing you're not a fan of fruit salad either, then?"

"Not if it has cantaloupes," She acquiesced with a light shrug.

He exhaled a slow breath. "Cantaloupes and ducks. We are some weird people."

"Can confirm. Cantaloupes and ducks, though, it's a good story for the grandkids..."

Faith trailed off once she realized what the implication of that phrase meant. The heat of embarrassment rose to her cheeks, and she parted her lips to say something, anything to remedy the sudden awkward tension that passed between them. But then Chris nudged her knee with his own—a gesture of reassurance, or maybe agreement? She didn't have time to dwell on it too much before he said, "It definitely is."

When she didn't lead with another question, Chris took the reins of the conversation. "Next one, favorite Disney princess?"

"Rapunzel, hands down," She answered. "And I already know yours, Belle or Megara, right?"

He seemed happy that she recalled that fact about him. "Got it in one."

"Is there a reason, or you just have a thing for brunettes?"

He winked. "Eh, little bit of both..."

Briefly, Faith wondered when or if their playful flirting would ever evolve into something serious. Was she ready for that? Not at all—but things seemed to be heading down that road, whether she was ready or not.

"Was that our 21st question?" Faith blinked, his voice having brought her out of her reverie.

She refocused attention on her phone, scrolling through the webpage they'd found to read questions from. "Yeah, I think so."

Chris got up from the couch and grabbed their dirty plates, walking over to scrape them and put them in the dishwasher. "What's next on the agenda, our deepest, darkest secrets?"

Faith leaned back into the couch cushions. "I don't think I'm ready for all that...but I'm down to talk about whatever's on your mind."

It was quiet for a moment, the only sound being that of Chris loading the dishwasher. Once he put it on a wash cycle, he walked back over to the couch and sat on the armrest, spreading his hands wide. "These days, I've got too much on my mind. Anything you want to know in particular?"

There was, actually. But she wasn't sure if it would make things awkward between them or not. So much speculation had been made over the past few months, but Faith's journalism instincts wanted to satiate the curiosity: why did he and Jenny break up? So, in more words or less and in the most delicate way that she could, Faith asked him just that.

Chris let out a deep sigh. "Going for the really deep stuff right off the bat, huh?"

Immediately she felt a spark of worry rise up in her chest. "If you don't want to, it's okay–"

"Don't worry, you're fine," Right on cue came his reassurance, as if he already knew of her apprehensiveness and wanted to get rid of it. Was she that easy to read, or did he simply know her that well already? "I've honestly never talked to anyone about it in depth..."

"Not even Scott?"

He shook his head. "When it happened, I really wanted to lay low for a while, because it was my first long-term relationship since my twenties, and my first in the public eye. That type of pressure isn't easy."

Faith could only imagine. "What went wrong? I mean, tabloids aren't really a good judge of the truth, but y'all seemed happy, at least."

Chris eased onto the couch to sit beside her again. "Well, we were. She was a good person, and we had a lot of fun together. But it got to a point where I realized we didn't want the same things. And I know everybody says that, but for me—I don't know," He ran a hand over his hair absentmindedly. "I mean, it's no secret that I've always wanted a family of my own. Jenny didn't, and I'm not the kind of guy who would force his girlfriend to have kids if she doesn't want to be a mom. So, I ended it and that was that."

Faith hugged her knees to her chest, pensive. "You did what you had to do to protect your peace. I feel like so long as you're in a good place about it now, nothing else matters."

"I am in a good place," He replied. "So, what about you?"

"What? Why did Jenny and I break up?"

Chris rolled his eyes playfully. "You know what I mean. You don't really mention anything about your past relationships."

Oof, the part of the conversation she'd hoped she would've been able to dodge. Too late now. "Well, that's 'cause there's a lot to mention. Like, a lot."

He leaned a little closer, propping himself up on his elbow. "Some people say I'm a pretty good listener."

"It's not that, it's just..." She let out a soft sigh. "There's some stuff I haven't told anyone. Not even Hope. And I haven't really had the chance to unpack everything."

He extended a hand, palm upward. Faith grabbed on, warmth racing through her stomach as his fingers folded over hers, squeezing softly. "You can share as much or as little as you want to, babe. I'm here either way."

She looked into his eyes and found no judgement, only sincerity, something that gave her heart the tiniest of nudges to go on with it, no matter how afraid she felt. "His name was Derek. We met during my freshman year at Yale. It was nice because we both shared a major and had some of the same interests. Right off the bat, I'd had a feeling he was going to be bad news, but we started dating anyway."

The memories came flooding back to her senses, rendering her silent for several seconds. Chris simply nodded his head as if to say, keep going, I got you.

"We were together for almost two and a half years before I found out he'd been cheating on me," She continued. "The worst part of it was, he tried to act like I was crazy for being upset. When I wanted to break up, he basically manipulated me into believing that he was the only person who'd ever love me or want to be with me. He played on my insecurities—he knew how I struggle with self-doubt and how I viewed myself. I still feel so stupid for it to this day, but I took him back. His empty promises...at the time it was like coming up for air."

"I can see that," Chris mused. "Manipulators are so good at what they do, sometimes you don't even realize it until you're in too deep. So what did you do?"

"It took me a while, but I realized my worth and dumped him cold turkey. He tried getting in touch with a couple times after graduation, but I ignored him. I just hate that it took so long. I gave away so many parts of me to make him happy, and it still has an effect on how I deal with love and relationships in general. I hate that it's still an issue all these years later."

Faith didn't realize she was crying until she felt Chris brush tears from her cheek with his thumb. The tears flowed more freely, almost uncontrollable—and the next thing she knew he'd pulled her into his arms, hugging her tight, face buried into his chest as she sobbed. His touch was soothing, a catharsis she hadn't known she needed until that very moment.

"You've gotta stop blaming yourself, cause all that's going to do is make you crazy," He spoke after a moment of quiet. "He made you believe things about yourself that aren't true. You may not see it now, but you mean so much to so many people, Faith. Even when you think he's still got some part of you, remember where you are right now and how far you got without him. You're doing everything he said you never could without him. That's a win in my book."

As the tears slowed and her breathing became more even, Faith wiped the wetness from her eyes and sniffled. He was right. And if she hadn't decided to get all that off her chest, she never would've gotten the chance to hear the words she so desperately needed to. "Thanks. That means a lot to me."

"Of course. Now, what are we gonna do about all this snot on my shirt? Cause I'm pretty sure the dry cleaners aren't open this late."

He was trying to lighten the mood, and it worked. Although still a bit teary, Faith giggled, sitting up a bit while he still had an arm around her. "Sorry. I wasn't planning on things getting that deep in the first place."

"Hey, I'm not complaining. Heart to hearts are good for the soul, you know?"

"Yeah," She dried the last of her tears and leaned her head on his shoulder. It felt like home.

"And listen—if you ever need someone who's in your corner, who's willing to push you to be the best person you can? Someone to remind you just how incredible you are...I can be that person."

Faith lifted her head, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. "You already are that person."

• • • •

*screams*

3k word chapter lets gooo! i promised a heart to heart and hopefully i delivered. this chapter is my favorite so far (although lowkey i say that with all of them 😭) and i just love writing this story sm <3

thank you sooo much for 8k+ reads! means the world as always! <3