This felt like a pleasant tradition, even though this was the first time it had happened. The three of them—Theodore, his ex-wife, and her... Aaron—sat in Bekki's living room, silently admiring the tree and sipping festive holiday drinks. It was a companionable silence. Theo squirmed. Most family traditions, no matter how wholesome, gave him a rash.

"So, how are things down at the garage?"

The same as the last time you asked, p***k.

As soon as the retort crossed his mind, Theo felt rather horrible. Aaron was a model citizen, tall, muscular, friendly, like The Rock with more brains, and he didn't deserve Theo's ire, no matter how hollow he felt.

"It's okay." He took a sip. "Garagey."

"Good, good." Aaron's words were tinged with good humor as always, but there was something nervous there as well, something that jangled Theo's calm like an out of tune piano.

"Have you got something to ask me?" It came out harsher than he'd intended, and Theo looked rather ashamed as he searched for an excuse. "Sorry. Eggnog."

It might not have been far off. His head felt swimmy, as if he would stumble when he tried to stand. "If you've got something to say you should just come out and do it, man." Theo forced a small smile. "You know I'm not gonna bite your head off."

"I don't know, hon. You might this time."

Her endearment tugged at his heart, though it kept pulling after the nostalgia had passed. Theo swallowed, gathering his fraying thoughts and tying them up with bits of broken string.

"We wanted to tell you something."

"You're getting married."

The world sloshed, for lack of a better descriptor, and Theo had to close his eyes to keep himself from pitching forward into the carpet. When he opened them again, Aaron's expression was filled with such earnest concern that Theo almost felt nauseous for reasons entirely unrelated to the collapse of reality.

"You're not taking this well."

"No, I'm... this is fine. I wouldn't have guessed if it wasn't fairly obvious. I just..." He swallowed. "Did you feel that? The world. It changed."

"That's... deep. I guess for the three of us, it..."

"No." Theo chuckled airily, would have broken into a sarcastic grin if he hadn't felt so odd. "That's not what I meant. Something happened. There was a shift, like an earthquake." He had never been in one so he wasn't sure if that was accurate, but he really didn't want to discuss it right now. Theo just wanted to be left alone. Maybe lie down. But he couldn't do either with them staring at him like this.

"I'm sure it's nothing." He forced the words past his teeth, baring them like he was trying to warm the heart of a psychopath. "Like I said, it's been obvious for a while that you guys were... yeah. I'm not mad, I'm just..." Lonely.

"Too much eggnog." Bekki countered his grimace with a smile. "We should get you home."

"I can get there myself." He was already beginning to feel better, at least physically, but the look she gave him invited no argument, and after a bit of a staring contest, Theo relented.

"Sure. Okay."

"Good boy."

Yeah, it was definitely time to leave.

Aaron helped him up, even thought he didn't need it, and he managed to kiss Bekki's cheek without the hint of a sneer before he walked out of their lives for the second to last time.

"Congratulations. I wish you all the best," he lied.

"Thank you." She tilted her hear a smidge to the left, her gaze so penetrating that he wondered if she possessed powers of her own. He missed her, hated her, envied her, loathed her, and then she blinked and he felt nothing once more. No warmth. No new traditions. Nothing at all.

"See you around, Theo."