The Music Box Read online

  “You swear?”

  “Yes.”

  And Milo stuck by his promise. He fitted the hinges to the music box, still humming the tune even though the music had stopped playing minutes ago.

  Of course, that was about the time the universe tried to prove him wrong.

  No sooner had he spoken the words, a loud crack filled the air. The two of them sat quietly, staring out at the dark, neither of them moving.

  “What was that?” Alvin whispered.

  “I’m not sure. Let me go look.”

  Alvin grabbed hold of his shoulder. “No, stay. Until it’s over.”

  Storms had always filled Alvin with unease, a bad experience as a child leaving a lasting impression. He’d tried to keep it hidden from Milo while they were dating, but eventually it came out, and when he confessed his fear, Milo loved him even more. It was a piece of him that he kept from everyone else in the world, a piece he opted to share with Milo, and in the process discovered that Milo, too, had experienced sorrow at the hands of Mother Nature.

  So there they remained, curled up on the couch until the storm passed. By then Alvin was emotionally exhausted. Milo took him by the hand and led him up the stairs to bed.

  It wasn’t until morning they discovered the source of the crash. The rage of the storm had taken down the tree, cracked it and sent it crashing to the ground. Its great glorious crown that offered them shade in the summer and provided them leaves to pile up and jump in during the fall, it was lying in the grass. He found Alvin standing by its side, tears on his cheeks.

  “He’s gone,” Alvin whispered. “Just like that, gone.”

  Milo eyed the jagged wound. “We can plant a new one.”

  “It won’t be the same.”

  Taking hold of Alvin’s hand, Milo quickly wiped away his tears, then cupped his chin, their eyes meeting. “No, perhaps it won’t be, but the tree we plant in his place, we’ll watch it grow as the years pass, and as its roots burrow deeper into the ground, so will ours. Our love will grow with it.”

  “Why do you always know exactly what to say?”

  “Because when I look at you, my heart comes out of my mouth.”

  It wasn’t until later that evening that Milo retrieved very important mementos from their lost family member. And now he’d used them to craft the perfect, most loving gift. The absolute best way to say the one thing he’d never been able to say.

  Milo put the finishing touches on the box, closing the lid after slipping an object inside. Then he gently placed it in the gift bag among a bed of tissue paper. He decided to forgo a card this time, figuring everything that needed to be said was conveyed by the gift itself.

  Retracing his steps, Milo made his way back upstairs, unlocked the front door, and left the gift bag by the one Alvin had left earlier. The tradition was to leave their shoes outside so that St. Nick could fill them with chocolates and little gifts, so Milo made sure each of them had a sneaker on the doormat, which he dropped a few pieces of candy into. And the gifts, well, sometimes they were much too big to fit inside a shoe. Pleased, he made his way back to bed.

  The best part of the night was cuddling up with Alvin, wrapped in the warmth of love. Tomorrow morning would come bright and early, and perhaps change their lives forever.

  LIKE A child on Christmas morning, Alvin popped out of bed at the break of dawn. He untangled himself from the blankets and Milo and trudged across the carpet to the window. The view out the back was different now that the big oak was gone, part of its trunk used to make their friends’ dreidel. The stump remained per Alvin’s request, and there beside it was the new tree they’d planted a few months after the loss. The ground was buried in a thick blanket of white, drifts climbing up the fence.

  He turned to find Milo propped up on an elbow, staring at him. “What?”

  “Nothing, I just like watching you.”

  Alvin felt heat rush across his cheeks. “Stop.”

  Milo shifted, sitting up, the blanket falling away. He gave Alvin a goofy grin. “Shall we? I know you’re dying to see what’s out there.”

  “You know me too well.”

  They met at the foot of the bed. “In all the best ways too.” They kissed. “Go on down. I’m going to run to the bathroom first.”

  “Come on, Widget.” Alvin beckoned. “Let’s go see what the storm left us.”

  He retrieved the bags from the porch, placing each of them on the table in the foyer. The sneakers with the candy made him smile, and he snatched one of the Fun Size Snickers, then quickly removed its wrapper and popped it in his mouth. There was also a little treat bag for Widget because how could they ever forget their baby girl?

  “For the sweetest girl in all the world,” Alvin declared, passing a yogurt-frosted cookie to his scruffy mutt. He peered sideways at the gifts. “I’m tempted to peek. Should we?” He shook his head. “No, I suspect that would upset daddy, right?” Widget merely looked at him with soft brown eyes. “Oh, the anticipation.”

  “It’s almost over,” Milo said, joining them in the foyer. To Alvin he looked utterly adorable in his penguin-festooned pajamas, his hair sticking up like it had been last night before their walk. Milo picked up his gift bag. “How about we put an end to your misery?”

  They settled in the living room. Widget received another cookie, then crunched it loudly.

  “Open yours first.” Alvin held out the bag. “I’m eager for you to see what it is.”

  Milo chuckled. “Okay, okay.”

  Bouncing his leg with nervous anticipation, Alvin watched as Milo reached into the bag and pulled out the book.

  “A first edition?” Milo said, flipping over the cover. “And signed? How did you ever…. Alvin, I love it.” His words of affection were mirrored in the way he ran his fingers over the cover, the spine, admiring the artwork. It hadn’t exactly been easy to come by the special edition Dean Koontz book, but when he saw it, Alvin knew without a doubt that he needed to possess it, just for the simple pleasure of giving it to the biggest Koontz fan he knew.

  “I’m glad you approve. I thought about holding on to it until Christmas but didn’t think I could make it that long,” he confessed. He’d been tempted to hand it over as soon as it arrived in the mail two months ago but quickly put it away to lessen the temptation.

  A chuckle bubbled out of Milo, his hand falling on Alvin’s knee. “I know how you feel. Open mine, go on.”

  With a slight tremble in his hands, Alvin dipped his hands into the bag, discovering the waiting surprise. The music box took his breath away, tears instantly welling in his eyes, one slipping free, as he spied the lid. He settled the box in his lap, sucking in his bottom lip. Losing the oak had left an odd hole in his heart, and he’d found it hard to watch Milo chip it up and stack it for firewood and to use for projects. But it never crossed his mind to ask what became of their inscription.

  “Milo….”

  “I wanted to make sure you had it forever,” he said. “So I saved it and held on to it all this time trying to figure out what to do with it.”

  “It’s… it’s….”

  “The wood that makes up the rest of it is the swing,” Milo pointed out. “Just sanded and stained.”

  Now the tears fell in earnest. The sentiment, the gesture, it filled Alvin with a sense of love the likes of which he’d never experienced before. It was like having the oak back in his life, a lost member of the family returned home. He couldn’t even find the words to express the way it made him feel, considering himself the luckiest man in the world.

  “It plays our song,” Milo pointed out.

  “Oh” was all Alvin managed to say. He felt the indent on the bottom, the one home to the key. He gave it a few twists, smiling softly as the familiar strains of the Phil Collins’s Tarzan song played. “For one so small…,” he sang.

  “There’s one final surprise inside.”

  The catch in Milo’s voice prompted Alvin to tear his gaze from the music box. “Another gift? This
is… this is… more than enough. How could….”

  “Go on. Open it. Please.”

  Unsure of what Milo could have possibly secreted away inside, Alvin pulled up the lid, and the air rushed from his lungs. His jaw dropped, his heart slipping a beat. There was nothing to keep the tears in check, the tiny army flowing down his cheeks. There, nestled in velvet was a simple gold ring.

  “Is this…?”

  When he looked up, he found Milo had moved, now down on one knee. “Will you?”

  Alvin smiled, nodding. He managed to squeak out a “Yes.”

  Milo took the ring from the music box, shifting back onto the couch as he slipped the ring on the appropriate finger. He maintained hold of Alvin’s hand. “You’ve told me once or twice that I always know what to say, but I searched my heart and tried so hard to figure out how to ask you, and for some reason, it never sounded right. I love you, Alvin, with every fiber of my being.”

  “And I you,” Alvin echoed.

  “After I lost my parents and came out of my grief,” Milo continued, “I vowed to never hold back when it came to expressing how I feel, and you have this way of making me feel so much.”

  “It’s like you’ve written your vows,” Alvin teased.

  “Alvin, every time you hold me, every time we kiss, you fix the broken pieces inside of me.”

  “Milo.” His lower lip trembled. “Please.”

  “I want to spend forever with you, and I pray you want to spend yours with me.”

  “Forever and always, isn’t that what you said when we moved in?”

  “It’s what I said the day I met you,” Milo answered. “I just never told you.”

  “And all I got you was a book.” Alvin pouted, suddenly ashamed of his less-than-stellar gift. Here, Milo had gone above and beyond, making him a beautiful, priceless gift, and he’d purchased a book. A book. How could it even compare?

  Milo cupped his cheek, using his thumb to wipe away a few tears. “You silly fool, can’t you see? You’ve given me the greatest gift of all.”

  “I have?”

  “Yeah, you and your love,” answered Milo. To seal the sentiment, he leaned forward, kissing Alvin. The moment seemed to make time stand still, and Alvin would have been absolutely fine with that. He’d always been fond of December 6, the day on the calendar marked as St. Nick’s Day, now to be forever remembered as the day he agreed to marry his best friend. “And if it’s okay with you, my dear, I have the perfect wedding date in mind.”

  “When?” Alvin asked, feeling he already knew the answer.

  “Why, December sixth, of course. The best holiday of them all.”

  Born to a military family, KASSANDRA LEA has been reading since she could hold a book. Growing up she wanted to be Batman, then she discovered writing and realized she could be whatever she wanted if she lived vicariously through her characters. When not writing, she can be found hanging out with her dog, pursuing her love of horses, and cheering on the Packers. She lives in southern Wisconsin in an old house with her mother, a gang of furry monsters, and a ghost lovingly dubbed Bob. She can be found on Instagram under @Kassandraleaauthor, on Twitter as @Cheddarsgal, and has a Facebook page under Kassandra Lea.

  By Kassandra Lea

  The Music Box

  Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Published by

  DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

  www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Music Box

  © 2019 Kassandra Lea

  Cover Art

  © 2019 L.C. Chase

  http://www.lcchase.com

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-64405-789-6

  Digital eBook published December 2019

  v. 1.0

  Printed in the United States of America