Page 2 of Screw Christmas
“Guess this means you decided to spend Christmas Eve with me? Your girlfriend not around?” Buster appeared at the fire escape one day, cold and scraggly, about a year ago, shortly after my break-up with my last ex. I’d taken him in, gotten him neutered and fed to good health, but he still screeched to go outside until I gave in and opened the window for him to take a stroll around the neighborhood. Wild man at heart I suppose. Sometimes he’d be gone for a day or two, but it never concerned me, he always came back.
He meowed a second time and looked up at me, his green eyes as wide as saucers, begging for a bite. Breaking off a piece of sandwich, I tossed it to him. He caught it in mid-air and then scurried away to eat in private. Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge I made my way into the living room and plunked myself down onto the sofa snatching up the remote and flicking on the television. With any luck I could find a movie to allow me to escape for a few hours before I hit the sack for the night.
~*~ TT ~*~
Dylan
The airbrakes on the bus hissed as it came to a stop at the Greyhound station jolting me awake. Sitting up in my seat, I was relieved to see the man who had been sitting next to me reeking of alcohol and chewing tobacco had vacated at some point along the way. Looking around I was shocked to see we were already in Manhattan. Damn, had I really slept that long?
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I waited until the bus was almost entirely unloaded before getting up and making my way down the aisle. I was taking a massive gamble coming here with a minimal amount of money in the bank and nowhere to stay for the next few weeks until I found a source of income.
“No guts, no glory,” I murmured as I reached the front of the bus, gave the bus driver a nod, and departed. The night had grown chilly, and the snow had started to come down fast and heavy. Pulling my hood up over my head, I lined up behind a couple dozen other people to retrieve my duffle bag filled with all my belongings. The sadness in the fact that the entirety of my belongings could be fit into a single duffle was not lost on me. Forty years old and I was still living like a young vagabond in his twenties about to chase a dream that had a very low chance of success—but I had to try.
Once I had my duffle in hand I headed for the subway. I’d made a note of the directions to get to my stepsister’s building from the depot before I left Seattle in case my phone shit the bed or ran out of juice before I go there. I found it without incident, the journey from the depot to her place took just over twenty minutes to complete.
Verifying the building number with the one my father had given me, I entered, immediately greeted by a balding, elderly man wearing a security uniform and a Santa hat. The security officer came around the desk to greet me, I took note of his height which was roughly six feet, like myself, but he had a few extra pounds around his mid-section. There was a presence about him as he gave me a quick up and down that told me he wasn’t messing around. Maybe a retired cop, or something of the sort. Maybe military at one point. I’d been around law enforcement enough over the years—and not in a good way—to be able to pick one out of a line-up.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, actually. I’m here to see Maya Holland.”
“Uh-huh.” He gave me another up and down look, this time a little slower, more critical, crossing his arms over his chest. “She expecting you?”
“No.” I chuckled and pushed the hood off my head. “It’s a Christmas surprise. I’m her brother.” Well, sort of, but not really. Not anymore. Though I kept that information to myself.
The other man huffed. “News to me that she has a brother. What’s your name? You got ID?” The security officer rounded the desk and began typing on the computer in front of him. “Are you on her approved visitor’s list?”
Not likely…
I hesitated a moment before pulling my black leather wallet from my back pocket. “We haven’t seen each other for a while, and I wanted to surprise her. I’m her stepbrother if we’re going to get technical. If I could just go up that would be super. I promise I’m not some sort of crazy.”
Pulling my Washington state driver’s license from my wallet I passed it to him. I wasn’t sure how she was going to react with me just showing up and was hoping the element of surprise would be in my favor. We hadn’t parted ways on great terms. We had been teenagers though, surely she wouldn’t hold a grudge after all these years.
The guard accepted the card from me and looked it over with scrutiny. “The policy is for us to call up to ensure you’re expected…” He looked from the card pinning me with a hard stare. “And wanted.”
“I assure you. It’s all on the up and up. I traveled cross-country to surprise her for the holidays. I’d hate for the surprise to be ruined by a call up to her.” I gave him another smile and then pulled out my phone. Quickly, I scrolled though my photos until I found one of us as a family—Maya, myself, my father and her mother and then showed him the phone. “That’s all of us at Christmas when we were teenagers.”
The guard looked back down at the ID and then up at me. Why couldn’t the doorman have been a doorwoman? I was much better at persuading the opposite sex.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter 2
Maya
“Well, Merry Christmas to us,” I grumbled as I stroked Buster’s fur while he purred lightly on my lap. He was being especially affectionate tonight. Maybe he was sensing my loneliness. Normally, I didn’t care about being alone—at least that’s what I tried to make myself believe—but the holidays always kicked me where it hurt, especially after last Christmas when Aaron gave me the worst Christmas present ever, a one-way ticket to the single life and the humiliation of being replaced by one of our co-workers.
I’d already switched my uniform for a pair of pajamas for the sake of being comfy. In an attempt to be festive, I opted for a fleece pair of Christmas Gremlins pajamas.
Grabbing the remote, I flicked through the televisions channels and then eventually went to my pre-bought movies, scrolling until I found the first Gremlins movie and selected it. I was already partially through watching it from last Christmas so upon pressing play it immediately cut to the scene where Spike was wearing a Santa hat. The Gremlins movies were my Christmas Eve tradition, which dated back to my childhood.
Grabbing Buster, I lifted him from my lap despite his snarl of protest and placed him on the sofa next to me. Getting up, I made my way to the kitchen, opened the overhead cabinet, and grabbed a bottle of popcorn kernels. Setting up the countertop air popper, I poured more kernels into the popper than I really needed and started it up.
I was about to begin melting the butter when a knock at the door came, giving me a start. Unexpected guests never made it past Kevin. Tossing the butter onto the counter, I walked a few steps and in true introvert fashion craned my head around the corner to look at the door unsure of what to make of it, almost thinking someone had knocked on the wrong door.
The knock came again.
Phillis… The doorman’s wife wouldn’t take no for an answer, I bet. Releasing the breath, I’d been holding, I smiled as I walked into the foyer and opened the door without looking through the peephole to verify the person on the other end. This building was quite good at keeping riffraff out, especially with Kevin on the alert. If it was an intruder my gun was within arm’s length and I had no problem using it, so they picked the wrong apartment to pull that shit.
