Page 17 of Unruly Kris

She turned her attention away and hunkered down by one of the activity tables, helping some of the children make their own Christmas ornaments with beads and glitter, and before she knew it, an hour and a half had passed. She was so engrossed in helping a little girl patiently string red and green beads onto wire that she almost didn’t notice Jennifer come up to her until she was standing at the edge of the table.

“They are ready for you and Kris, anytime you guys want to head up to the sixth floor.” She smiled at the little girl and pulled a chair over. “Why don’t I take over here for you, I could brush up on my beading skills.”

Cath began to look for Kris and found him waist deep in the ball pit, playing catch with his good hand with a few of the smaller children. Standing and stretching her legs, she ambled over to the pit and stood carefully at the edge, determined he wasn’t going to pull her in. They’d never make it out again with both of them flailing around in the plastic spheres.

“Jennifer said we can head to the next floor anytime we want, although I have no idea what that actually entails,” she informed him.

“It means we have to gracefully make our exit.” Kris tossed the ball he was holding to a little boy across the pit and began to hoist himself out. He extended a hand and Cath grasped it, helping him steady himself on his feet. “We have more work to do. Come on, follow me.”

Cath followed Kris out of the room, waving goodbye to the children as they went and followed him to the elevator in the lobby. Alone for a moment, she slipped into his arms and pressed her lips to his quickly, now that she could without little eyes watching them.

“What was that for?” he asked when they parted.

“Absolutely no reason.” Cath leaned her head on his shoulder, watching as the numbers went up and they ascended to their destination. For once, she was glad the elevator was dim so he couldn’t fully see her face. Her emotions were firing a mile a minute and she was trying hard to maintain her cool demeanor.

How was it he can be so frustrating one minute, and so sweet the next? And why can’t I just tell him I love him without feeling like it’s going to fuck things up?

She closed her eyes, taking in the reassuring wall of his body next to hers. He had let her in tonight, the man who’d lived his life like an open book had shown her a secret chapter, one where he had guarded the pages for their own protection, and she still couldn’t even tell him how she felt about him without her throat closing up like it was full of sand. She could feel her mood going broody and quickly checked herself; she’d be damned if she ruined this night by letting her anxieties get the better of her. Cath gave herself a mental shake and decided to reframe the night’s activities, treat them the same way she would approach an OP, and get to work, where she knew she could maintain control of the outcome.

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out into a world created for children. Games and toys lined the shelves as far as Cath could see, along with stuffed animals and art supplies. An aisle of LEGO and other building blocks dominated one end of the room and another of sporting equipment was just as large. In one corner stood a check out desk with three staff members behind it, along with empty shopping carts.

Kris steered them in that direction and grabbed a cart, passing it off to her. “Here, you drive. My shoulder is starting to hurt.”

“Give me a SITREP update?” Cath asked as they started down an aisle. “What are we shopping for? Anything the kids need badly?”

From the look on his face, she could tell he was pleased she was so on board right away and got the picture of what they were doing. “For all the kids that could make it tonight, there are just as many who can’t leave the hospital. They may be too sick, they may have compromised immune systems, or undergoing treatments that keep them in bed. We’re shopping for their Christmas morning, so they can have gifts to open at the hospital.”

“Is there anything in particular that’s really good?” Cath stopped and added one of the first things she saw, a large stuffed teddy bear. Kris reached past her and added a stuffed dolphin and then almost as an afterthought, a stuffed dog as well.

“Things they can do in bed, puzzles, board games, LEGOs. They also encourage anything educational because the kids may be missing school for treatment.” Kris added a stack of board games to the cart and Cath saw Monopoly, Blokus and Connect4 among others.

“Kris, this is incredibly sweet,” Cath scanned the shelves and added a Lite Brite to the pile followed by a LeapPad. “How long have you been putting this together?”

“This is the ninth year,” Kris ducked his head and surprisingly thought he looked slightly embarrassed. “Jennifer asked for my help originally, she’s been a friend of the family forever, and once I got into it, I found I really liked being able to help.”

“And you’ve never said anything to anyone about it?” The Kris she had known for years would normally have been singing his own good deeds from the walls; this just didn’t seem like him. They reached the end of an aisle, started down another and found themselves in the land of dolls. Cath scanned the available toys and settled on an American Girl doll while Kris began to ransack the Barbie section.

“When I first started doing this, my manager wanted to use it to the fullest and I wouldn’t let him.” He sighed and Cath could see he was self-conscious about what he was telling her. “I was afraid if people found out, it would make me look soft, like I was uncool.”

“And what changed?” Cath pulled another American Doll girl off the shelf and added it to the growing pile in the cart.

“I got to know the kids, the families.” Kris leaned on the cart, staring at one of the dolls they had just added. “They’re fighters like us, Cath. I got involved, I started a program so the kids could come to the studio lot and see how movies are made, we do an arts program in the summer, movie nights at the hospital.”

“And now, instead of protecting your image, you’re protecting the kids.” Cath surmised.

“Exactly,” Kris moved the cart down the aisle idly, pulling out his phone taking a picture of a large dollhouse. Cath had a funny feeling some lucky kid was going to wake up to that waiting for them on Christmas morning. “Now, I keep it quiet because I don’t want people to think I do it for publicity, not even for a second. I even keep close tabs on the photos taken, they go to the families and a select few go on the hospital's website. These kids deserve a hell of a lot better than to be exposed like that.”

“You continually surprise me, you know that?” Cath shook her head as they reached the end of an aisle and turned down another.

“Babe, sometimes I even surprise myself.” Kris scoffed at himself. “And this was definitely one of those times, but I don’t regret it. Maybe doing this was just my infinitesimal way of trying to be a better person, even when I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Or maybe you were always a good person, you just needed the right people around you to help bring it out.” Cath grabbed several toy bows off a shelf and held them up to scrutinize them. She tested the tension on the bow string expertly and checked the rubber suction cups on the tips of the arrows that accompanied each set. “What do you think of these? You know if I grabbed these and then got the kids Walkie Talkies, we could help them set up a communication network so they could play together.”

“Oh, the pediatric nurses are going toloveyou.” Kris cocked his head a moment, considering. “Grab at least six sets.”

“Roger that,” Cath loaded them into the cart with a giggle and they moved on to the LEGO aisle.

“How about these?” Cath held up various LEGO sets while Kris was putting models of both the Batmobile and Ecto-1 in the buggy. “We’ve got a castle, a fire station and the Millennium Falcon.”

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