Page 16 of Ho Ho Oh No

No, seriously. Please tell me. I have no fucking idea what to get her. And I’m out of time.

Still a dumb twat. Some things never change.

Fuck you, conscience. I don’t need your bullshit.

Don’t care. Didn’t ask. You’re a dumb twat.

I roll my eyes at my internal fuck-shit-dickhead bastard and keep scrolling frantically through the Amazon shopping app in the hope something miraculous will appear. It’s a fruitless endeavor, considering there’s no possibility of getting it shipped here in time.It’s Christmas Eve. The Redleg party is in three hours, and I’m supposed to have at least one gift for Kri and Valto put in Santa’s sack. Not sure Snickers are sack-worthy unless I can find one the size of my SUV.

Note: I meantsackas in the bag used to hold presents, not Santa’s nads.

Back to the problem. Getting a present for the hardest woman to shop for on the fucking planet.

Seriously, selecting a gift for Kri is next to impossible. Not to be cliché, but she’s not like other women. She isn’t into jewelry, makeup, or having her nails done. She doesn’t do massages or facials. Except for myspecialmassages and myextra specialfacial.Wink, wink.Mundane shit like a spa basket, wine, or flowers are no-gos. Too frilly.

What else? Hobbies?

Well, she’s already got enough wood-carving supplies to build life-size Lincoln Log cabins for all Redleg employees and their future generations. In perpetuity. I might have gone overboard while she was finishing her recovery and stocked her up.

And she’s got plenty of workout gear since she spent the better half of the last year doing extreme amounts of PT and exercising. And she’s not into cooking or anything domestic, and I’d never be stupid enough to get her something along those lines. I’d rather live to see the new year, thank you very much.

My next thought was to get her some sexy stuff.

That was another big fat nope. She’s overflowing with lingerie and other freaky shit after Sue’s extended family—the Amos-holes—threw an unorthodox baby shower for Sue and Sammy. It was held at a swanky beachfront mansion, since some of them are billionaires.In addition to the standard baby shower activities, they also had one of those in-home parties where they sell adult toys and fetish wear.

Those Amos-holes are wild as fuck. I mean, who has a baby shower with sex toys?

They do, apparently.

Kri said the entire event was unreal. Not only the decorations and the games. They also had a band and a wait staff with a roaming buffet.

For a damn baby shower.

I would hate to see the extent they go to for a wedding shower.

Kri and I had quite a bit of fun after that little shindig, thanks to the assortment of toys she was gifted by the party hostess, Chloe.

But unfortunately, the haul she came home with decimated my naughty gift-giving potential. Add that to all the other shit I can’t get her, and I’m left with a whole lot of nothing.

I should’ve enlisted Sawyer’s shopping services. Same as every year, he offered to help everyone shop since that’s his deal. But I thought I had it under control and didn’t want to add to his plate with the twins coming. After all, I scored the perfect gift for Val in all of ten minutes on Cyber Monday. The quick success made me cocky. When nothing jumped out at me from online the rest of that day, I blew it off. I figured the perfect idea would hit me in plenty of time. So I ordered an industrial-sized barrel of mini-Snickers candy bars and called it a day. No big deal. I had plenty of time.

Or so I thought.

Day after day and week by week, nothing hit me. The pressure grew. Plus, I was more focused on the proposal, which I knew had to be during her RSFD final test. After the perfect ring and rehearsing what I’d say from down on one knee, I was tapped out creatively.

And now I’m stuck on Christmas Eve, considering purchasing her a fucking gift card. A digital one, no less. Unless I drop Kri, Val, and Junior off at Redleg and sneak out to find something.

But what? Right back to the same fucking problem I’ve had for weeks.

Give her an empty box so she has something to put the ring in when she returns it to you.

Not helping, you fake British piece of shit.

Speaking of Junior, he saunters toward the SUV with his head on a swivel. I’ve also been scanning for trouble in between bouts of doing the shopping version of doomscrolling.

This is a safe place, especially considering this gun range is crawling with law enforcement who come here for weapons certification. Normally, I’d go in with Val and help with her lessons, but I told Kri I’d split perimeter duty with Junior. Now that she’s back at full strength, I like giving her a chance to increase her confidence when I can. As protective as I am over them both, especially with the Lenkov threat hanging over our heads, I’m trying to show Kri I trust her fully.

From the parking lot.

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