Page 7 of Merrily You

“We’re gonna have to kiss, Danny. That’s ridiculous. I’m not saying you have to suck my face off, but we’re going to have to kiss a little or else it’s not going to be believable.”

Our server came and refilled my coffee and asked if we wanted anything else. Holiday tried to order another latte, but I reminded her that she’d had enough caffeine already and if she had too much, she’d start spinning in circles.

“Fine, fine,” she said, pouting. “Back to the kissing. How about noexcessivekissing? And we talk about it beforehand? No surprise kisses. We’ll plan them.”

I guess that made sense.

Other than that, we wouldn’t need to do anything physical, except for sit close to each other and maybe put an arm around each other or something. Not much more than how we already behaved.

“What about nicknames? Are we going with the classic baby? Babe? Honey?” This was too much.

“I don’t know, Holiday. You decide.”

She sat back and gazed at me, her head turned to the side as she pondered. It didn’t really matter to me.

“I think we keep it simple. Babe. I could call you babe. Feels easy.”

Babe it was.

“Okay, babe,” I said, trying it out. The word came too easily. I wasn’t going to think about that.

Holiday grinned at me. “Now we just have to come up with the story.”

“What story?” I asked, adding more cream to my coffee.

Holiday looked at me as if I was being purposefully obtuse.

“The story of how we got together, obviously. They’re going to want to know what happened for us to go from being friends for years to deciding to date.”

Oh. Of course. She was right again.

“You’re better at that stuff than me,” I said. This had been her idea in the first place. Holiday had always been more of a romantic than I was. My family always teased me for being so practical, but I couldn’t help the way I was. Being practical was logical. What was wrong with that?

There was a sweet whimsy to Holiday that I did envy sometimes, but I didn’t necessarily need to have that for myself because she’d always been there to remind me. I couldn’t even remember what my life was like before she was in it.

I didn’t want to. Some nights, when the anxious thoughts seized their moment to pop up and keep me awake, I thought about what would happen when Holiday found someone. It was inevitable. Holiday was beautiful, she was fun, and she was easy to love. It was a wonder she hadn’t found anyone already, but she always told me that she wouldn’t get into anything unless she was really sure about it. Like Elizabeth Bennet, she said. I’d read the book, but I couldn’t remember what exactly she was talking about.

“Danny?” Holiday said, bringing me back to the present moment.

“Hm?” I asked.

“What do you think of that story?” she asked. I hadn’t heard a word.

“Can you go over it again?” I asked.

“I think the best story to tell is that we went out to Sapph together for drinks and we had a few too many and then started dancing with each other. Then one of us, and we can’t rememberwhich because of the drinking, asked ‘why don’t we date’ and then we had a sloppy drunk kiss and when we woke up the next day we decided, hey, that would be fun, let’s date. What do you think?” It sounded entirely plausible to me. I wasn’t thrilled about telling my family that our revelation arrived via too much alcohol, but it wasn’t that bad.

“Okay. That works. I think I can remember it, but I’ll defer to you when we’re together to tell it.” Holiday nodded and then grinned at me again.

“This is going to be so much fun.”

Was it?

Holiday’s parents’house and my house were only five minutes apart from each other. When we’d been younger, it had been a perfect bike-riding distance. Some years I’d spent just as much time at her house as I had at mine and vice versa. Her house was first, so I watched her pull into the driveway behind her parent’s cars and wave to me. I waved back and then continued down the street and hung a right to get to my family’s place.

The twinkling lights covered the house and I hoped my dad had been safe when he’d put them up, but he probably hadn’t. It was a wonder he hadn’t fallen off the ladder a million times.

My mom had added a new inflatable character to the lineup of Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, and The Grinch. Now she had a snow globe that had little white pieces flying around inside it. Subtle. The whole thing was garish and too much, but I’d die before I said that out loud. The decorations brought my parents joy and I would never be the one to criticize that. Even if I thought their taste was more than a little questionable. I could escapeto Holiday’s tomorrow and experience the more sophisticated decorations that I preferred.

---