Page 30 of Kiss and Makeup
Chapter Thirteen
Kristen
People didn’t usually think of the holidays as a slow time for business, and in general, that was certainly true. But, within companies, there were different departments, and different departments worked in different ways.
For instance, a few weeks before the holidays, the marketing department in BeautyBee Cosmetics had been a madhouse. Reports, requests, memos, and any other type of document that could exist in the workplace had littered my desk, half of my “off days” had been spent answering emails or calls, and of course, I had spent hours overseeing the contract with Cruise Media.
But now, so close to Christmas… There was nothing for the marketing department to do. Not nothing, as in I didn’t need to go into the office at all, but so little that all my work days were short, and when Christmas Eve came around, I had nothing to do at all.
Neither did Xavier, and of course Emma’s school was out, so we planned to spend the day together.
Many places were closed today, but when Xavier met Emma and I outside our apartment around noon, he had a few ideas. “Why don’t we go ice skating in Millenium Park? And then we can do some shopping. I checked, and a few good places with a lot of shops are still open. If we have time after that, we can go see light shows.”
That was a lot of time spent outside, but it wasn’t actually too cold today. All bundled up, Emma would do just fine—unless she got too tired. Skating, shopping, and light shows were all things that we could stop doing and head home quickly if Emma decided she was done. “Perfect,” I decided. Four years old was the perfect age to get out on the ice for the first time. I hadn’t skated in way too long myself.
Xavier held out an arm. I took it, and with Emma holding my other hand, we set off.
I wondered if we made a cute sight, Emma skipping down the sidewalk and towing us in her wake, all of us bundled in cheerful, bright colors. Probably. Any sight with Emma in it was a cute one.
“Have you ice skated before?” I didn’t know why that question didn’t occur to me before we reached Millennium Park.
“A little. Natural good balance helps.” We both chuckled at Emma, who was carefully putting one foot in front of the other as she walked along a low stone wall.
Unsurprisingly, many other people had the same idea we did. Despite the busyness of the park around the skate rental area, we managed to find a little plot of space to sit down and get our skates on. Xavier and I each took one of Emma’s feet and maneuvered skates onto them. “See, you strap it like this.” I showed Emma, then surreptitiously checked them after she finished impatiently slapping the straps down herself.
“Here we go.” In his own skates, Xavier hauled Emma to her feet and set her down carefully. Her feet skidded and slipped and she giggled like it was the greatest game ever, still dangling in Xavier’s strong grip. “Whoops!” He let go for an instant and Emma almost overbalanced. “Let’s just skate together, okay?”
The day was a massive success. Skating left us all breathless and laughing, shopping let us all do a little last minute gift choosing and just after dusk, we spent some time ambling through the park and watching the carefully constructed holiday lights.
“Where do you want to go for dinner?” Xavier asked. Snow crunched under our feet before we stepped out of the park and onto the sidewalk along the street, and more snow had just begun to fall and freshen the powder.
“Why don’t we make dinner? We can go to my place or your house and grab groceries on the way,” I suggested. The restaurants would be crowded with people looking to escape the snow.
“How about my house, then? We can have a fire.”
“A fire, a fire!” Emma danced around me. The energy of kids would never cease to surprise me.
Xavier and I shared a smile. “Your house it is, then.”
On the way, we stopped and picked up a few things for a couple classic Christmas dishes like stuffing and easy casseroles. Emma rode on Xavier’s shoulders while I chose two different bottles of wine, one red and one white.
Finally, we pulled into Xavier’s garage and escaped the increasingly heavy snowfall. He flicked on the lights and went to the fireplace. “Want to help, Emma?”
She did, of course, so I took the bags and headed into the kitchen to get started on supper. I paused for a moment at the bay window seat where the kitchen table sat, watching the snowflakes sift through the light that streamed from the windows.
“I’ll handle the dressing and the gravy?” Bags crackled as Xavier shuffled through them.
“Sure. Where’s Emma?”
“Don’t worry. I closed the grate to the fireplace for now and I told her to go around and explore. The railings upstairs are too close together to fit between.”
He’d thought of everything. Except… “I don’t want her to break something. She wouldn’t on purpose, but she’s very curious and she’ll probably pick things up.”
“I don’t have anything that important here. She won’t be able to do too much damage.” Xavier gathered me into his arms for a kiss before letting me return to the green beans I had been about to wash. “Are you making those with bacon?”
“Of course.” Expertly, I tossed the beans in a sieve. “That’s the only way.”
As we cooked and occasionally glanced around to see what Emma was up to, we bantered pleasantly back and forth about cooking. Xavier clearly still didn’t cook much, but he had plenty to say about dishes his parents would make and we reminisced about dinners eaten during holidays spent at their mansion.
