Page 80 of Holiday Unscripted
He laughs and I can’t help but smile at his laughter. He puts one of his hands on the counter beside him but keeps a hold on me. “So I’m always ready to open presents.”
“But you hate surprises.” I shake my head.
“No one likes surprises, but everyone likes presents.”
“So I could buy you a present but I can’t surprise you?” He smirks.
“Yes,” I agree with him. “If I don’t know about it and it magically appears, I’m okay with it. But if you go on and on about ‘oh, I have a surprise for you,’ then it’s a solid no.”
“Noted,” he says. “So we should do gifts now, then?”
“Yes!” I clap my hands, giddy like a kid in a candy store. “Who is going to go first?” I ask him as he turns to hand me my coffee and then both of us walk toward the Christmas tree.
“As you can see”—I point to the presents under the tree—“I’ve color coded mine.”
“Of course you did.” He sits on the couch. “Because not having them the same color makes it more of a surprise for you.”
I gasp, “I didn’t even think of that.” I put my coffee to the side. “Okay, I’m going to give you one first.” I get up grabbing the medium-size box. “I want you to keep in mind that I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for gifts.”
I walk to him and he opens his legs for me to stand in between them. His hands go to rub up the back of my legs. He looks up at me, his lips in a little smile as I bend my head to kiss him. I hold his cheek with one of my hands while the other grips the box. “Okay.” I push the box at him and he grabs it, opening the Santa Claus wrapping and seeing the white box. I sit next to him, almost bouncing in my seat. He opens the top, and when he pulls out the white mug, he turns it over and laughs. “This is going to be my new mug.” He looks down at the white mug I had made that says Whiskey, Bean, and Baby Cat’s dad, with a picture of them all around the cup. Then in the back it says Best Dog and Cat Dad Ever.
“I might have gotten one for myself also,” I mumble to him, “minus the ‘cat dad’ stuff.”
He looks over at me and it’s a look he’s given me often over the years, but a look I might have locked out of my memory to protect my heart from being more hurt than I was. A look that even now if I wanted to lock it away, I knew I couldn’t. “For you to take back home?”
The minute he says that, my eyes get dry and with each blink it feels like I have sand stuck under my lids, and the lump forms in my throat, knowing in seven days this isn’t going to be my morning anymore. I don’t answer him, instead I just nod my head. He puts the mug to the side and then gets up to grab one of the presents bringing it to me. “I also didn’t have time and I scrambled. It didn’t help that I tried to ask Joshua and he told me to give you a stocking full of coal.”
I laugh as he hands me the thin present, the wrapping paper is filled with Grinch faces, making me laugh. “This is very me.” I hold up the soft gift and then I open it and it’s a calendar. “What is this?” I open it and every single month is a different picture from this past week.
The tears in my eyes make it blurry to see all the images. Once I get to October I laugh when I see Whiskey with a stuffed pumpkin in his mouth. “That is from last year,” he admits, “but the one in December was taken two days ago.” I flip to it and the three of them are together.
The cats have red collars on that have white balls at the end of them and Whiskey has a Santa hat on his head. Lying on the ground, he’s the only one looking at the camera. Bean looks like she’s desperately trying to get the collar off of her, while Baby Cat is glaring at the camera. I can’t help the laughter that comes out. “This one has to be my favorite.” I hold it up, fighting back the tears. “Thank you.” I smile at him. “I’m going to put this up in my locker at work. Might have another one made so I can also have it on my fridge.” The tightness starts to form in my stomach.
“My turn,” I say quicky, looking away from him, going to the gifts. “This one is a gag gift.” I hand him the long box and sit next to him. He unwraps it and the top of the box says Oral Fun: the game of eating out while staying in. “It’s a board game.”
He turns it around and smirks. “We’ll be playing this hourly”—he puts it to the side—“which makes my gift even better.” He grabs the small square gift. This one is wrapped with little Christmas bows all over it.
I rip it open and turn it over, the black box with Quickies written in white. “What in the world?” I open the box as he sits there with a smile on his face, every single card is black. One side has a scratch pad, the other side has Quickies in glossy black writing.
“So you pick a card and scratch it off, and you have to do what they tell you to do.”
“Ohh, I need something to scratch with.” I get up and rush to the kitchen, grabbing a butter knife.
“You really doing that now?” he asks and I look up at him.
“Um, yeah,” I reply as the white words appear. “In the next twenty minutes, try at least five different sex positions,” I read out loud and then read the rest to myself. “We can’t do this one.”
“Yes we can,” he assures from the couch and I hold up the card.
“The goal is to not climax before the twenty minutes is done,” I shriek. “Fuck that.”
“So it’s a challenge,” he goads me. “You are always good with a challenge.”
“It’s a challenge that is dumb,” I retort, walking to him. “There is no way I can last twenty minutes.”
“I’ll help you,” he offers and I laugh at him.
“That is super kind of you. Thank you so much for that. You are such a great friend.” The minute I say the words, something changes on his face. I want to take it back as soon as the words are out of my mouth, but what else am I going to call him? My hookup? My holiday fling? Nothing would be good enough, except for the word I should be using. Right person, wrong fucking time, I keep hearing the words play over and over in my head.
