Page 5 of Santa Has a Six-Pack
“Ha!” I pat her on the back. “I wouldn’t count on that, Dot. The last thing I want—or need?—
is some shallow, fitness fanatic dude-bro in my life.”
“Never say never, sweetheart. Life might just surprise you yet.”
Chapter 2
Matt
“Gene? I’ve decided: I’m going balls deep into Christmas this year!”
I make this announcement as I enter Bossfit Brooklyn, the new gym I run with my best friend and business partner, Eugene.
“Balls deep, huh?” he mumbles from the sign-in desk, where he’s hunched over his laptop, crunching numbers. Lately, Gene is always crunching numbers.
“It’s about time, right?” I drop a mountain of cheap decorations on the rubber-matted floor with a flourish. “God, I love the dollar store. Look at this stash I nabbed for us!”
“Nice.” Eugene massages the crease on his forehead and continues to stare at his screen.
“Seriously, dude,” I say. “Look! We’ve got tinsel, garland, shiny balls, shimmery balls, glittery balls…”
“All the balls. Got it,” he grunts.
“What’s got your panties in a twist?”
Eugene adjusts his glasses and sighs. “My boxers are fine. Our finances, however, are a mess. We’re six months into this, and we’re still not seeing any profits.”
“Well, yeah! We knew that would be the case.”
“You knew it would be the case. I had higher hopes for us.”
I pull out a wreath made of candy canes. “Eh. Money always has a way of working itself out.”
That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. I’ve been telling myself that for years.
“Money always has a way of working itself out?” Eugene repeats. “That’s a pretty bold statement for a guy who desperately needs some.”
“Whoa! Desperately? Words are powerful, pal. Desperate is not a word I want attached to me.”
“Sorry.” He scrubs his forehead again. “I just mean, aren’t you worried about your mom’s situation? I mean, how much do phys ed teachers make these days? Those monthly payments for her can’t be cheap.”
The monthly payments for my mother are not cheap. In fact, they’re astronomical. And seven weeks from now, when her savings account runs out, those payments are all up to me. With the gym not pulling a profit yet and my teaching salary not amounting to much, I am in serious financial trouble.
But dwelling on it won’t get me anywhere.
“How is she by the way?” Gene’s voice softens. “You just came from there?”
“I did, yeah.”
This summer, I made the tough decision to move my mother into a memory care facility. She’d been showing signs of decline for years, but I brushed it off as her getting older. Told myself it was normal. Turns out, it’s not normal. And at only sixty-five, she’s not even old. Since we got the official diagnosis last year, I’ve cared for her as best as I can, but a few months ago, it became painfully clear that I was in way over my head and needed some serious help.
“She goes in and out,” I say. “Today, she was… out.”
“Sorry, Barbs.”
Barbs is short for my last name, Barbera. Eugene is the only person on this planet I allow to call me that. I resisted the nickname completely at first, but I figure there have been some badass Barbs throughout history—Walters and Streisand to name a few—so I’m in good company.
Eugene’s body language tells me he’s ready to listen if I want to pour my heart out to him. I don’t want to, though. I want to focus on the good things happening in my life. And damnit, that includes Christmas.
