Winter Wonderland

eleven: family time

*

I'm floating on a cloud all through Tuesday. Kaylani ribs me all day and I go along with it; I don't even try to hide that Storie and I kissed last night, for the first time in four years – more, even, by a couple weeks – and she grimaces when I mention how hard it was, in more than one sense, to share a bed with her after that.

I feel untouchable, and I really need that feeling to last because I'm working a shorter shift today, giving myself an hour to squeeze in some last-minute Christmas shopping before I get in Storie's car and she drives us to Five Oaks. I know she's talked to her family, that they know we're together and she's asked for their support, but I'm still nervous as hell.

By six o'clock on Wednesday evening, by which time my nose is so cold it feels like it could snap off, and my frozen fingers are gripping a few bags after a mad dash around downtown ending in Tower City Centre, I'm back to thinking oh, fuck, why did I agree to this? But the feeling doesn't have long to percolate, because I'm due to meet Storie at her building in ten minutes and if I don't get my ass moving right this second, I'm going to be more than what is acceptably late. Couple minutes? That's all right. But any longer is downright rude.

So I hurry, trying not to slip this time. It snowed again this morning, but the gritters have had plenty of time since then to coat the roads and sidewalks, and there's a ton of pre-Christmas traffic in the city. People are filling the sidewalks, doing the same as me, and I dash between them to make it to Storie's apartment without knocking anyone out with my shopping. The best part of being paid cash in hand is that it doesn't feel like I spent anything today: my bank account hasn't taken a hit from my purchases, because I haven't deposited any of the money I've made since Monday. The worst part is that that made it way too easy to spend almost three hundred bucks in one hour, trying to find the right gifts for my way-too-large family.

I'm supposed to meet Storie at six fifteen. I make it one minute late, panting when I reach her door even after standing still in the elevator for the twenty-five-floor ride; she's just putting on her coat when she opens the door.

"I was just about to call you!" she says, taking my bags off me and setting them down by the sofa. "You managed to do some shopping?"

"I have mastered the art of doing all my gift-buying in an intensely stressful hour-long session two days before Christmas," I say, untangling my scarf from my coat and my bags so I can rewind it, though I swear some of the fibers have actually frozen. Storie laughs and tuts at me. She's the queen of organisation; I bet she had all her shopping finished by October. She's probably wrapped everything, too.

"Got your stuff for tonight?"

I shrug the shoulder my overnight bag is slung over. We're both spending the night at her parents' house and coming back tomorrow morning, both of us working Christmas Eve. And then she'll be returning to Five Oaks, and I'll be driving home to Cincinnati. Tomorrow's my last day at the Winter Wonderland until the new year, I realize, and I don't even know if it'll be around then. Surely Christmas Day is the cut-off for stuff like that? I feel a sudden pang of ... sadness? Like I'll miss it.

It's been a weird couple of weeks. The work has certainly helped, but it's not like it's a forever gig. I can't be a garden center's Christmas elf for long. Not when Christmas is thirty hours away.

"Right," Storie says. "Let's get going, then. The service starts at eight, but it'll take an hour to get there and we'll grab a drink on the way 'cause I'm really craving a chai latte, and we're meeting the others and Mom and Tad's house before we go to the church."

I haven't stepped foot in a church for a long time. But Storie wants me to be there with her, and I will do anything for her, so I can't wait to stand by her side and fuck up the lyrics to O Come All Ye Faithful.