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Before: Holiday Hos


Ashley

"I need a favor." Nick flung himself into our usual booth at the bar. He looked slightly disheveled, and just a little bit desperate or crazy or something.

I liked playing with him when he got like this.

"What kind of favor?" I studied the label on my beer bottle.

"The kind where I need you to go to a party with me," he said.

I started picking at the corner of the label. "A party?"

"Yeah."

"When is it?"

"Tomorrow night."

I raised an eyebrow. "A Christmas Eve party?" I asked. "Looking for your holiday ho?"

Nick took a deep breath. "Well... no, not exactly... See... Okay. So at the studio the other day Brian asked me about my Christmas plans and they all teased me about my holiday ho tradition and stuff and I got thinkin' maybe I should spend it with family this year. You know, since it's the first since... since Leslie... and--" he paused. He almost never talked about Leslie, so this caught my attention more than anything else he'd been saying. I looked up from the beer bottle. "Anyways I... I called my Mom and she invited me to this party she's having."

"Your mom lives in Florida I thought?"

"Small detail," he waved it off.

"Nick, why do you want me crashing your family party thing?" I asked.

"I kinda... I told my mom that I... was... kinda.. seeing you sort of," he said slowly.

"Seeing me?" I asked.

Nick's cheeks puffed out. "Well she wanted to know about you know, me and the ladies and... I didn't want to tell her that her baby boy was a man whore."

"So you want me to go so I can tell her?"

"No... I want you to go to pretend to be going out with me so my mom thinks we're like, you know, a thing or whatever." He stared at me.

I snorted. "Your mom obviously knows nothing about us if she thinks we'd ever end up together," I said, "Right?"

Nick shrugged.

I stared at him for a long moment, probably a hundred thousand thoughts rushing through my brain and not a single one of them solidifying long enough to form words around them to ask him what he meant by the shrug.

Just as I finally found the words, and opened my mouth, he said, "I means she was surprised, but really she knows squat about me anyways so yanno. And I'm not taking a holiday ho home to momma," he added. "I don't even take holiday hos home." He rubbed his nose. "Usually the Mariott, you know what I'm sayin?" He held up his fist to bump.

I bumped.

"So... will you?"

"What?"

"Come with me to my mom's?"

I sighed, "How do you know I don't have plans?" I demanded.

Nick laughed, "Because, you're a holiday loser. Every year you sit home alone and watch It's a Wonderful Life and cry and eat the giant popcorn tin your brother sends you," he said. Which he was dead on. I'd got the tin in the mail the day before and it was sitting beside my couch at home already with Jimmy Stewert smilling up from the cover of the DVD package sitting on top. I swallowed. "So c'mon, break your date with George Bailey and come to Florida with me."

I sighed. Sitting at home and eating popcorn every year and tearing up as Clarence gets his wings really wasn't the ideal way to be spending the holidays... especially if it was so predictable. But was spending it alone the same way as the last ten years any better than going and pretending to be dating Nick, whose tradition of going out and hooking up with the yearly holiday ho was only slightly more pathetic, really any better?

At least George Bailey loved Mary Hatch. At least there was a happy ending.

"Okay," I agreed reluctantly, despite myself.

Nick grinned, "Great. Go pack. We leave in a couple hours."

"What?"

"I got the tickets, lets go." He stood up and waited for me to get out of the booth.

"You got the tickets? But you didn't even know I was gonna go..."

"Of course you were gonna go," Nick laughed, "You can't say no to me."




Nick

"I hope they don't miss me too much."

"Who?" Dogface looked over at me as we shuffled forward in the line of passangers boaring the flight.

"The hos," I answered.

"Why would the hos miss you?"

"Because I'm not here to bang'em..." I said wistfully.

Dogface rolled her eyes.

"I go hos in different area codes," I sing-songed as we did the shuffle toward the door. "I can bang cock in Bangkok, can't stop, I turn and hit the same spot... Think not I'm the thiller in Manilla, Schlong in Hong Kong, pimp'em like Biship, Magic, Don Juan..."

Dogface shoved me as we passed the airline attendant, who scanned our tickets and waved us through.

I kept singing.

"I got condoms in a big ass sack...I'm slangin' this --"

"Welcome to Southwest Airlines fight 282!" The overly bubbly, busty blonde flight attendant waiting at the door grinned at us as we stepped into the door of the plane.

Maybe the holiday hos wouldn't miss me after all.

"Heyyyy baby," I said, grinning.

She waved me on by. I continued grinning and staring at her as I backed toward the seating area, bumped into Dogface, who kinda almost tripped, and sank into my seat beside her a moment later still watching the flight attendant.

I turned to Dogface. "It's a Christmas miracle," I hissed.

She was tucking her backpack under the seat. "What?" she asked, looking up and pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

I shoved my bag under the seat, too. "She can be an extra special holiday ho. A mile high holiday ho."

Dogface glanced up at the flight attendant. "Shouldn't you be practicing for what monogamy looks like?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Monogamy looks boring," I whispered.

Dogface went back to shoving the bag under the seat.

"Dost thou not believe in Christmas miracles?" I asked in a goofy faux-British accent.

Dogface looked up again. "I hardly think you finding a girl you think is hot enough to bang could be classified as a Christmas miracle," she said.

"What else would you call it?"

Dogface thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Monday?"

"You're such a bitch," I laughed.

Dogface turned to her bag again, this time to get her headphones and iPod out. "I call'em like I see'em," she said.