[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter Twenty-Three - The Best Christmas


“Merry Christmas,” I whispered into Lauren’s ear when I woke up the next morning. The sun was just coming up, sneaking in through our bedroom window, the rays crawling across the carpet. I kissed her temple as she roused, breathing deep and stretching her legs. I slid my hand across her stomach, my fingers cupping over the skin of her still flat abdomen. “Merry Christmas,” I said to the baby.

Lauren hummed a sleepy smile and snuggled into my chest, “Holiday. We can lie in. Go back to sleep.” She closed her eyes.

“I think Ethan’s up,” I answered. I’d heard the toilet flush a few minutes before when I’d been stretching and staring up at the ceiling. “We should probably go downstairs.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. You’re right.” She stretched her back, curling her spine and then rolled to a sitting-up position and slid her feet over the side of the mattress. Her hair was a mess, all sticky-uppy in strange places and curled into little knots. I ran my hand over it from behind.

Lauren headed into the bathroom and I went out into the hall.

Ethan’s bedroom door was cracked open, the light spilling into the hall from it. I walked over and edged close, knocking on the door gently to keep it from opening. “Morning,” I called in, “Merry Christmas.”

The door opened a moment later and Ethan stood before me, his bruises a little lighter than they’d been the day before. Not that it was hard to be lighter - they’d looked like the mask of Zorro when we’d first got home from Otis’s place. He had a bandaid over the stitches on his forehead. “Merry Christmas,” he answered.

“Lauren’s gonna take a shower, but if you want you and I can get some breakfast goin’ downstairs,” I suggested. “And by breakfast going I mean like cereal and toast or somethin’ ‘cos I ain’t a chef.”

Ethan laughed, “Cereal’s good.”

“We got Christmas Crunch,” I said as Ethan followed me down the steps, “The same good Captain Crunch taste with Christmas tree shapes and colors.”

“Sounds like an amazing sugar coma waiting to happen.”

“Basically,” I nodded.

Lauren and I had stayed up a little longer after our talk and gift exchange the night before preparing for the morning. I was bursting to bring him out to the living room, but I knew she’d kill me if I told him anything before she got downstairs, so I carefully kept Ethan in the kitchen, where I filled two huge bowls with Christmas Crunch and poured soy milk over them. We crunched and chewed our cereal loudly, talking about football and who sucked worse, the Buccaneers or the Titans.

This season, it was pretty close.

When Lauren came downstairs, she smelled like purple flowers and coconut. She took a box of blueberries out of the fridge as I jumped up from the table and put my half-finished bowl of cereal in the sink, eager to start the Christmas of it all. “C’mon, you can eat those in the living room can’t you?” I begged, pulling her hand in the direction of the foyer.

She laughed, “You’re like a kid,” she said, popping a berry into her mouth.

“Well, you better get used to it,” I said, smirking.

She smiled.

Ethan followed us out to the living room, and I grabbed a couple of the presents, playing Santa Claus, handing one to Lauren and tucking one under my arm. Ethan looked up in surprise as I dropped one onto his lap. “For me?” he asked, looking around at Lauren, then back to me.

“Yeah, it’s Christmas, of course,” I answered, sitting down on the arm of the couch and shaking the one I’d grabbed for myself by my ear, “What’d you think, we weren’t gonna get’cha nothin’ for Christmas?”

Ethan stared at me, “Honestly? I mean... ” he shook his head.

“Well, I’m sorry, bud, but, you’ve got yourself some Christmas unwrappin’ to do.” I shook my present more, tilting it differently. Lauren raised an eyebrow at me.

Mine turned out to be crazy blue socks with Nacho dogs all over them wearing party hats. “NACHO SOCKS!” I shouted when I ripped the paper off and Lauren uncovered a new bathrobe and Ethan an iTunes giftcard. We worked through the presents - I’d amassed a bunch of little presents over the year for Lauren, and apparently so had she, for me. One of the best ones was one that was hastily wrapped in the same paper as we’d used on the last minute gifts for Ethan, which turned out to be a teeny tiny Buccaneers jersey. She grinned as I freaked out over it and held it up to her stomach, “I think it’s too big right now,” I deduced.

Ethan looked over, the question in his eyes, “Wait, are you --”

Lauren looked up at me with raised eyebrows, then turned to Ethan, “Yes.”

He smiled, “Hey that’s awesome,” he said. “Congratulations.” He looked down at his lap.

Lauren took a deep breath, “Which brings me to a very important question, actually.” She shifted, glancing at me, then turned back to Ethan. “In the last couple days some, uh, situations have… changed,” she was choosing her words delicately, I could tell. I sat down on the arm of the chair she was in, holding the itty-bitty Buccs jersey in my hand, letting her put the words together, since she was better at that stuff than I was. “Right now, Nick and I have been granted temporary custody of you until we can work out a more permanent answer,” she cleared her throat, “But --”

Ethan ran his hands down his knees, “It’s okay. I get it,” he interrupted, “You don’t want some strange guy livin’ at your place when you’re -- pregnant or whatever. You wanna focus on your family. It’s cool.” He chewed his lower lip. “I just don’t wanna go to no group home or whatever, you know, so please don’t like turn me over to the cops or nothin’. I don’t mind going back to the grain mill. I mean, my sleepin’ bag’s still good and it’ll be getting warmer soon. If it’s okay, can I stay just until after January? ‘Cos it gets cold in January and ---”

“Dude. Ethan,” I interrupted him. He looked up at me. “We’ve been thinkin’ that our kid could use a big brother. Are you interested in the job?”

He stared, blinking, trying to process the offer. “Are you sayin’ -- that I could stay here? With you guys? Like… like a family or somethin’?” he asked.

“We’re asking you to,” I said.

“Begging, practically, really,” Lauren added.

Ethan looked stunned. “Really? You’re serious? You ain’t jokin’ me?”

“Really,” I nodded.

“Yes!” he shouted, jumping up, knocking the torn wrapping paper from his lap onto the floor. Then, realizing how loud he’d shouted, he cleared his throat and, much more refined, repeated, “Yes.” He sat back down, looking between Lauren and I anxiously, rubbing his knees, “That could really happen? Really?”

Lauren nodded, “I mean there’s a whole process we’ll have to complete to do it. I researched it some on the Internet. We have to do a family screening process and it’ll take a bit before it’ll be official and all that. But it would most definitely be worth it to have you in our family.”

Ethan nodded, and I could tell by the look on his face he was choked up. “You guys really want me?”

“More than anything, buddy,” I answered.

Ethan pounced at me, wrapping his arms around my neck, almost knocking me off the arm of the chair.

“This is the best Christmas,” he said.

I smiled down at Lauren over Ethan’s shoulder. It was true, it really was the best Christmas. I could tell she thought so too by the tears in her eyes, and the way she had her hand on her stomach.




That night, in the small hours of the morning really, Lauren and I lay on the couch in the colored glow of the Christmas tree, our bodies all tangled around each other, my palm on her stomach, the stupid YouTube fireplace up on the screen. She kissed my chin and rested her head against my chest and I ran my fingers up and down her arm gently, staring at the star on the top of the tree. Ethan was asleep in the chair, the 3DS I’d bought him on his lap, legs hanging over the arm. Lauren took a deep breath, “We went from no kids to two kids,” she whispered.

“We’re doing good,” I said.

“You’re going to be a good father,” she whispered.

“I hope so,” I answered.

“I know so,” she replied. “You already are.”

I hugged her close. “Jack’s gonna have a fit.”

Lauren laughed quietly, “It’s good for him.”

We stared at the fire for a few minutes in silence. Ethan snored and rolled a little bit into the back cushion of the chair. I was running my foot along Lauren’s calves. “Can you imagine what our lives will be like a year from now?” she asked.

“We’ll be knee deep in shit diapers and teen drama,” I said.

Lauren laughed.

“Legit. You should hear Jordan talk about his fifteen year old. Either Dante is the teen from hell or we’re in for a ride,” I said.

Lauren glanced over at Ethan, whose hair was covering his eyes as he slept. “Hmm. I think we’ll be okay. I mean, we might have some girl troubles in our future. He does look like a heartbreaker.”

“No worries. I got experience in that department,” I said. “I’ll school him in all he needs to know about the ladies.”

“Oh Lord.”

“What?”

“He’s gonna be out there hitting on girls with the worst pick-up lines in the history of all time,” she said.

“I don’t use lame pick-up lines,” I argued.

“Nick, please.”

“I can’t be too bad at ‘em, I got you, didn’t I?”

“Not because of your pick-up lines,” she answered.

“Bullshit,” I said. “I had you at hello.”

“If I had a star for every time I thought how sexy you are tonight, I’d be holding a galaxy in my hand,” she said in her imitation-me voice with a laugh.

“Nuh uh, I didn’t say that, did I?”

Lauren nodded, “Yes. When we were watching the stars the night we met. You said it in this low, trying-to-be-Barry-White sort of voice, all crouching at my ear like you were freakin’ Casanova or something.”

“Good God,” I muttered, shaking my head, “Maybe you better be the one to help him pick up women.”

She laughed.

I kissed her head, “I couldn’t’ve been too horrible, though, I mean you’re here, aren’t you?”

“True,” she replied. “I guess I’m a sucker for stupid pick-up lines.”

I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the feeling of her, smiling as I smooshed my nose into her hair. I didn’t care why she was there, only that she was. I felt so good and happy and content and all that. Everything that Christmas should be.

“We should start trying to think up some baby names,” Lauren said.

I opened my eyes again.

“What do you think of the names Bradley or Quinn?” she asked.

“Quinn? For a boy?”

“That’s a girl’s name.”

“We don’t need girl names. It’s a boy in there.” I ran my palm over her belly.

“It could be a girl. You don’t know.”

“I know. I can feel it.”

“I like the name Quinn.”

“What about the name Winston?”

“He’s not a cigarette.”

“See, you said it’s a he too,” I pointed out.

Lauren sighed, shaking her head at me.

I kissed her head.

“You ever think we’d make it here?” she asked after a pause, “After all the things we’ve been through since we started trying?”

“I never doubted it for a second,” I said.

“Liar,” Lauren laughed.