Garrett
I don’t even know why I’m going home for Christmas.
Home.
Technically, sure. Pine Harbour is my hometown. It’s where I was raised by my dad—if you can call benign neglect by an alcoholic single father who drank himself to an early deathraising—and it’s where I fell in love at the too-young-to-know-better age of sixteen.
But as soon as Rory left, I followed.
And for the next twelve years, I thought of Rory as my home.
Ironic, then, that the last gift I have to wrap, the one I don’t really want to wrap, is for her.
The cardboard box sat on my shitty secondhand coffee table until I finished packing everything else. It’s something I ordered for Rory in October, didn’t have a chance to give her in November, and decided—selfishly—not to give her three days ago.
Now it’s taunting me.
Jesus, I’m not looking forward to this week.
That’s probably why I’m dawdling. It’s not like I hadthat much wrapping to do. I have a bag of gifts for my cousins’ kids, and a few bottles of booze that’s only available in Quebec to soften my couch-surfing request when I get there.
Maybe if shit gets too depressing, I’ll sleep in my truck at my cousin Josh’s garage.
There’s also a nice cutting board for Rory’s parents wrapped up, too, in case we cross paths. Just because they’re my ex-in-laws doesn’t mean I forget how much they all love Christmas. Since I fucking don’t, if I’m going to buy presents, I’ll include the people who do. And if I don’t see them, well…it’s probably time I outfit the kitchen in this studio apartment a bit better than the dollar-store basics I bought nine months ago.
As I’m reaching for the wrapping paper, I get a weather alert on my phone. After a week of above seasonal temps, the rest of Ontario is finally getting some snow. Pine Harbour might get a white Christmas after all.
Rory will love that.
But she won’t love the drive.
Frowning, I fire off a quick message, hoping it sounds casual.
Are you on the highway or did you take the backroads? Looks like a storm is rolling in across Toronto.
Then I finish wrapping her present and shove it in the bag with the cutting board for her parents.
By the time I have everything in the truck, I give in to the need to check to see if she’s read my messages. Because Dr. Rory Minelli, Chief Fucking Resident, and the smartest person I’ve ever met, has her read receipts turned on.
Something I usually enjoy, watching thatdeliverednotification turn toread. I can practically hear her overactive brain whirring from the other side of Little Italy as she tries to decide how to reply to me.
But today isn’t like the other night, or in the summer. This isn’t…horny Garrett concern. This is just human being Garrett concern.
And she hasn’t read my text message.
She only wants one thing from you, dude, and it isn’t a weather report.
That doesn’t stop me from glancing at my phone again.
I tap my thumb against the steering wheel of my truck. Of course she isn’t going to open my messages—she isn’t in heat.
Swearing under my breath, because I’ve promised myself I wouldn’t do this, I swipe into her contact card.
The smartest woman I know also still shares her location with me. It’s reckless. It means she hasn’t thought about it at all, isn’t being careful. It isn’t right that I can find out at a glance where she is.
And one of these days, if I look at the wrong time, I’ll see her somewhere I wouldn’t want to know about—like on a date, or at the house of someone new.
But this morning, she’s still at home.
