My mom and dad look at each other and then say in unison, “And a partridge in a pear tree.”
So it goes around the table, everyone figuring out which groaner pun goes next. Some are terrible—Thor, Thor who? Thor E. Frenchens—and some are corny—Fork, Fork who, Fork Awling Birds. But they all make us laugh, and after each punchline, we sing the rest of the song as a group.
When we get to five golden rings each time, there’s a tiny twinge of regret deep in my belly, but with Garrett’s warm, muscular thigh pressed against my leg and his arm slung casually around the back of my chair, I can’t feel sorry for myself.
We may have bruised each other a lot this year, a real struggle as he told my dad, but somehow we’re ending the year together again, if in the most tentative, feeling-it-out kind of way.
Dinner is slow and indulgent. My mom has outdone herself, with raisin studded sausage and onion stuffing, orange and cranberry relish, green bean casserole, butternut squash,roasted beets, and a golden turkey that tastes like heaven.
My dad serves a nice bottle of wine, coming around the table to fill everyone’s glass himself. When he gets to me, he kisses the top of my head and pats Garrett on the shoulder. “I’m glad this one went out in the snow to bring you home.”
“More than once,” I murmur. And then I hold Garrett’s gaze as my dad moves on. The depth of feeling in his eyes tells me that he’s also thinking of the other morning. “I’m glad you came to find me.”
“Always,” he says, and it feels like a promise that I can believe with surprising ease.
After a bottle of ice wine, a tray of toddler-decorated Christmas cookies, and five brutal games of euchre, my family slowly heads upstairs to bed, and Garrett and I finally have the back room to ourselves.
After we take turns in the bathroom and I take my pill with a quick gulp of water in the kitchen, Garrett turns out all the lights—except the ones on the tree.
He’s wearing his comfy clothes from last night, soft sweatpants and a faded t-shirt. I’m wearing long johns and a t-shirt, nothing underneath. Very ordinary clothes, nothing sexy per se, but there’s a quiet arc of electricity in the air.
“Not to bring up the unfortunate topic of Christmas presents again,” he says. “But I noticed there’s still a gift under the tree with my name on it.”
I gasp and race to find it.
“I can’t believe I forgot.” I hand it over. “And it might bethe wine talking, but I’ve been thinking more about the…you know.”
His mouth curves up in a slow, sexy smile. “Dildo.”
My tummy quivers. “Yes.”
He stretches out on the couch, his gift unopened in his hands. “What have you been thinking?”
“If it had been a private gift…if I’d opened it now, when everyone is asleep upstairs…and you’d had a chance to explain why you were giving it to me…”
“That’s a lot of conditions.”
“But they’re important, because I know that’s what you intended.”
“I don’t know. I think no matter what, it would have pushed on some bruises that I wasn’t seeing.”
I blink, surprised. Not at the thoughtfulness of it—Garrett has shown me a lot of that kind of careful kindness the last few days. But I’m genuinely surprised that he thinks hedidn’tsee something in me.
“What kind of bruises?” I ask, and then wave my hands. “Wait. Wait. Open your present. They might be related, in a way.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Oh?”
“Tangentially.”
He rips away the ribbon and paper, then turns the timer over in his hands. It doesn’t take him long to clock what first caught my eye. “Ninety minutes?”
“Like it was made for us.” I take a deep breath. “And because I’m sometimes a chicken about the hard conversations, but maybe a clucking bird might be a way to diffuse some of the emotion around that.”
“A chicken?” He frowns and looks from me to the bird, and back again. “It’s a partridge.”
“What? No, it’s a chicken. It clucks.”
“Partridges are in the chicken family.”
