“Really.”
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it all,” I said, and hoped that was true. “Let’s get everything we need for the tree.” He grinned at me before choosing several boxes of glass ornaments and adding them to the stack of lights. “We should probably tell Jack we want one of his trees, so he doesn’t sell them all.”
“Oh my god I can’t believe I forgot about that,” Isaac said, and rushed over to where Jack was helping someone by the fishing area.
“Give me just a second,” Jack said to Isaac with wide eyes that I knew he hoped got his message through to Isaac.
“What do you need?” Hudson asked as he came strolling out from somewhere in the backroom where he seemed to hide out when he could.
“We want to get a tree,” Isaac said.
“Well come on then, we just got a delivery of fresh ones early this morning.”
“You have live trees? I thought you only had the fake ones,” Isaac said as we followed Hudson through the store and the office before walking out the back door. They’d set up their parking lot like a small tree lot complete with a table that held a few pastries and a container labeled hot chocolate.
“How did I miss this?” I asked and wandered over where the trees were all displayed.
“Oh wow, you guys really did get more this year,” Isaac said. There were boxes of artificial trees stacked next to the table and one of them was set up as a sample. Isaac touched it as he walked by to get to the live trees. “I’d really like to have a live tree.”
“Then we’ll get a live tree,” I said and moved to where he was now examining the trees.
“What about at your house? We need to get two,” Isaac said like it was no big deal.
“We’re at your house a lot more than we are at the ranch.”
“So?” he asked and gave me a look that said this was not up for negotiation.
“I haven’t put up a tree since I moved out on my own,” I admitted, and wondered why that was. I loved Christmas and enjoyed all the lights and decorations, but once I had my own place, I never took the time to decorate or make it special.
“Never?” Isaac asked.
“Nope, not once. I don’t even have any decorations at the house.” Isaac looked at me like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing before shaking his head and grabbing my hand.
“Come on, we’re going to get everything we need to decorate both houses. This fucking sale better be as amazing as Jack said it is,” he said, well, grumbled that last part.
“Let’s just get stuff for your place,” I said.
“No, I can see in your eyes you want it all. All the decorations, all the lights, and glitter. Fucking everything. We’re going to make it look like Santa, Rudolph, and all the other reindeer threw up all over the place,” he declared and started grabbing more lights and ornaments than we’d already chosen.
“Isaac, are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure. Now start grabbing before someone else comes in and takes all the good stuff.” Once he was sure we had enough, we walked over to look at the artificial trees. “I think we should get an artificial tree for your place since we’re not there as often. That way it won’t dry out.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said because he was a man on a mission and whether I actually wanted a tree or not didn’t matter. He was going to make sure I had it. We walked up to the counter and Isaac plopped everything down before crossing his arms and staring at Jack, who smirked at him before starting to scan it all.
“Good thing we’re having a sale,” Jack finally said.
“Good thing I also get the friend discount,” Isaac said.
Jack looked up at him—and smirked again. “Good thing,” he said and gave Isaac the total.
Five
Isaac
Right after I boughta good chunk of the decorations, a group of people walked in and bought nearly everything else. “Looks like you got lucky today,” Jack said after they’d left.
“I’m glad we got everything we need. Now we can go home and decorate,” I said.
