That said, Venezio kept my spirits up by keeping me naked and too come-drunk to even form a coherent thought, let alone a complaint.
“You’re just cranky because Salvatore told you it was going to be at least two more weeks until you’re walking somewhat normally again.”
“Hey, he also said I’m a fast healer.”
“Yeah, which is why he said it’s gonna be two weeks, not four to six.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
I felt my stomach bottom out at that first estimate. Luckily, though, between Venezio, the wheelchair, and my own healing abilities, we cut that down.
“After Christmas, you’ve got nothing to do,” he reminded me.
That was fair. While the charity would run through the year—mostly relying on me setting up plans for the fall—I had nothing on my schedule but recording a fun summery rom-com in January. And, eventually, taking down all the decorations.
“But for Christmas, I have lots of plans.”
“That you will relay to me and I’ll handle.”
“Says someone who has never even made pasta before.”
“Everyone’s gotta learn sometime. And you’ll be there overseeing it all.”
I would be doing more than overseeing. There was no reason I couldn’t prep the foods while seated, then just trust him to do the cooking part. With lots of instructions.
I was disappointed that I couldn’t be the one doing it all. I really wanted to be the magic-maker, to prepare Christmas for Venezio the way my mom had done it for me for many years before I insisted on starting to help.
Especially because this was Venezio’s first real Christmas.
Well, at least he would have presents.
I’d been on my new phone, ordering gifts to be delivered to Andy and Sammy’s house for him. I was going to have to find a little time to slip over there to wrap them, since Andy would put everything into gift bags if I asked her to handle it. But I wanted Venezio to experience opening mismatched, colorful wrapping paper like I’d done for years.
“Where you going?” Venezio asked later that night as I tried to discreetly gather extra tape and scissors to bring with me to Andy and Sammy’s place.
“Andy and Sammy’s. Just for like an hour.”
“No,” he said, the sound bursting out of him.
“What?”
“I mean… did you call and ask?”
“I don’t really need to call and ask. We’re drop-in kind of friends.”
“Yeah, but they’ve been, you know, busy…”
He was being really weird.
“Alright. I’ll call,” I said, reaching for my phone in the little bag that I bought that hung off the arm of the wheelchair. “Hey!” I said when Andy answered. “I was just going to comevisitfor an hour, you know, before Christmas.”
“Oh. Um. No,” Andy said, making my brows pinch. “No, uh, we’re… about to have sex.”
“You’re… what?” I asked, a half-laugh escaping me.
“Yep. That’s right. Sweaty, amazing, pre-Christmas sex. You should have some too.”
“Andy, I need to… you know… with the stuff?”
