Mom’s eyes sadden just before something sparks in them.
“Well. We’re happy to have you. Carmen won’t stoptalking about you,” she grins, rubbing Carmen’s back as she cuts her an outraged look.
“That’s not actually true,” Carmen says cooly, like she didn’t drag Sloane into our house.
“I can’t really stop talkin’ about you, so I guess we’re even,” she tells her, and Carm lights up and smiles into her mug.
“Actually,” Mom pops up, wiping her hands on an imaginary apron, “I could use some help with the cookies. If you don’t mind helping me, Sloane?”
“The cookies?” Carmen chirps, just as I say, “Thecookies?”
“Yes,” my mom shrugs. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it?”
Sloane’s gaze bounces between us as she tries to interpret the moment before joining her. “My brother is a master baker, which means I’ve become a master assistant. I’d love to help you.”
“Me too!” Carm practically leaps out of her chair, heading to the pantry.
“You can figure out the movie.” Mom points to the television, giving me a knowing glance that tells me she can sense the unease between Sloane and I. The cookies haven’t been a part of our Christmases since Luis passed. We still watch a movie, but the cheer our traditions used to hold bled out years ago, was washed away by the river of everything that came after him.
“Mommy, can we play Christmas music?”
Sloane gasps, pulling her phone out, and moments later,Christmas Wrappingis blaring through the little counter speaker we mostly use for timers. Mom turns into a statue for a second, but I watch her breathe through it. Watch her hear one of Luis's favorite Christmas songs and smile at the sound. Sloane offers her a toothy smile, and my mom can’t help but give one back.
“Put me to work, Chef,” she says, lifting her hands with a pop of her shoulder.
Once I’ve foundSerendipity, I sneak away to the back storage closet and set Luis’s Christmas Village on the long built–in banister along the living room wall.
Predictably, Carmen only makes it halfway through. Mom, on the other hand, stays awake the entire time but is too mesmerized by the Christmas Village to really pay attention.
“I’m going to head to bed. Santa likes to comeearly,” she says as the closing credits roll on screen, side eyeing Carmen and the drool stuck to her cheek. “There’s a blow up in the hall closet and a bottle of wine in the fridge,” she adds as a throw away as I lift Carmen up from the couch.
Sloane sighs, shooting my mom a sleepy grin. “A woman after my own heart.”
Mom’s laughter carries through the hallway as she yawns and cracks Carm’s door open, pulling her sheets back so I can lay her down. Glasses clink in the distance as we tuck her in, and I reemerge to find Sloane sitting on the floor, back against the sofa, about to pour.
She lifts it in the air. “A drink, among friends?”
I know this is her calling a truce; her stepping over the elephant in the room and telling me it’s water under the bridge, and I wish I could let it go like that. Wish the kiss and her words outside the hospital weren’t still haunting me.
“Friends,” I say, reaching for the glass, candlelight dancing across the small grin on her face as I try to let that be enough.
I settle in on the floor beside her as she sighs looking at the lit tree, memories I’m not privy to playing in her eyes. Something whimsical passes through her gaze as her lips part, her eyes settling on the top, where an angel stands watch.
Just looking at her is overwhelming. But wanting her isn’tnew—it’s the craving that’s different. There’s something fatalistic about it, a recklessness that I know I should run away from. Wanting her for a moment in time suddenly feels like a sick joke. This feeling, if fed, would turn insatiable.
I need to—I have to—compartmentalize the kiss, the way I guess she has, the way I do everything else, and just get through the night. Make this all bearable, because it’s Christmas.
“You up for the roof?”
The idea isn’t a coherent one—it’s 4 degrees outside, the fire pit is probably packed with snow—but I say it anyway because I know she’ll like it. The narrow slant of her gaze is laced with mischief.
“It’s snowin’,” she says, looking up at me through thick lashes.
“Seems like it slowed down. Maybe I can start a fire,” I shrug, relaxing into the kind of cool I’m usually so practiced in, but fuck if I don’t feel unsteady.
Her lips curve into a hesitant smirk as she rakes her teeth over them, glancing out the window before standing up. “I guess there’s nothin’ else to do.”
We pull our coats on and I grab a few blankets, expecting the roof to either be covered in snow or damp from where it’s started to thaw, and head up, bottle in hand. The terrace lights are still on, softly twinkling over the mostly snow dusted furniture and fire pit. Regardless, I attempt to start a blaze with the starter logs one of the neighbors keeps in the cabinet out here. Once the snow’s been emptied, the log takes, warmth erupting into the dense chill around us, and Sloane hums her approval, stealing the blankets from my hold to spread them on the wet ground.
