“Too late for that,” Morticia said, gesturing to the onlookers. Zane and his camera panned around us.
Owen took off his suit jacket and undid his cuff links, handing them to me.
“We'll just brute force it in. The pointy end of the tree is already facing the right way, so with some finagling, it has to come in.”
Walker and Beck looked at each other, shrugged, and removed their jackets.
“Holly, hold the doors back,” Owen ordered. He grabbed the tree and pulled, muscles bulging.
“It's like everything I ever wanted all in one package,” I said happily to Morticia.
“I would have expected you to want him in a Santa hat,” she said. “And nothing else.”
“Might be a little dangerous with all the branches,” I said, getting whapped in the face with one as the tree lurched forward.
“Walker and Beck, grab it around the trunk and pull,” Owen told his CFO and COO.
With the three strong men pulling, the tree lurched another few feet.
“Pull!” Owen commanded. A few more heaves and the tree was inside!
Everyone applauded.
“It's like a movie!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in celebration.
“There's tree sap in your hair,” Morticia said.
“Crap!” I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and blotted the spot.
“Oooh,” Morticia said, making a face. “Bad idea. Now you have a tissue stuck to your head. Gonna have to cut it out.”
“No,” I moaned, picking at the tissue.
“I still think you're sexy, even with Kleenex and tree jizz in your hair,” Owen whispered in my ear. He kissed my neck softly and took his cuff links from me.
I was feeling warm and tingly watching him roll down his sleeves. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me drooling.
“What? You guys all know that women go Christmas crackers for a nice forearm.”
“You make it sound so dirty,” he said.
“It's very dirty.”
While the tree was being tilted upright, two of Owen's employees came down with a big box.
“Let's see what you made.”
“We cut snowflakes out of old computer parts,” one of the guys said, showing me. “And we have old motherboards we laser cut with the Quantum Cyber logo.”
“See, Owen?” I said. “You can't tell me you don't want these types of Christmas ornaments.”
He inspected one. “These are pretty cool.”
It took the rest of the afternoon to trim the tree. While that was in progress, Owen brought me some WD-40 to remove the pine sap from my hair.
“Don't look at me,” I said to Zane as Owen dumped the chemical in my hair and carefully wiped the sap out.
“All gone,” he said after a moment.
