“Oh, red or green?” I asked them. “And I don’t have your presents here.”
“Verde,” Forest said. “Green is her best posole and don’t worry, we swung by your house, gave Barnaby his present and picked ours up.”
“You guys got Barnaby a present?”
“Yeah, and if you don’t like it, we can return it,” Forest said, looking sheepish.
Sam put the bags down, took his phone out and showed me a picture of a cute cat tower I had mentioned getting last month. Barnaby was already lying down on one of the perches with a hideous sweater on.
“Guys, I love it,” I said softly, afraid if I said anything more I would start to cry.
“He seemed to like it,” Forest said, coming behind me to wrap his arms around me. “He liked the house at the bottom too.”
“Thank you,” I said, turning around to bury my face in his neck because I was ready to cry again. “Not that I’m complaining, but what is he wearing in that photo?”
Sam laughed, pulling something out of a bag as Forest shook his head.
“Since you love this shit, I figured we’d all wear an ugly-ass sweater,” Sam said, passing around the ugliest Christmas sweaters I had ever seen and they immediately put them on, no questions asked.
Dammit, I loved an ugly sweater party.
“Guys, are you purposely trying to make me cry?” I asked, pulling my sweater over my fire department shirt, giving myself a second to control my emotions.
“No, but if these are happy tears, then I’m ok with it,” Forest said, as my head popped out of the head of the sweater and he kissed me softly. “If not, this was all Peach’s idea.”
“Screw you,” Sam said, throwing something at Forest, but he caught it before it hit us. “I knew he would love this.”
“I do, thank you,” I said, nuzzling closer to Forest.
“Well, in that case, I helped,” Forest said, kissing my forehead, then heading to the bags to unpack them.
I chuckled. “I would have been happy if you had just popped in to say, ‘Merry Christmas’”
“Nah, what kind of boy—” Sam stopped himself, “people would we be if we let you spend Christmas with your coworkers?”
I kind of wished he had said boyfriends because that's what this felt like. They were my people, I loved them. Sam kept unloading bags as Forest stopped to look at him and then me. He caught his flub, too. A look of panic crossed his face before he steeled his expression into something more carefree.
Forest worried me the most. That’s why I hadn’t brought up anything about our future or what we were because I had a feeling the moment I did, he would either end this or leave. Nothing tied Forest to Sterling Ridge, and I was afraid that we wouldn’t be enough…
That scared me the most.
“Come on, before you get a call, I had a taste of this posole and it was freaking amazing,” Forest said, putting some bowls out when his phone rang.
He pulled out his phone from his pocket, staring at it for a while before silencing it and putting his phone back in his packet. I wondered if it was his family or if Forest even had a family. He never talked about them.
“I get to choose the movie,” I said, turning on the TV.
“Pick something good,” Sam teased, pulling out gifts and putting them by the tree.
“Forest made a good point, we should probably open the presents after we eat or now,” I said, getting excited to watch Elf. “We don’t know when I’ll be called in.”
Forest chuckled. “Called it.”
“Dammit,” Sam said, giving me a bowl with all my favorite toppings on it. “Let’s eat and then we can open gifts.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, but as soon as I had some of Nova’s posole, I probably wouldn't care about the gifts.
“Fuck, that woman can cook,” Forest groaned. “What are the chances we can steal her from them?”
