The Stocking Was Hung (15 page)

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“This is dumb,”
I complain quietly in the dark room.

We’re both still naked and our limbs are tangled together under the covers, on our sides facing each other.

“It’s not dumb, just answer the question,” he replies, pulling me tighter against him.

After the best sex of my life when all I wanted to do was profess my undying love to the man and make a fool of myself, thankfully he asked me why I told him the day we met that I don’t really like Christmas, aside from having such a stupid name. At least this keeps my mind off of the fact that he’s leaving tomorrow.

“I explained my stupid reason for never saying Merry Christmas, you can give me a little more insight on why you don’t like the holidays,” he adds. “From what I have seen so far, aside from all the crazy, your family is great and makes a big, fun deal out of it. They even got
me
sort of liking Christmas.”

I sigh, pulling my head back to look at the shadows of his face.

“It’s dumb and you’re going to think I’m dumb,” I tell him stupidly.

“Spill it,” he growls.

“Fine!” I huff. “I guess as an adult, the fun is sort of gone. I mean, yes, my family goes all out, decorates this place like Santa himself threw up all over the place and it’s nice and all, but it’s just not the same as when I was little. There’s no excitement of waiting up to catch a glimpse of Santa or anything like that. The magic is just…gone. There’s nothing to look forward to but all the bills you’ll have to pay when Christmas is over and the mess you’ll have to clean up after everyone leaves. Tree comes down, stockings get packed away, and you go back to your regular, boring life with no sparkle or magic.”

I pause, realizing how ridiculous I sound.

“I know, I sound like an ungrateful bitch, but I can’t help it,” I sigh. “I do have a great family and they do make everything more fun, but I just miss the magic of being little I guess.”

Sam rests his chin on top of my head and traces soft circles with the tips of his fingers against my spine.

“Favorite childhood memory, go,” he suddenly says.

I smile, knowing immediately which one I’ll tell him about.

“Going to my grandmother’s on Christmas Eve when Nicholas and I were little,” I admit quietly. “We’d pack up the car with her presents and a bunch of food and drive twenty minutes to her house on back country roads. My favorite part of the entire night was staring out of the fogged-up backseat window, up into the starry sky to try and see a flash of light from Santa’s sleigh. There was always this one house a few miles from my grandmother’s that was my absolute favorite house. They didn’t go crazy with their lights, they just had a white wooden sleigh and eight matching reindeer on their front lawn with a spotlight on everything and the reindeer in front had a red, blinking nose. My dad would shout when it came into view saying,
‘Look! We caught Santa in someone’s yard!’
Nicholas and I would bounce up and down in the back seat, freaking out.”

I finish the story with a smile on my face, realizing it’s the first time I’ve thought of that memory without it making me sad and I know it’s because of the man who is holding me in his arms.

What the hell am I going to do tomorrow when he leaves?

There’s a sudden knock at the door and I sigh against Sam’s chest, wondering why in the hell all of my good moments are always interrupted.

“Hey, guys,” Aunt Bobbie whispers loudly through the door. “Is there a squirrel wearing a sweater in your room?”

I turn my head away from Sam and whisper-yell toward the door so I don’t wake up anyone else in the house. “Aunt Bobbie, stop it with the Ecstasy and go to bed!”

“Okay. Got it. Ten-four. Over and out,” she says softly through the wood. “But if you
do
see a squirrel wearing a sweater, tell him he owes me fifty bucks.”

I turn my head back toward Sam and rest it on his chest as he rolls to his back, staring out of the window across from us at the gently falling snow outside. The ring on my finger sparkles when it catches the light from the Christmas tree and I close my eyes with one last look at it, hoping Santa brings me some damn courage tomorrow to maybe tell Sam I don’t want him to go.

Sam

S
ocks.

Blue socks, red socks, yellow socks, socks with cats on them, socks with footballs on them, and even socks that light up every time you take a step.

Socks, socks, and more socks.

I never expected to even get
one
present from Noel’s family, let alone twenty. Each brightly colored and wrapped box and package filled with every pair of socks they sell at every store within a twenty mile radius.

Jesus, are those penises?

“Those are penis socks! They’re from me,” Aunt Bobbie says as she blows me a kiss.

“Have I apologized yet for telling them you had a thing for socks?” Noel whispers, leaning so close I can smell her cinnamon and vanilla scent, which I just found out is from some specialty lotion store after she opened three bottles of the stuff in her stocking.

“I love the socks. It’s fine,” I reassure her, rubbing my hand against her back as her brother tosses another present in my direction and it lands on my lap.

She looks at me like she doesn’t believe me, which is why I told her I loved her last night. After she fell asleep in my arms and couldn’t hear me whisper it in the darkness of her bedroom.

She’d never believe I was telling the truth.

Honestly, I don’t care if her family gives me a hundred pairs of socks, which going by the growing pile next to me on the floor of their living room, just might happen.

I quietly open the small box in my lap whose tag says it’s from Nicholas, while he also opens the ones from me that Noel handed to him from the pile between us.

The laughter comes fast and loud when I see there’s an athletic cup nestled inside the box and I hold it up for the room to see when Nicholas holds up his
A Christmas Story
stocking cap and matching socks.

“I figured you could use that the next time I go crazy with a Red Ryder,” Nicholas laughs, pulling the hat down over his head as I nod and tell him thank you for the cup.

This morning has been nothing short of amazing and my words have been few and far between as I sit here with this family that isn’t mine, watching them enjoy the holiday together. Everyone’s wearing matching pajamas—with the exception of me, I was granted a reprieve due to the cock and balls situation last night and allowed to put on my plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt—the coffee table was pushed out of the room to allow for presents and bodies as we all sit around the tree drinking coffee, munching on cookies and opening presents to the soft sounds of Christmas music floating around us.

This family is perfect. This woman next to me is perfect. Christmas is…dare I say it, perfect?

I’m going to stop being a pussy once and for all and tell Noel how I feel the first minute we get to ourselves. I don’t want to let this feeling go. This feeling of warmth and happiness and contentment and belonging for the first time in my life. I want to hold onto it like the present in my hand and never let it go.

The next hour is spent finishing opening up the massive amount of presents, followed by a quick clean-up of wrapping paper that was strewn from one end of the room to the other. While everyone busies themselves helping Bev in the kitchen get Christmas dinner ready, Noel grabs my hand and pulls me out into the hall and down by the front door.

Shit, is she kicking me out? Is she telling me it’s been nice but it’s time for me to go? I’m not ready, dammit. I’M NOT READY!

“I just wanted to give you your present without everyone watching,” she says quietly, pulling a flat, square-shaped present wrapped it snowman paper from behind her back and holding it out to me.

I release the breath I was holding and take the present, smiling down at her.

“You didn’t have to get me anything. NO ONE had to get me anything. This is all too much,” I reply, even though now that I’ve gotten a taste of getting Christmas presents, I want to open a thousand more.

“And
you
didn’t have to get everyone in my family something, but you did, so shut it!” she contends with a laugh.

“Your present isn’t quite ready yet,” I shrug in embarrassment, holding the present close to my chest. “It will be here later, I promise.”

She waves me off with her hand. “You didn’t have to get me anything. You being here, doing all of this and not running out the door screaming within the first five seconds of meeting my family was all the gift I needed.”

Right. Being here, pretending to be your boyfriend.

“Go ahead, open it,” she urges, bouncing up and down on the heels of her feet excitedly.

I quickly rip open the package, the paper dropping to the floor as I stare down at what’s in my hand.

I will NOT cry like a pussy. I will NOT cry like a pussy.

“You will always be part of this family, no matter what. I hope it’s not too cheesy, I just thought you’d like to have it to always remember us by. You know, when you
do
decide we’re all insane and finally go running out of here screaming,” she says with a nervous laugh.

I run my hand over the glass in the middle of the wooden frame with the words “Family” carved at the top in the very center. Inside the frame is a photo of the night of the lighting contest when Bev dragged us all to the front of the house and had one of the neighbors take a photo of us in front of the lights. I didn’t want to be in the picture. I flat out refused and told Noel no three times until the entire family started yelling at me to get my ass in the picture before they froze to death.

Reggie and Bev are squatting in front with their hands on their knees, Nicholas, Casey and Aunt Bobbie are standing on the ends behind them, and Noel and I are in the middle of everyone, her arm around my waist and my arm flung over her shoulder. Her head is tilted to the side resting against my chest and everyone has big, cheesy grins on their faces. You can see the blurry white of the snow falling around us and the glow of all the lights behind us.

It’s my first family photo and it’s perfect.

“Listen, Noel. I need to tell you something,” I begin softly, pulling my gaze away from the photo to look into her eyes.

“You hate the picture. I knew it was a dumb idea,” she sighs, reaching out to grab it from me.

“No!” I shout, moving it out of her reach. “No, I promise I don’t hate it. It’s perfect. I have to tell you something else. Something serious and important.”

She takes a step toward me and gazes up at me, her beautiful green eyes staring at me and I watch her swallow nervously.

“Good. Because I have something serious and important to talk to you about too,” she whispers.

Shit, was I wrong about this being one-sided? I mean, I’ve been hoping and wishing, but it all seemed too good to be true. The hopeful look in her eyes and the way she twists her hands together nervously makes me think I’ve been a big idiot and should have said something sooner instead of waiting until the day I’m supposed to leave.

Noel takes another step toward me until the frame is pushed up against my chest from her closeness, the wrapping paper I tossed on the floor crinkling under her stocking feet as she steps on it.

I take a deep breath and mentally prepare myself to say the words out loud.

“Noel, I lo-”

“NOEL! I LOVE YOU!”

A shout from outside cuts me off, proclaiming the words I was just about to say.

“What the fuck?” I mutter as we both turn our heads and look at the closed door right next to us.

“NOEL! ARE YOU IN THERE? I LOVE YOU!”

“Holy shit!” Noel gasps, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.

Footsteps sound in the hall behind us like a herd of elephants as the family runs out of the kitchen.

“What in Sam hell is all that yelling?” Reggie asks in annoyance, while I laugh like a lunatic hearing my name come out of his mouth for the first time. Of course it would be as a curse.

“NOEL! I’M SORRY! COME BACK TO ME! I LOVE YOU!”

Another muffled shout sounds from out of the front lawn and I hear Noel whimper next to me.

“No, no, no, no,” she mumbles under her breath.

“Brace yourself, Casey. The shitteth is about to hit the faneth,” Nicholas says as he wraps one arm around his wife and gives me a sympathetic pat on the back.

What the hell is happening right now, and who the fuck just interrupted me telling Noel I love her?

“Why is there a man in a three-piece suit with no coat, out on our front lawn yelling like a crazy person?” Bev asks, looking out the window right inside the living room next to us.

“Oooooh, that’s Armani. Very nice,” Aunt Bobbie coos, scooting next to Bev to get her own look out the living room window.

“NOEL? PLEASE! I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU!”

“Leon, do you know this person?” Bev questions, looking back over her shoulder at the extremely quiet woman standing next to me, before lowering her voice in a loud whisper. “Is he on drugs? Leon, are you friends with druggies?”