Christmas Kitsch (Hol) (MM) (22 page)

“I’ll walk you to the truck,” I told him.

He gestured helplessly to the wall. “We didn’t even put your quilt up.”

I laughed helplessly. “Oliver, I’m sleeping under the damned quilt. It can go on the wall after the heat goes on.”

“But . . . but—”

His wore one of those big Army jackets, canvas and warm. It had a patch that said Campbell on it, and I wondered if his dad had been part of Desert Storm. I would put money on it, because his dad was just that kind of quiet guy who would do that and not brag about it, and I was grateful for the jacket now as I took it off the kitchen counter. It would keep him warm. I cut off his protests with a kiss and helped him into the sleeves, then buttoned it up under his chin.

I made sure the door was unlocked, so I could get back in, and then opened it and held out my hand.

“Come on, baby. We both have life in the morning, and this isn’t the night I want you to stay.”

His eyes were damned shiny and his frustration showed when he said, “I don’t want to leave you here.”

I smiled at him, and it felt genuine. “Hey, I’ve got food, I’ve got water, a bed, blankets—Rex even managed to save my pillows. Tomorrow I’ll get shampoo and toothpaste, and we’ll put stuff up on the walls. Don’t worry. It’ll be someplace you can come sleep over soon.” But I didn’t want him living there, I thought adamantly. He lived in a place with dogs and flowers. He couldn’t live in this place, not with the blow-up bed and the cold and the walls that smelled like last year’s paint.

Oliver shook his head, but he followed me outside, and I shut the door to keep in whatever heat there was.

I walked him across the lawn to his dad’s truck and gave him the keys. He searched through his pockets, solemnly handed them over, and then he grimaced.

“You could probably drive the truck to my house tomorrow. You know, I really like your car.”

I grinned. “We’ll trade off. I’ll get there before you need to leave.”

Oliver nodded and frowned a little. “Rusty, you don’t have to do this alone.”

I kissed him. “I didn’t, right? I totally had company.”

He got into the truck and drove away, and I hustled back to my cold apartment. I slept in sweats, under three comforters and a quilt, on top of a surprisingly comfortable air mattress, with my phone charging next to me as an alarm clock. As long as I stayed in my little blanket fort, curled up in the dark, I could pretend I was a kid, and the world outside made sense, and this was all for play, and someone would take care of me when I woke up.

It was how I got to sleep, and it was the lie I told myself every time I woke up because I could hear street noises from my apartment, and I missed the dogs sleeping on me on Mr. Campbell’s couch.

I woke up in the morning groggy, cold, and hungry, but I was damned grateful for the milk in the fridge and the cereal in the cupboards. Oh, and for the toilet paper in the bathroom, too.

I wasn’t expecting to work on Friday and Saturday, but Mr. Campbell needed me. On Saturday Oliver got the key from me in the morning and let Nicole into my apartment. Together the two of them put up all of the posters and stuff I’d had in my dorm and my room at home. I only saw it for a minute, but I think they did a good job. I was so glad to be actually working for a wage at that point, contributing to the dwindling numbers in what was now my checking account, that I would have stayed there at the jobsite forever, pounding nails, cleaning tools, whatever Mr. Campbell needed me to do, so he’d know how thankful I was for the job.

But he didn’t let me do that. He brought me over for dinner instead.

The first night, he said it was to celebrate my first day as his new employee.. Oliver had left a bag of toiletries—shampoo, toothpaste, a new toothbrush, body soap, face wash, a washcloth, two matching bath towels, and embarrassingly enough, a jumbo bottle of Astroglide—in the back of the Toyota when I took it home.

I was grateful, and I’m pretty sure everyone around me was grateful the next day, too. The second night, Mr. Campbell told me to sleep over, and I was so tired from sleeping in the cold apartment—or not sleeping—and so happy for the warmth and the couch and the dogs, that I did.

Oliver curled up against me and slept too, and I didn’t object to that either. I slept in, waking only to clutch Oliver a little tighter to my chest, and every time, he patted my hand.

The next morning, I woke up and I heard him in the shower. Mr. Campbell was sitting at the table in the kitchen, drinking coffee (which smelled heavenly) and eating granola. He looked content, I thought, wondering where that thought came from.

I realized I’d caught his eye as I was blinking awake.

“How you doing there, Rusty?”

“Omigod, izzat coffee?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Coffee. Did you miss it?”

“
So
much.” There were little dogs all over me, and I was sitting up gingerly when Mr. Campbell walked to the side door, opened it, and gave a quick whistle. All of a sudden, there were no dogs, only a furry, yappy little tornado of animals out the door. I realized I didn’t even know their names. They always were just treated like a pack.

“Thanks!” I yawned again. “If I could use your shower, I’ll be out of your—”

“No, don’t leave. We’re going to get our Christmas tree today. Come with us!”

I thought of my apartment. On the one hand, I sort of wanted to spend time in it and see if maybe being there would make me hate it less.

On the other hand . . . well, it was
Christmas
, right? And my Thanksgiving had both really sucked and really rocked. There was still a little kid in me who believed in the pretty tree and presents and not being able to sleep at night because you didn’t know what was going to show up with your name on it in the morning. Nicole had once crept into my room and talked all night about how she was going to get one of those life-sized kid dolls, the creepy ones with the hair you could style. She hadn’t—she’d gotten a bicycle instead, and she’d liked it well enough. The next year, Estrella took us to see Santa, and Nic told him that she wanted a goldfish.

I gave Estrella my allowance that year, and Nicole had come into my room and talked about how she’d know Santa was
really
real, if only she ended up with a goldfish. She’d gone back to her room in the morning, and Estrella had set up a fish in a tank. It was a beta fish, because they crap less, but Nic hadn’t cared. It had been a
fish
, and for another two years, Estrella and I had managed to keep her excited about Christmas.

The year before, Oliver had come to visit after the gifts in the morning. I’d known he was coming. He’d called me up the night before and told me he’d gotten a radio-controlled helicopter and asked if I’d like to help him fly it. I had like six of them (they’d shown up in my boxes of crap, actually), but I hadn’t told Oliver that. My house was back from a hill. Across the street was undeveloped land that looked down over Blue Ridge, and Oliver and I had flown that helicopter through three sets of batteries. I remembered that, from the time he’d called me to the time he’d shown up and knocked on my door, his father’s truck looming in the background, I’d felt that crystalline excitement in the pit of my stomach, the same feeling I’d gotten when I knew Nicole was going to get her fish.

Yeah. A part of me still believed in Christmas. And Oliver’s dad had just asked me if that part could come out and play.

“Sure, Mr. Campbell. I can’t think of anything better, actually.”

He smiled, like my coming had been the most natural thing in the world, and asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee.

You know when people talk about a perfect day?

A perfect day for me will always start with tiny dogs and a warm house in the winter, and coffee, and people glad to see me when I wake up.

This perfect day moved on to a trip to Foresthill—no Christmas tree lot for Oliver’s dad, no. We drove the two hours up to Foresthill and we picked out a tree, and I sawed it down, and Oliver and I carried it back. It wasn’t a ten-footer—my folks always got ten to twelve feet—because something that big would be stupid in the Campbell’s little house, but six feet wasn’t bad.

They were selling wreaths, too, with big fabric bows and ornaments already fixed into the boughs with wire. Oliver bought one of those with his own money, although Mr. Campbell’s furious Spanish told me that was bad.

“He doesn’t want the wreath?” I asked, blowing on my hands and shoving them in my pocket. I had that big winter coat, but I had left it at the apartment. I was wearing a plain, old hoodie, no hat, no gloves, no scarf. All that stuff was back in my apartment, and I kept forgetting to put it on.

Oliver took my hands in his—he was wearing fleece gloves—and blew on my fingers. “No, he wants it, but I wanted to pay for it myself.”

“Why?” I liked the wreath. It was Christmassy without being too big or overwhelming.

“Because it’s for you,” Oliver said against my fingers. “So when you wake up, you know Christmas is coming.”

I should have protested, but his lips were touching my knuckles, and I’m not proud—I can admit it made me stupid.

“Thank you,” I murmured, and he smiled, that shy little smile that said he knew I was probably sporting wood. The Christmas tree place was hopping—lots of families, lots of people trekking into the six inches of snow and coming back after slaying a Christmas tree in the red dirt of the Sierras.

I didn’t care. I suddenly loved him so hard, it was like my skin was bursting with it. I pulled his knuckles up to
my
lips and kissed them, and then I leaned forward and kissed
him
. His mouth was warm—he had a coat, a hat, and mittens—and I wanted to climb into that lovely, lovely heat. He opened his mouth and let me in, and my kiss kept going deeper, like if I pushed deep enough into his body, I’d find Christmas.

My erection actually made me stop, because I could hear kids shouting to each other, and parents shouting at their kids, and I didn’t want to get freakin’ arrested. Oliver and I had to rest our foreheads against each other to calm down, our breaths puffing white in the air that smelled like Christmas trees.

“You’re welcome,” he said softly. “I’ll have to come over tonight and help you put it up.”

I wrinkled my nose. “We’re not going to be done decorating your tree until almost nine o’clock, Oliver. Maybe you should come see it tomorrow.”

His eyes bulged and for a minute he looked furious, and then Mr. Campbell called to us both, and we went to help him tie the tree to the top of his big half-ton.

He stopped for dinner at the Ore Cart on the way back, and we got to eat these
gigantic
hamburgers that were actually grilled
in an ore cart
. One of the original ones, from the gold rush and everything. They had a history of the place on the menus. Apparently, it was the oldest building in Foresthill because the roof was made of sod, and that meant that back during the gold rush it hadn’t burnt down like the rest of the town, which was made of timber and tents. There also used to be a bunch of tunnels underneath it. See, the place used to be a post office, and they weighed gold and handed out money, and people were afraid of getting robbed. So they built a tunnel going from the owner’s house to the Ore Cart, so he wouldn’t get robbed walking home, and one tunnel from the front door to the regular motel, and one tunnel to the hotel with the hookers.

That last part made me laugh pretty hard, and Oliver shook his head.

“What?” I asked through a mouthful of red meat and sourdough bread.

“Rusty, you would
never
take that tunnel,” he said with conviction, and I shrugged.

“Well, I guess they would have had to have boys there as well as girls.”

Oliver rolled eyes at his father. “Never,” he muttered. “He would
never
take that tunnel.”

Mr. Campbell laughed at his son like they were sharing a private joke. “Maybe he’d take that tunnel if the time was right,” he said gently, and Oliver narrowed his eyes.

“The time is right,” he said decisively. “You watch.”

Mr. Campbell shook his head then, almost afraid. “No, no, no, no, no—Oliver, I’m a good
papi
, but not
that
good!”

Oliver gasped at him for a minute, and I kept plowing through my burger, not even trying to figure out what they were talking about. Food. What can I say? It’s a weakness.

The tree looked great, though, when we were done with it. Mr. Campbell got out the box of Christmas ornaments from the garage, and there were a bunch of these icicle-shaped blown glass ones, that looked like they were made of angel’s wings, with a tint of gold in the glass. I was terrified to touch them. They would break, I was sure of it, with my slightest breath. Oliver took them from my fingers when he realized they were shaking.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “We break one or two every year. They were Mommy’s—it’s like she gives us a way to let her slip out of our minds.”

Okay. Yeah. Frickin’ great. I was glad Oliver was the one hanging those up. I got to hang up the other ones, the ones that they’d gotten from garage sales or discounted at Target, or that Oliver had made in grade school. The ones that were tempera paint and macaroni or wood. I loved those. Mr. Campbell made us hot chocolate and told us about each ornament that Oliver made, and Oliver didn’t interrupt him, even though I could tell he was a little embarrassed. When we were done, and Mr. Campbell was going around to turn off all the lights before we turned on the ones on the tree, Oliver leaned over to me quietly.