Sleighed It Read online

  “We burned the midnight oil getting here last night!” my dad exclaimed. “But have no fear, we managed to get a few hours of shut-eye so we can join in on all the holiday fun today!”

  Have no fear? Was he fucking kidding me?

  Fear was the only emotion I had.

  Visions of Christmases past danced around in my head, and by the time my thoughts had rounded Terror Lane and headed straight for Worst-Case Scenario Boulevard, I had to shut my eyes just to avoid the possibilities of what another holiday spent with my parents would mean. Explosions…the cabin going up in flames…the deck sliding down the mountain…

  And the insurance policy on this cabin was in my name! At least disaster at their house didn’t up my premiums.

  “What in the fluffing hell is going on? It’s not even nine in the morning!” my best friend’s voice filled my ears, and I opened my eyes to find her peeking outside the French doors of one of the guest bedrooms.

  “Cass! Who’s out there?” Thatch’s voice filled the otherwise quiet morning air, and moments later, his giant head peeked over Cassie’s shoulder and out the doors. “What the hell is that?” He squinted against the early morning sun. “Who parked their house on the lawn?”

  “Cass! Thatch!” my mother called up toward them with a wave. “Good morning!”

  “Savannah?” Cassie questioned, and my father went ahead and answered for her.

  “It’s Dick and Savannah, honey!”

  Both Cassie and Thatch grinned. Like actual, happy grins.

  Those were two things I wasn’t feeling or doing in that moment. Hadn’t anyone remembered the point of this holiday was to avoid the tragic Christmas scenarios that stuck to my family like glue?

  “Dick, my man,” Thatch hollered down at my parents. “When did you get here?”

  “Late last night!”

  “That’s fantastic!”

  It only took a few moments of shouting for my body to eventually jolt out of its frozen state of shock. “All right! Everyone inside. We don’t need the neighbors to think there’s some sort of domestic dispute.”

  “Sorry, Georgie!” my dad continued to shout, and I cringed. “We’ll get dressed and come inside for breakfast! Hope you’re making something good for us!”

  Jesus Christ. Making something good for them? I didn’t even fucking invite them.

  But seriously, who did invite them? That was the biggest question of the morning.

  I looked up at Cassie and Thatch and scrutinized their faces. Was it them? Were they the assholes who spilled the beans to my parents?

  Eventually, Cassie’s eyes met mine, and she immediately started shaking her head. “It wasn’t me, Wheorgie,” she called down. “It was not me.”

  “What wasn’t you, Cassie?” my mother yelled toward her.

  “I was just telling Georgia that all of the loud sex groans last night were from Thatcher,” she lied. “He gets so horned up when I tickle his balls while we’re banging.”

  Yeah, real nice cover-up, Cass.

  Nothing said Happy Holidays like a good old testicle tickle.

  I shut my eyes and sighed.

  If anyone ever wanted to know what The Nightmare Before Christmas really looked like, it was this—my best friend shouting about tickling her husband’s balls while my dad scratched his own through his Hugh Hefner-style robe on my front lawn.

  “Hey, Thatch, check this out!” My dad’s voice forced me to open my eyes again. “Merry Christmas! Shitter was full!” he exclaimed as he reenacted the infamous scene from Christmas Vacation with a hose from our yard pointed directly toward the sewer.

  Thatch and my dad started cracking up, and I wanted to kill everyone.

  “Dad!” I called his attention. “Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen. I’ve got cinnamon rolls and coffee for breakfast.”

  He responded with a thumbs-up and a smile, and I headed inside before I did or said something I would regret.

  As I walked into the kitchen and put the cinnamon rolls in the oven, I mentally added another item to my to-do list.

  ASAP: Figure out who in the fuck invited my parents to Christmas in the Catskills.

  Feliz Fu-luffing Navidad

  December 23rd Afternoon

  “Vanna!” Dick shouted from the entryway as he slipped on his boots and opened the front door. “It’s time, sweet cheeks! Come to the RV and give Dick some sugar!”

  I could hear Georgia’s sigh from the kitchen as she worked on a chocolate cream pie for tonight’s dessert.

  Her mother giggled. “Just a few minutes, honey! I’m just finishing up this eggnog, and I’ll meet you there!”

  “I’ll be the strapping man in his birthday suit sprawled out on our bed!” Dick called over his shoulder before stepping onto the front porch and shutting the door behind him.

  “It’s Papas birthdays, Daddy?” Julia asked me with wide, excited eyes. “I wants a birthdays suit for mines birthdays too!”

  I glanced toward the kitchen, and by the look on my wife’s face—exasperation, annoyance, at the end of her fucking rope—I knew she’d had more than her fill of her parents. They’d been here, inside the cabin, trying to take charge of everything Georgie had planned for the day since this morning.

  My wife’s cinnamon roll breakfast? Dick had to add pancakes, eggs, and bacon.

  The two p.m. Christmas book with the kids? What had started out as Thatch reading The Polar Express had turned into Dick showing the kids funny YouTube videos of dogs dressed up as elves.

  Pretty much everything my wife had planned, her parents had decided to put their own twist on it. Hell, the fact that she’d lasted a whole seven hours without strangling one of them was a Christmas miracle.

  “Papa is just being funny,” I responded. “It’s not really his birthday.”

  “But whys he gonna wears his birthdays suit?”

  Thanks a lot, Dick.

  “It’s probably just a funny suit that makes Mimi laugh a lot.”

  “Can I’s sees it? I like funny things!”

  Unless you want to be traumatized for the rest of your life…

  “No, sweetheart,” I responded and quickly utilized the redirection tactic. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  I kneeled down and whispered into her ear, “I know where Mommy hid the special Christmas candy.”

  Julia grinned from ear to ear.

  “But you have to promise to keep it a secret.”

  “I promises! I promises!” she exclaimed on a whisper-yell. “Can I haves some now?”

  “I promise when Mommy is busy with something upstairs, I’ll sneak you a piece,” I said quietly. “But you have to promise to keep it a secret. Deal?”

  “Deals, Daddy.” She nodded and held out her little hand to seal it. “I won’t tells anyone. Not even Ace.”

  “Good girl.” I smiled. “Now, go find Ace and see what Christmas movie he wants to watch later.”

  “Okay!” she shouted and ran for the hallway just as Georgie gave me the secret signal that she’d be sneaking upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms to get everything ready to wrap presents.

  Yeah. My wife even had secret signals planned out. Ones that I was required to memorize, mind you.

  Good thing she was so fucking adorable.

  “Dude!” Thatch’s booming voice echoed from the living room. “Get back in here! The third quarter just started!”

  I glanced at my watch and realized the Mavericks had probably started playing the second half five minutes ago, and I made my way toward the TV. Thatch was sprawled out on a leather recliner.

  “Bailey looks like he’s ready to kick some serious tail.”

  I grinned. “If he plays as well as he did the first half, I think we can pull this one out.”

  “Kline!” my mother-in-law called from the kitchen. “Let Georgie know I’ll be back later, but I left my eggnog in the fridge for her and Cassie!”

  I nodded. “Will do.”

  Thirty min
utes later, and Thatch and I were one hundred percent invested in the game. Well, we were, until Cassie walked in while corralling all four kids into the living room with us.

  “Listen up, boys,” she instructed.

  Both Ace and Gunner turned to listen, but she shook her head. “No babies, Mommy’s talking to the big boys right now.”

  Thatch reached out a hand instead of turning his attention away from the TV and felt blindly for his wife. Unsurprisingly, his hand made contact with her boob, and he proceeded to honk it. She smacked his hand and then went for his dick, and he did a bob and weave to the side.

  I smirked and suggested with a chuckle, “Maybe Wes should bring you on as a contractor to work on the players’ moves.”

  “I got reflexes, son,” Thatch commented back automatically.

  “Men!” Cassie snapped. “Take your chickens out of your hands long enough to fluffing listen to me.”

  “Chickens in hands, chickens in hands,” Ace chanted.

  “Chickens?” I questioned, and Thatch turned hard eyes to me.

  “Yeah, Kline. Chickens. The old chicken fight. Chicken-a-doodle-doo.”

  “I think I got it,” I said with a smirk before taking a pull of my beer. “Our Richards.”

  “Exactly,” Cassie confirmed. “I know they’re both big—” She leaned around Thatch and made eyes at me, whispering low enough so little ears couldn’t hear, “Especially yours, Big-dick Brooks.”

  I smiled, and Thatch snapped, “Hey!”

  “But you have an assignment. You are on kid duty until further notice.”

  Thatch jerked his head to the TV with a whine. “But the game’s onnnnn.”

  “Listen,” Cassie whispered menacingly. “If I have to go up there and slap paper into the shape of swans with the Christmas Monster, you have to watch the kids. Deal with it.”

  Thatch opened his mouth to whine some more, but I cut in. “That’s fine, Cass. Go on up and have fun.”

  “Yeah, fun,” she remarked with a scoff. “That and pulling my hair out by the roots. My two favorite activities.”

  Thatch swung an arm around her shoulders and nuzzled his big head into her neck. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean his next words were too low for me to hear. “Oh, come on. You know you like a little hair-pulling.”

  Christ.

  “Bye, Cassie,” I called, and they thankfully broke it up. She gave me a thumbs-up as she was leaving, and Thatcher broke down into a near fit of giggles.

  “What in the h-e-double hockey sticks is so funny?”

  He jerked his head to the door and smiled. “That’s her new PG way of giving the finger.”

  The crowd on the TV got loud suddenly, and both of us turned to the screen to find out the cause—PG middle finger completely forgotten.

  Fourth quarter, eighteen seconds on the clock, third down, and the Mavericks had the ball. Shit had just gotten real.

  “Fu-luffing hell. Bailey needs to convert this pass, or else Miami is going to ruin their shot at a bye during the division play-offs.”

  “Fuluffing?” I repeated with a grin. “That’s a new one.”

  “Suck it, K,” Thatch muttered, but not quietly enough for his mini-me.

  “Suck it!” Ace shouted gleefully and punctuated his words with two finger guns firing in the air. “Suck it! Suck it!”

  “Listen, little dude…” Thatch sighed and stopped his son with a gentle grab of his wrist, midair gun shootout. “Do not repeat anything I say for the next five minutes. Not a single word, understand?”

  The next five minutes? How about the rest of his life? That would’ve been a better approach in my humble opinion.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Ace shrugged. “But after five minutes, no big deal?”

  I chuckled, and Thatch flashed a glare in my direction.

  “How about just don’t repeat anything I say, okay?”

  “O-kaaaaay, Daddio,” he responded with a little nod and then sprinted toward the kitchen where Julia was sitting at the table watching My Little Pony on her iPad. “Lia! My dad says we can’t say suck it no more!”

  “What’s suck it?” my daughter asked, and I sighed.

  “I don’t know,” Ace responded. “But I like saying it.”

  Of course he loved saying it. He was Thatch’s son.

  “What’s sucks it mean, Daddy?” Julia shouted toward the living room.

  Fucking hell.

  “It’s just a bad way of showing you’re mad at someone.”

  “Oh, okay,” she answered, and thank everything, went back to watching her show.

  “Thanks for that,” I muttered to my idiot of a best friend.

  Thatch just shrugged. “You know I can’t be responsible for anything that comes out of my mouth right now.”

  “Your wife would have your ass if she knew suck it is now in your son’s word repertoire two minutes into our minor-monitoring duty.”

  “Good thing he told your daughter because if Ace ever repeats it in front of Cassie, I’ll just say he got it from your kid.”

  I shook my head and took a pull of my beer. “You have no shame.”

  “Especially when it comes to staying in my crazy wife’s good graces,” he added with a smirk.

  I couldn’t deny his logic. Cassie Kelly was…well, let’s just say, I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her ire.

  “Oh God,” Thatch muttered and sat on the edge of the couch. “They’re lining up. This is it. If Bailey doesn’t pull through, I’ll be at the Mavericks’ offices on Monday morning protesting for a new owner.”

  “Just relax,” I reassured, although, on the inside, I wasn’t one hundred percent certain our quarterback could pull it off. Third down. Hardly any time left in the game. The pressure was on. And the Mavericks needed this win. It could be their make-it-or-break-it game to determine if they could pull off a Super Bowl run.

  My words meant nothing. Thatch was on his feet and pacing the living room, every three steps his giant body blocking the entire screen.

  “Could you sit down?” I asked, but it was too late, the ball had been snapped, and I found myself jumping around him to see the screen.

  The offensive line held back Miami as Bailey searched for his open wide receiver.

  He looked left. He looked right.

  And then, just as one of Miami’s best defensive ends broke through our line, Bailey locked on his target. Quick as a whip, he threw the ball down the field with precision and right into the hands of Sean Phillips—one of our best offensive weapons, who also happened to be Cassie’s brother, therefore Thatch’s brother-in-law.

  “Fuck yes! Get it!” he shouted at the screen as Sean Phillips caught the ball, avoided a tackle with his famously quick feet, and eventually, found the open yards that led him straight into the end zone.

  “Touchdown!” Thatch and I both cheered at the same time, high-fiving each other with giant grins on our faces.

  Once we’d collected ourselves, I glanced back at the kids. Julia, Evie, and Ace appeared busy with drawing a picture together at the kitchen table—thankfully—and Gunner was still asleep in his swing.

  “I think you dodged a bullet with the whole f-bomb shouting,” I added with a nod toward the kids.

  “What f-bomb shouting?” Thatch asked.

  “You know, the part where you literally screamed it at the top of your lungs when Sean caught the ball?”

  “I did?”

  Jesus.

  “Never mind.”

  “We’ve got Wes Lancaster here,” the female sports reporter announced on the TV, and both Thatch’s and my attention went right back to the screen. “It was a big night for the Mavericks tonight. Congratulations on the win.”

  “Thank you,” he responded with a wide, very un-Wes-like grin.

  I couldn’t blame him; his team had pulled it out and were looking at a real chance of making it to the Super Bowl.

  Life was good if you were Wes Lancaster right now.

  “Is it
safe to say tonight will be a night of celebration?”

  Wes smirked and nodded. “I’m sure it will be for these guys, but I’m getting a little old for partying these days.”

  The reporter laughed and looked Wes over, clearly thinking he didn’t look old at all.

  “Wes better hope Winnie doesn’t see that,” Thatch muttered, and I chuckled.

  “Well, the holiday is practically upon us. You must be doing at least a little celebrating for that,” the reporter pushed.

  Wes smiled but shook his head. “I’ll be heading to a friend’s cabin to celebrate Christmas with my wife and daughter and friends.”

  Quinn Bailey chimed in from behind him, his smiling, sweaty face now sharing the screen. “You don’t want to spend Christmas with your boys, Lancaster?”

  Wes chuckled. “There’s nothing I want more, Quinn. I’ve been dreaming about it for years.”

  The reporter smiled and turned back to the screen while the celebration raged on behind her.

  For some people, I guess Christmas came early.

  Rockin’ Boozin’ Around the Christmas Tree

  With our husbands on kid duty, and my parents doing God knew what in their RV, Cassie and I had started to make some serious headway on the present-wrapping situation.

  Honestly, I was shocked my best friend hadn’t put up too much of a fight when I started getting one of the spare bedrooms all set up with scissors, ribbon, tape, and wrapping paper. Hell, she’d even helped me organize the gifts.

  I had a feeling her willingness to go along with the schedule had more to do with the fact that my parents had decided to crash our holiday cabin party. I still didn’t know who the culprits were who decided inviting Dick and Savannah was a good idea, but eventually, I’d find out. That was for damn sure. Even if I had to go CSI on this place, I’d figure it out. I wasn’t above fucking fingerprints and polygraph tests.

  “So, when was the last time you chatted with my mom?” I asked, and Cassie rolled her eyes as she folded red wrapping paper covered in snowflakes around a box that contained a toy truck for Ace.

  “I swear on everything, I didn’t tell your parents we were coming here.”