Sleighed It Read online

  “It’s okay if you accidentally let it slip. I wouldn’t be mad over something like that.”

  “First of all, that’s a lie,” she started with a perceptive smile. “And secondly, my lips have been sealed since we made these plans in November.”

  I sighed and wrapped a frilly gold bow around one of Evie’s presents. “Then who told them? Was it Thatch?”

  She laughed. “Thatch didn’t even know we were coming to the Catskills until the night before we left.”

  “Are you serious? I told him the same day I told you!”

  “He’s a man, Wheorgie. He’d lose his cock if it weren’t attached to his body.”

  I cringed. “That’s an awful visual you’re giving.”

  “But it’s the fluffing truth,” she reiterated. “And that says a lot considering a man’s most prized possession is his dick.”

  “I don’t think Kline would lose his dick if it weren’t attached.”

  “That’s because your husband is some kind of fucking hybrid,” she retorted with a snort. “Believe me, a man who is calm, cool, collected, and completely patient with your hyper, neurotic ass while you’re working through a notebook full of holiday itineraries and to-do lists is a one-in-a-million kind of man.”

  “I’m not hyper or neurotic.”

  She flashed a knowing smirk in my direction.

  “Okay, fine,” I relented. “Maybe I’m a little of both. But it comes from a good place. I just want everyone to have an amazing Christmas.”

  “Just a little?”

  “Shut up.” I tossed the tape at her head, and she ducked out of the way on a laugh.

  After she finished wrapping Ace’s toy truck, she grabbed her mug of eggnog from the table and took a hearty, lip-smacking sip. “I know Dick and Savannah weren’t supposed to be here, but your mom makes killer eggnog.”

  I groaned, but considering I was on glass number three, I couldn’t deny my mom’s eggnog had always been one of my favorite parts of the holidays growing up. Most Christmases, Will and I would beg them to let us have more than the one allotted glass.

  “Between the nog and the delicious fudge and holiday candies she made this afternoon, I’m starting to wonder if she’s trying to make me feel guilty for attempting to have a quiet, relaxed Christmas without them,” I said on a sigh and looked at Cass. I could feel the tinglings of regret slowly seeping into my soul. “Am I horrible person for attempting to have two separate Christmases?”

  “Fluff no.” She snorted and shook her head, her long, brown hair shaking softly across her shoulders. “Dick’s holiday display of crazy set the roof on fire, and he ended up in the ER last year. Pretty sure your original plan of enjoying Christmas Day without needing the assistance of emergency personnel was warranted.”

  God, I loved her.

  “I love you,” I said between sips of eggnog. Because I did. I loved her.

  She paused mid-wrap and blew me a kiss. “I love you too.”

  “Like, I really love you.”

  “Samesies,” she agreed as her fingers struggled to get the tape out of the dispenser. “If I ever divorce Thatch or we move to a place where polygamy is legal, I hope you’ll be my wife.”

  “Pfffft, like you’d ever divorce Thatch. God, I couldn’t imagine my life without Kline. He’s my favorite ever.”

  Cassie gave up on the tape and twirled her hair. “I lover T.”

  “I lover Kline. And you. Oh, and my kids. Fuck, I almost forgot about them.”

  She nodded and continued the hair-twirling. “Your kids are great.”

  “I know. I love Julia and…” I paused and searched for the other name. Fuck, what was her name? “And…and…Ev…Eva… Evie! Yes, I love my little Evie!”

  Shit. Is that bad mom material?

  “They’re beautiful girls. Just like you.” Cassie winked and pointed a slow and slightly sloppy index finger in my direction. I figured her fingers were probably just tired from fighting the tape.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  Cassie smiled. “I know.

  “I like your kids too.” Because I did. I really liked her kids.

  Cass stared at me. And stared at me. And then… “Oh yeah, my kids. Ace and Gunner. They’re great. I mean, they can be assholes, but I love ’em. And it’s really only two-fourths their fault. Assholes coming from assholes’ trees and all that shit.” She twirled her hair again, and I had the urge to feel it. My best friend had gorgeous hair.

  “Your hair is pretty. Can I touch it?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  I reached out and ran my fingers through the silky ends. “It’s soft too. You should be a hair model.”

  “You should too.”

  Man, my best friend is my best friend.

  I giggled.

  This room is funny.

  “Can I hug you?”

  “Yep,” Cass said and held out both arms, and we hugged. The wrapping paper crinkled beneath our feet, but I was sure it would be fine.

  Hugging is so fun.

  “Knock knock.” My mother peeked her head in with two glasses and a silver tray in her hands. “I thought I’d stop in, say hello, and see if you ladies would like some more eggnog?” she asked, and I silently prayed she didn’t start oversharing the details of her afternoon spent with my father in their RV.

  Lucky for me, my best friend’s enthusiasm forced my mother’s attention elsewhere.

  “That’d be fluffing fantastic!” Cassie exclaimed as she picked up an empty roll of wrapping paper and pointed it toward my mother. She fired off a few fake shots in the direction of the door and exclaimed, “Pow-pow, motherfluffers!”

  I laughed. And she laughed. And then, just like magic, we had more eggnog.

  Cassie took a healthy gulp from her glass and let out a little ah sound from her lips. “This is good shit.” She gave my mother a thumbs-up. “I want this recipe.”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart.” Savannah smiled and wrapped her arms around both of us. “The secret is in the perfect mix of nutmeg, cognac, and bourbon.”

  I giggled again. Nutmeg. Nuts. I should probably lick Kline’s—

  Wait…what? Did she just say cognac and bourbon?

  My eyes went wide, and Cassie just started cracking up. Hell, she was cackling.

  No wonder I’d forgotten my kid’s name. I was drunk! We were both drunk!

  Jesus, that explains the hugging and hair-petting…

  “Are you kidding me?” I shouted.

  “What?” my mother questioned in confusion. “I thought you loved my eggnog. You and Will used to fight over it when you were kids.”

  “Oh my God, Mom! Tell me you were giving us a different, less boozy version back in the day!”

  “The alcohol makes the nog, Georgie,” she explained without an inkling of concern or guilt, or you know, a normal motherly emotion related to giving her children booze.

  “We were kids!” I shouted and took a quick glance into my glass, and then immediately set it back down, far, far away from me. I honestly had no idea how she did it, but I knew I didn’t need any more of it. That fluffing nog didn’t reveal even a hint of booze. It was like my mother knew some kind of witchcraft-alcohol-camouflage secret that no one else knew.

  With the way she snuck liquor into her holiday drinks, if she handed me a brownie, you could bet your sweet ass I was declining.

  “It was one glass, sweetheart.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t be so dramatic. And you were both kids that got rambunctious on Christmas. The eggnog served as a little sedative to calm you two down.”

  “Oh my God! It’s a wonder I survived my childhood without needing rehab.”

  Cassie continued to alternate between giggles and cackles. I wanted to smack her. And hug her.

  Goddamn eggnog.

  My entire childhood flashed before my eyes. So much for heartfelt holiday memories. While other kids were playing with their new toys, I had been unknowingly begging my parents for more bo
oze.

  “No wonder these presents look like I had Ace wrap them. I thought it was the fact that I’d been doing the activity against my will, but this makes even more sense. Your mom got us drunk, Wheorgie,” Cassie announced, grinned, and then without another thought, took another hearty drink.

  “Stop drinking it!”

  “It’s too late now. I’m already going to have to pump and dump.” Cass shrugged and raised her glass to my mom. “Cheers, Savannah.”

  “Cheers, sweetheart,” my mother returned the sentiment kindly. “And what do you mean, pump and dump? I used to breastfeed Will and Georgia all the time after a few glasses of wine.”

  “Of course you breastfed us after you went on a wine bender!” I exclaimed in outrage. “Hell, did you put cocaine in our Cheerios to wake us up in the morning too?”

  My mother tsked under her breath. “Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, Georgia.”

  Ridiculous? She breastfed us after drinking wine and gave my brother and me actual booze when we were kids. Oh yeah, I’m definitely the ridiculous one in this scenario.

  “Considering I’m on like glass number six of this eggnog,” Cassie started to explain, “pretty sure I’d be better off feeding Gunner from a tapped keg at this point, Savannah.”

  While I sat there, surrounded by torn-up wrapping paper, half-assed bows, and a pathetic looking display of gifts that were supposed to be ready to put under the tree, my best friend drank it up with my mother.

  They laughed and gabbed, and I lay back in the pile of shredded wrapping scraps and played with my hair. I wanted to rage, but I didn’t have it in me. There was too much cognac and bourbon in my veins.

  The two of them ignored me.

  Eventually, after Cassie had downed glass number too fucking many, she shouted toward the door, “Thatcher! Kline! Get your asses up here!”

  I wasn’t sure of the exact elapsed time, but I was pretty sure they came running. Thatch peeked his head through the door. “What’s up, Crazy?”

  “Are the kids in bed?”

  Not for long if you yell across the house like a psychopath again, I mused.

  “Yep,” he responded, and Kline appeared behind him.

  “Fan-fluffing-tastic,” she responded. “Because we’re too drunk to wrap.”

  Thatch’s brow rose. “What?”

  “I said, we’re too drunk to wrap.”

  “I heard that. I’m just trying to figure out how.” He glanced around the room while Kline walked over toward me and picked up my glass. He sniffed it and then looked at me in my pile of pitiful in confusion.

  “My childhood is a sham,” I muttered.

  He quirked a brow, and Cassie burst into laughter again. Kline offered a hand, a sweet smirk on his face and pulled me to sitting. Cassie’s laughter renewed as I pulled a piece of scrap paper from my bedraggled hair.

  “Stop laughing!”

  She snorted, and I shoved her shoulder until she fell into the neat grouping of wrapping paper rolls behind her. They bounced and tumbled everywhere.

  “Benny?” Kline asked, and I groaned, my shoulders sagging.

  “My mom has been giving me booze since I was a kid, and I think I need therapy.”

  He looked at my mom, and she shrugged her shoulders. “She’s mad because I let her and Willy have a glass of eggnog a couple of times when they were kids.”

  “A couple of times? It was every Christmas!”

  “It was just one glass, sweetheart,” she reassured.

  I looked at my husband. “I think I’m an alcoholic. I need Triple A.”

  “I think you mean AA, honey,” Thatch interjected as he helped Cassie out of the wreckage.

  “Shut up,” I mumbled. “I can’t help it that my mom got me hammered on the down low.”

  Kline bit his bottom lip, and this time, held out both hands to help me to my feet.

  The bastard was one second away from laughing. At me. His wife.

  “Don’t laugh,” I demanded.

  He wiped his face clean and rubbed my upper arms. “I’m not laughing, baby.”

  I glared, and he averted his eyes.

  Fluffing turncoat.

  “I’m laughing,” Cass cackled. “Fuck, I love your family, Georgie.”

  That was it. I was going to smack her. I started to move toward her and let the threats fly past my lips, but Thatcher, the stupid protective husband, pulled her behind his ginormous back. “I’m going to kick your ask…as…asssssss.”

  Fuck, I’m drunk.

  Kline wrapped his arms around my shoulders before I could make good on my promise, while Thatch lifted his wife up and threw her over his shoulders with a giant grin on his face. “C’mon, Crazy. It’s time for bed.”

  “Night, guys!” Cassie gave me a thumbs-up as her husband carried her out of the guest room, and I looked around the room at the awful display of wrapped presents. I could actually see by the stacks of gifts at what point in the evening we’d started to get drunk.

  “What am I going to do?” I looked at Kline. “These gifts look like shit, and I’m drunk.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” my mother interjected as she started to unstack one of the shitty piles. “I’ll work on these before I go to bed.”

  Oh, now she wanted to help me. Where was this kind of mind-set before she decided to get me drunk?

  “I’ve got an idea,” Kline responded and lifted me into his arms. “How about you get into bed, and I’ll come back downstairs and fix the gifts with your mom?”

  “You’d do that?” I said on a half whine, half slur. “But it’s probably so much work.”

  He shrugged and carried me toward our bedroom. “Don’t you already know, Benny girl?”

  “Know what?” I asked, and he smiled down at me as he walked me toward our bed.

  “I’d do anything to make you happy.”

  I smiled.

  Good Lord, this man is really mine?

  I knew I should’ve said more words. But the eggnog. And goodness gracious, the bed felt so good as he tucked me into it. I made a mental note to say all the things tomorrow, but right now, I had to sleep off the booze.

  A Holly Jolly “Holy Shit, Georgie’s Going to Lose It” Christmas

  December 24th, Christmas Eve Morning

  Georgia’s skin hummed with warmth as I touched my lips to the apple of her cheek and, trying not to disturb her, slowly shoved myself out of bed.

  She was still out—fucking cold—but last night had been a big one for her. And, all things considered, I thought she was handling the changes to her guest list pretty well.

  The halls were quiet, thanks to equally exhausted kids and adults looking to take advantage of that glorious situation, as I made my way down to the kitchen and fired up the sixteen-cup coffeepot. It might have seemed like overkill, brewing the max amount, but my Georgie could drink half the fucking thing on her own—and today, she would need to.

  Grabbing the paper from the front drive as quietly as possible—the door was new but still had a squeak—and settling in at the kitchen table, I opened up to the sports section and read what the sports critics had to say about the Mavericks game.

  It wasn’t all flattering—it never was—but with another win in the books, the boys had made it hard for the nitpickers to find too much to complain about.

  I peeked around the paper as the coffee stopped gurgling. Full pot. Fantastic.

  Folding the paper back to rights, I tossed it in a stack on the table and grabbed a mug from the cabinet to pour Georgia a cup, when the squeaky door alerted me to a new arrival.

  “Hello?” Wes called into the house on a shouted whisper. “Anyone awake?”

  I set the mug on the counter and scooted around the wall and down the hall quickly to try to prevent yelling. He’d been considerate on the first attempt, but I knew my friends, and there was nothing in our history to show he’d be the same on a second.

  “Hey, Wes,” I called when he came into view, and his eyes, previou
sly scanning the upstairs landing, jumped to me.

  “Hey, man. I was beginning to think everybody was still asleep.”

  “I’m not. They are,” I said with a smirk. “Seems Dick and Savannah made it up here, after all.”

  “Oh my God,” Winnie breathed as she stepped around Wes. “Georgia must be freaking.”

  I leaned forward to give her a kiss on the cheek and then put my fist out for a bump from their ten-year-old daughter, Lexi. She obliged.

  “Yeah,” I said with a groan. “She’s not thrilled, but she’s dealing.”

  I turned back to Wes. “You wouldn’t know anything about how they happened to find out we were coming here, would you?”

  “What? How would I know anything about Dick and Savannah?”

  I shrugged and slid my hands into the pockets of my pants. “Someone had to have told them.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me.”

  “He’s not lying,” Lex interjected. “He did tell the entirety of the Mavericks, though.”

  Wes’s eyes closed, and his head dropped back as I cut hard eyes to him.

  “What?”

  “Relax. Bailey got talkative after the win and asked where we were going. I told him the Catskills, but nothing more than that.”

  My shoulders sank slightly, moving a notch closer to normal. They’d need more information than that to find us and a hell of a lot of motivation. We were safe.

  I jerked my head toward the kitchen and escorted their family of three farther into the house. “At least I can count on Lex to keep me in the loop.”

  Winnie laughed, and Wes tucked Lex close to his front. “I know. The kid is all honesty. I keep trying to break the habit, but she just won’t give.”

  Lex rolled her eyes. “Dad.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Wes apologized with a chuckle.

  I caught sight of the abandoned mug on the counter and jumped back into action. “You guys make yourselves at home, get some coffee.” I grabbed the pot and held it up before pouring a piping hot stream into Georgie’s mug. “I’m gonna run this up to my hungover wife, and then I’ll be back down.”

  “Hungover?” Winnie questioned with a pout. “They got drunk without me?”

  Lex rolled her eyes again, and I chuckled. “Not by choice.”