14
Sage…
“Rev, you got a minute?” I asked, wiping the wet off my frozen hands on the seat of my jeans. He stood up from the bundles of busted light strings that were just trash and looked me over.
“Come here,” he said, and he sounded like such a fucking dad.
He already knows.
“Word of advice when it comes to my little girl,” he said, putting an arm over my shoulders. “You have to break her heart for any reason, do me a favor and do it as gently as possible,” he said. “Other than that, wear a fuckin’ raincoat, and I catch you doin’ club sluts or cheating on her? I’ma cut off your johnson.”
I laughed, bowing my head, and shook it. I finally nodded and said, “Noted.”
He sighed and said, “Be honest, I hate that she’s growing up. Fuckin’ hate it, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders and I know you. You were a good kid, and you’re an even better man. I ain’t worried about you two.” He backed off of me and held out his hand, and I clasped it. He pulled me in and pounded me on the back.
“You two make it and get hitched, I’m gonna have to insist you call me ‘Daddy.’”
I lost my shit. So did Trigger, Disney, and Reaver who were standing nearby.
“Way to fuckin’ ruin the moment there, bro,” Trigger said, and we all fell out laughing all over again.
Red-Thirteen came around the corner and asked, “What’s so funny?” which made us all laugh even harder.
“Rev’s Dice’s new daddy,” Reaver crowed, and we all died all over again.
Red-Thirteen took off his hat and scratched his copper-washed strawberry-blond head and shook it. “I don’t get it.”
I think it was a laugh that we all fuckin’ needed.
We got it done, there were enough of us, but still by the time we were done, I was fuckin’ freezing and they weren’t even close to done with the trees inside. I slipped up behind Eden and placed a hand on her hip. She jumped slightly, and I murmured in her ear, “Gonna grab a hot shower and change my clothes,” I said. “Then, I’m gonna steal you to decorate that tree.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling up at me and that smile… fuck, it was the world.
“You okay?” she asked, her smile fading at my expression. I felt the corners of my mouth tip up when she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just freezing my balls off.”
“Well, go get warm!” she said brightly. I smacked a kiss to her temple and breathed her in. Her hair smelled like apples, her perfume some kind of cinnamon. Good enough to eat. Which I would, in good time. There was no rush. I was still trying to get used to the idea of having someone. The fact that everyone else seemed way ahead of me was actually kind of making me more nervous – not less.
I went to my club room, found some fresh clothes and ditched my wet and sweaty ones in my laundry. I wrapped a towel secure around my waist, brought my fresh clothes and my toiletry bag with me, and hit the shower – locking myself in the bathroom and getting the water almost as hot as it would go.
I stayed under for a long time, thinking about her copper curls, her timeless brown eyes, and that smile that she seemed to reserve just for me.
She’d written me letters while I’d been away. I would get fat stacks of them. I kept every damn one of them, had four shoeboxes full of them. They just kept coming even though I rarely, if ever. sent anything back… yet they still came, faithfully.
I stood under the hot shower spray, soaped up, rinsed off, all mechanically while my mind drifted from memory to memory of Eden.
I’d be lying if I said my dick didn’t get hard thinking about her round bottom thrust back against it the night before. Didn’t even lose my erection when I thought of that fucking nightmare. If anything, I got harder thinking back on how she dealt with it, with me… expecting me to cry, letting me grieve, and keeping my secret for me. That was the mark of a good woman right there.
One that didn’t expect you to be hard all the time.
So, what are you doing still in here when she’s just out there? The other side of that door?
It was a good question.
15
Eden…
I caught movement at the corner of my eye from the hub and turned. Sage stood just out of the shadows waving at me to come join him. He looked amazing – clean jeans, a faded olive green tee stretching across his chest, the sleeves straining around his shoulders and biceps. He had a white towel over his neck and his hair was still damp and tousled from his shower, sticking up at odd angles. I went to him and he took my hand.
“Ready to decorate this tree?” I asked smiling.
“You sure you’re not sick of decorating yet?” he asked and gave me a half-smile.
“Not on your life, I love decorating for the holidays.”
“K, come on.”
“You have lights?” I asked.
“Shit, no, good point!”
“I’ve got it,” I murmured, and it took some willpower to let his hand go and head over to the box of lights. I pulled out a shorter strand of coiled white lights and went over to the test power strip and plugged them in. They worked.
“Where you off to?” Aunt Evy asked.
“Decorate Smoke’s Charlie Brown tree.”
“Ahhh, have fun,” she said with a wink of her steely blue eyes. I blushed furiously and skirted around Hayden and Ashton who were hanging ornaments low on the tree, my mom standing on a chair to get higher, smiling at me as I passed beneath her.
I retook Sage’s hand, and he led me back to his club room, leaving the door open and letting out a huffed breath, staring at the tall, spindly little tree leaning against his bed.
He lifted the lid on a wicker laundry basket between his dresser and the door, pulling his towel off from around his neck and dropping it in.
“Do you have a stand for this?” I asked, standing the tree up. He nodded and kicked a cardboard box up against the wall below his light switch.
“Okay, where do you want it?” I asked, his silence and somber mood slightly unnerving.
“Come here, first,” he said gently, and I leaned the tree against the foot of his bed – another Rush original – and I went to him. He put his arms around my shoulders and held me tight for a second, and I held him back.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked gently.
“No,” he answered softly. “I will be, though.” He pulled back to look at me and there was such a… I don’t know, a vulnerability, maybe, in his deep brown eyes.
“Okay,” I murmured. “Let’s get this set up, okay?”
He smiled and caressed my face with the backs of his knuckles and the pad of his thumb.
“Okay,” he said simply.
We broke apart, and he got into the cardboard box which had three Christmas tree stands in it. Some of them older than I was and starting to rust, but useable all the same.
“Where do you want to put it?” I asked.
“That’s a good question. Under the window?”
“Have an outlet there?”
“Yeah, same one the bedside lamp is plugged into.”