“How about another chair? We can put it right here where the beds meet up.” He headed out to the bar before she could answer.
She poured the popcorn into a bowl and carried it over to the new sectional. The part that faced the television was his bed, so she set it somewhere close to the middle and went back for the hot chocolate. By the time she’d carried that from the kitchen area, he had set the chair where it was needed and had flopped down on the bed with the remote in his hand. She sat down on the other side of the popcorn bowl and drew her legs up under her to sit cross-legged.
“Are we ready?” He pointed the remote toward the television like it was a gun.
“Nope, we have to dim the lights.” She hopped up and flipped the light switch next to the back door. “Did you ever realize that if we came home drunk some night, we might get confused and try to open the wrong back door?”
“Honey, if we come home drunk, we’ll just stagger in here from the bar.” He laughed. “I guess the original Honky Tonk always had the front door and back door, but when they built on this apartment, they decided to make it accessible through the parking lot. Now are we ready?”
She sat back down and nodded. “Laissez les bon temps rouler.”
“Let the good times roll.” He interpreted what she’d said.
She had her hand in the popcorn bowl when Home Alone started instead of one of the two that they’d talked about. “I love this, but…”
He covered her hand with his. “I figured we were starting our own traditions. Besides, if we watch what we used to see with our families, we’d get homesick. This one will make us laugh. We will watch it every Christmas and remember what a good time we had on our first Christmas together.”
“So, you think we’ll be together for years on down the road?” She slid her hand out from under his and filled her mouth with popcorn.
“Yep, I do.” He picked up a few kernels and popped them into his mouth.
“We should take pictures of Frank James and our tree and decorations in the bar and even our apartment,” she said. “I’ll make a scrapbook to keep them all in…” She stopped and stared at the television. “This is my favorite part. Someday I’m going to have a son like Kevin.”
“Are you going to forget him when you fly to Paris?” Cameron teased.
“Hell, no! To begin with, I’ll have a bar to run, so I won’t even be flying to Paris, Texas, much less to the one across the big pond,” she answered as she fluffed up his pillow and leaned an elbow on it.
“What about all the other kids? Are you going to let them call him FedEx?” Cameron chuckled.
“Nope, and what makes you think there’s going to be other children?” she asked.
“A boy needs siblings,” Cameron said. “Someone to fight with and stand up with when someone else picks a fight.”
“That’s something to think about later. Right now, I don’t want to miss a minute of this movie,” she told him.
* * *
Cameron awoke to nothing but a blank television screen staring at him. Home Alone 2 had ended, the credits had rolled, and the digital clock on the DVD player told him that it was three thirty in the morning. He was stretched out on the front side of the bed. Jorja was spooned right up to his back and had one leg thrown over him. Her arm was tucked tightly around his chest as if she was afraid that she would fall off the back side of the bed. He wished he had a picture of the two of them to put in her scrapbook, but there was no way he could reach his phone without waking her. He managed to pick up the remote and turn off the television, and then he closed his hand around hers and went back to sleep.
He was awakened again at ten o’clock in the morning when she gasped and jumped off the bed. He rolled to the wrong side and wound up on the floor about the same time that a spider rappelled down from the ceiling and hung suspended about six inches above his nose, and then another one swung down right beside it, so now there were two of the monsters staring at him as if he was going to be their supper.
“Jorja, a little help here,” he whispered.
“Help nothing!” she said loudly. “I’m making sure I’ve still got all my clothes on the right way. We didn’t…” She leaned over and stared right past the evil creatures dancing the mambo right above his head. “…did we?”
“We slept together.” He was surprised that he could move his lips to speak. “We didn’t do any more than that. Would you please kill these two varmints so I can see if I broke any bones when I fell off the bed?”
“What are you talking about? Is there a snake?” She headed in the direction of her chest of drawers to get her gun.
“No snake,” he whispered. “It’s damn spiders. Please don’t try to kill them with a bullet. You might miss and hit me.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” she asked as she leaned over the bed, grabbed both webs, and brought the dangling devils her way. Once she cleared the bed, she lowered the things to the floor and stomped on them. “Two of them. Do you believe what I’ve been telling you about signs now?”
“I’m a believer.” He sat up. “Evidently even spiders and snakes need partners.”
“You can check for broken bones. Do I need to take you to the hospital?” she asked. “I’m not good at driving on slick roads, but I’ll do my best.”
He sat up and shook his head. “Everything seems fine, but we’re damn sure having this place exterminated as soon as we can get a man out here to do it.”
She sat down on the edge of his bed. “Let’s don’t make this a part of our Christmas tradition.”
“What? Falling asleep together or the spiders?” he asked as he got up and moved his bed back to its usual place.
She opened her mouth to say something but abruptly whipped around and went to the stove. “I’m making cinnamon rolls for breakfast. They won’t be the fancy kind like Mama makes in Hurricane Mills, but they’ll be what we have on Christmas morning.”
“What can I do to help?” he asked, “and honey, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Who knows where we’ll be next year at Christmas, but I really think it would be all right if we made it a tradition of falling asleep together. I liked the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night with you keeping me warm.”
“You can get out the brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. I’m just going to roll out some biscuits from a can.” She tried to sidestep replying to what he had said, but it didn’t work. “And I had a wonderful Christmas Eve. Thank you for making me laugh, for dancing with me, taking me out to eat, and for…”—she stopped and looked up into his eyes—“and for just sleeping with me.”