Chapter 34 Tristan
TRISTAN
Tristan had a dish towel and took the tray from Haisley when she had cleaned it.
It was very weird to have so many other people in the kitchen with them, jostling to get things out of drawers or cabinets, reaching over them for coffee or cups.
“Presents!” Alice called from the great room.
“I should stay and keep an eye on… uh…” Haisley looked uncomfortable as she wrung out the sponge and wiped her hands on her apron.
“Join us!” Chef insisted. “I know that Magnolia has a gift for you. You haven’t been quite as secret as you thought.”
“Oh, but I don’t have anything for you!”
“You and Tristan made those boxes of cookies together!” Chef said firmly. “And Christmas is about the joy of giving gifts to old friends and new ones, not a tally of tit for tat. Come and be a part of our celebration. We’d love to have you.”
Haisley nodded in agreement, and Tristan thought her eyes were suspiciously bright. He lingered in the kitchen with her while the others left, slowly pouring himself a cup of coffee and stirring in the sugar. “Are you okay with this?” he asked.
“I like more sugar than that,” Haisley quipped, but she knew what he meant and stepped into the embrace he offered. “I like your coworkers,” she admitted. “They are very kind to include me.”
“You wouldn’t be excluded at Shifting Sands,” Tristan promised her. “You could work if you wanted to, but you wouldn’t have to. Room and board for family comes with my embarrassing salary.”
“We’d have to get married,” Haisley pointed out. “This gets into that forever stuff I wasn’t ready to promise.”
“We’re not going to wait forever!” Alice called from the great room, as if on cue. “Gizelle is going to explode if we don’t start opening presents!”
Tristan took Haisley’s hand and she came willingly with him.
They took seats at the outskirts of the activity, and Alice was in the middle handing out gifts.
When everyone had something in hand, she declared a free for all, and there was a flurry of ripping paper and exclamations of joy and appreciation.
Gift boxes and bags and crinkling paper were passed everywhere.
Tristan received a carving set of his own, a set of panda bear cufflinks, a pair of gloves, an antique steel railroad nail, a bathroom book of dirty limericks (from Breck), a multitool engraved with his name, and six individually wrapped 10 mm sockets, one from each couple.
Haisley’s presents were thoughtful, if somewhat generic—a fancy bubble bath, a shell hair clip, an oven mitt with a moose on it, a Shifting Sands bar towel, a bookstore giftcard, and a teensy stuffed panda bear keychain that had probably been meant for Tristan.
“I don’t have anything for you!” she said to Tristan, squeezing the tiny panda bear. Everyone else was reveling in their presents, broken off into little conversations as they munched on the cookies from Tristan’s boxes.
“You heard Chef,” Tristan said. “It’s not tit for tat. But I do have something for you. I didn’t wrap it, though.”
He reached into his sweatshirt pocket and found the flower he’d made. It snagged on the key that was also there, and he pulled them out together. “Er, not that,” he said, trying to untangle them.
“A front door key? Where did you find that?” Haisley helped him get the leather band off the stem.
“The garage gave it to me,” Tristan said. “Practically forced me to take it.”
Haisley gave him a long, curious look. “It gave you a key? What does that mean? Oh, this is so beautiful! I can’t believe you made it! Did you do this last night? Did you get any sleep?” She twirled it in her fingers and the metal petals clinked together faintly.
Tristan could see all the flaws in it, but his panda only knew that their mate was happy with it, and that was all that mattered. “I’d give up more than sleep for you, Haisley.”
Haisley’s look was complicated but grateful, all soft around the eyes and full of promise. Tristan wasn’t sure how their future was going to fall out, but at that moment, he knew it would be together.
All of the presents were opened now, and Bastian was gathering up all the paper and packaging, sorting it into things that could be burned and things that should be thrown away.
Gizelle was wrapped in a scarf three times as long as she was, and was cackling in delight at a book that was open in her lap, probably also from Breck.
“Breakfast will be ready in about fifteen minutes!” Chef declared, surging to his feet and helping Magnolia to hers. “Stash your gifts and bring your appetites. Haisley, we’ve already set a place for you, my dear!”
Haisley got up to help Bastian gather trash and put her flower in a vase on the mantle. Tristan was equal parts embarrassed to have it on display, and delighted that she would put it there. He put the key back into his pocket.
Breakfast was a decadent spread. There was a baked egg dish with peppers and mushrooms, strips of bacon and slices of ham, fresh rolls, fried potatoes, grilled seasoned tomatoes, baked beans, and chopped fresh fruit.
“This is the last of the fresh fruit,” Chef warned. “But we’ve got plenty of canned when this runs out.”
Tristan could eat almost all of it, and there were so many choices that he didn’t want to turn down that he over-ate himself almost to insensibility.
He wasn’t the only one. Everyone was loosening belts and groaning as they leaned back at last. “This almost makes up for smelling your amazing food for so many nights,” Haisley said.
She was next to Chef and had spent much of the meal exchanging recipes with him.
If Tristan had been the jealous type, he might have been indignant about their attention to each other, but he was only happy that she had won everyone over so quickly.
“I cannot believe that you were stuck in your room for so long,” Magnolia said. “I feel so bad that you were inconvenienced this way.”
“I completely understand why you wanted the chalet to yourselves,” Haisley assured her. “I feel terrible for trying to drive you out.”
“I don’t feel like you tried very hard,” Breck chuckled. “You could have made the water ice cold, or cut the power altogether.”
“Or sabotaged the food,” Darla suggested playfully.
“Not the food!” Chef and Haisley said together.
“Some things are sacred,” Bastian said severely.
“I think I can finally move,” Haisley said. “Let me help clear up.”
This prompted everyone to push back their chairs and stand to carry dishes in.
“There is coffee, mulled cider, and some cheese in the kitchen, but expect nothing more until dinner!” Chef declared. “You’ll want to come hungry!”
Tristan helped fill the dishwasher, with Haisley making a few space-saving corrections. It was an industrial-sized washer, and they filled it and had to wash a few of the larger pots and pans by hand.
“What do you want to do until dinner?” Tristan asked, when they had dried and put away the last things. The rest of the staff had retired to their rooms, or the great room, in pairs or groups.
“I have a few things I want to show you,” Haisley said. “But the air might hurt your face.”