Rowan
“He’s going to love it,” his mother-in-law says as she pulls to a stop outside the Rhodes compound gates. “You’ve done a good job, especially for your very first time.”
“Perfect. I understand the sentiment. I won’t bore you with the details, but I gave something much like this to someone I love very much, a long time ago, and they still have it. I saw it just this morning. So I know for a fact that he will treasure it.”
He doesn’t need to open the brown paper bag where his Secret Santa gift is hiding to know his creation is less-than-ideal. But he’s been working at it every day, when he can find a minute to himself away from prying eyes. Luckily enough, everyone had been looking for time alone, too.
Even Gideon, when he was home, wasn’t griping and complaining about entitled tourists.
Luca had whispered to him just yesterday when they’d been watching The Muppet Movie Christmas—a mutual favorite—that maybe if Gideon didn’t put cilantro in everything, customers might complain less.
Finn had nearly choked on his popcorn when Gideon had spun round and pointed a wooden spoon at Luca in a silent threat.
So yeah, Secret Santa has been a learning experience for everyone, even if he has some performance anxiety to get through in the next…fifteen hours.
“Thanks for helping me. It’s been fun.” It had been.
His mother-in-law is cool. He’d been intimidated to ask for her help at first, but when he’d called, she had taken him to the right stores, got him started, and even sat with him over several hours while he’d made mistake after mistake after mistake.
She was actually really kind. He should have expected it, given who her son was. Her wicked sense of humor made him miss his own mom, even though they were really nothing alike. “And I like the little bits we added at the end.”
“Me too. And the color suits him. You inspired me to create some things of my own these last few weeks, too.” Hers were perfect, of course; she’d been doing this for years. Maybe he’ll keep it up, and he can be better by summer.
“Do you think we could…uh…maybe do this again?”
“I look forward to it. We’ll see you all on Sunday after you pick your mother up at the airport?”
“She’s excited to see you all. It’s been a while.” Since the trial, actually, when all their parents had shown up to support Nix.
“Wonderful,” she murmurs. Her car is running, and the heat is blasting her sweet scent through the interior. It’s calming. “Rowan?”
“Mmm?”
She places her hand on his coat sleeve and squeezes. “He’s going to love it,” she says, as if she can read his delay tactics better than he can.
“Yeah. Okay. It’s going to be okay,” he repeats, and squeezes her hand before he opens the door and climbs out. “Thank you so much, and have a Merry Christmas. I’ll see you on Sunday.”
“Bye-bye!” She nods and waves. Rowan watches her pull away so fast that the rear end fishtails on the black-ice. But she quickly gets the big car on track like a pro, clearly an expert driver even by Rowan’s exacting standards.
He does a quick check of the pack’s whereabouts on the phone app they’d installed after the break-in last year, before slipping in the side gate.
Everyone is home except Gideon again. It worries him to think about why he’s out so late, all the way across town, so he doesn’t.
He’ll worry about getting his Secret Santa gift wrapped and under the tree, and then he’ll worry about Gideon… and the gift itself.
Ugh. Fuck, he hates this feeling of being inadequate.
When he keys in the code and enters, he’s met with the scent of burnt sugar.
The real kind, not the my-omega-is-furious kind.
Tsuki comes barreling around the corner, and Doodle is meowing loudly while Domino flies by covered in flour.
There’s a blaring fire alarm that makes Rowan peek his head around the corner to be sure nothing is actually on fire, before he texts the all-clear to the security company.
He receives confirmation that this is the third alarm they’ve received in the last two hours.
He can see why, too. Nix and Leo are using tea towels to wave smoke from Gideon’s normally pristine kitchen, and Luca has the sliding glass doors wide open while Jay is sweeping up the remnants of broken cookies on the floor. There’s a tray of burnt chunks on the top of the stove.
Rowan can’t help but stare, because Leo’s pants are down around his knees, and Nix is 100% naked. Has he missed the revelation of a new kink? He hates when that happens.
He feels the press of Tsuki’s nose to his palm, and he almost drops the paper bag.
“Hey, girl. What’d I miss?” She blows hot air out of her nose.
It’s got smudges of red on it, and when her tongue lolls out, it’s red, too.
Rowan swears she rolls her eyes. “Well, they’re naked-ish; it has to be something good. ”
No one has seen him yet, which is good, because Rowan has zero interest in cleaning this shit up.
Gideon is going to have a heart attack if he gets home before they finish.
Rowan hopes he hasn’t had a text from the security company already about the fire alarms. “I’m just going to…
” he whispers to the dog, before slipping past the cacophony of explanations toward the basement stairs.
There is a room in the basement where Leo stores all the little things he likes to use to give gifts. From boxes to gift bags, and a towering shelf of vases where Gideon has put all the vases he’d received with his weekly (daily?) flower arrangements from Leo.
It actually looks like Santa’s elves could walk in and wrap all the gifts for everyone, everywhere, all around the world.
There’s a long table with tape and ribbon in every color of the rainbow.
Rolls of paper for every occasion line the wall opposite the wall of vases, and it’s there that Rowan stops.
“Well, which one? This one?” He asks his companion, who just looks at him like the one with the tiny frogs on it has offended her deeply.
“Fuck, okay. No need for the ‘tude. What about this one?” Tsuki declines ducks, purple flowers, tiny candy canes, and a weird one that looks like camouflage. “Well, you choose, then,” he grumps.
He wants this wrapped and under the tree so he can just get on to thinking about other shit. Maybe feed Nix something from the snack cupboard. He must have missed dinner, and the wolf insists they do something before Nix eats again.
Tsuki turns around, and Rowan follows her to the end of the workbench.
There’s a tall cardboard box from an expensive fancy paper company (it actually says Fancy Paper Company on the side).
When he pulls the box open, there are ten different rolls of fresh paper in there, and not one frog or duck.
They smell good, actually. Like the forest, and ink.
He pulls one after the other out, until Tsuki finds one she likes by pressing her nose on it, like she’d done all those months ago with her first doggy bed.
“Fucking finally. You are one picky dog.”
She huffs again, as if to say, I picked you, didn’t I? And that’s 100% fair.
The paper rolls out smoothly on the table top, a river of rainbow colors. Not in a repeating pattern like many of the others, but like a river. It’s really pretty.
“Okay, now a box and that paper shit.” It takes him twenty minutes to find the box, put the tissue in, and get it wrapped.
The corners aren’t neat, and the tape is bunched up, but the pattern flows endlessly around the box.
Tsuki pulls a curling rainbow ribbon off the rack, dropping it on his foot before sitting patiently by the door.
“Okay, okay. I’m ready. Don’t tell anyone you helped me, yeah?
I already had help with the gift part,” he says as he turns the lights out and closes the door.
He runs his hand over her head in thanks.
As he’d expected, Tsuki is a very loyal friend, because he knows for a fact she didn’t tell a soul.