Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
TUCKER
I stare at the box of Christmas lights and individual clips for each cone shaped bulb. “We don’t just staple the rope to the roof?” I know I sound like an idiot, but… I have no idea what I’m doing.
And it shows by the annoyed look on Carson’s face.
“Dude, you’ll tear up the shingles. Have you seriously never done this before? How old are you now? Thirty?”
Julie’s aggravated sigh keeps me from saying anything in response to Carson. “Can we just work together and not insult each other?” She shoots her brother a glare, and I chuckle under my breath as I grab the ladder. I’m about to climb up it when Carson beats me, scrambling up and hopping onto the roof.
“You two can start untangling and unrolling,” Carson smirks. “I’ll get everything situated up here.”
“You just don’t want to help check the lights,” Julie snorts, shaking her head and going for the boxes in the grass. There are the new lights that we picked up from the hardware store, along with a storage tub of what I can only assume is more Christmas lights…
I glance up to the roof, and then back at the boxes. Is one strand of lights along the ridge not good enough? Either way, I join Julie, pulling out the old strands—which are a tangled mess.
“ Clearly, Carson was the one who put these up,” Julie mutters under her breath. “He just threw them all in here.” She shakes her head as she picks up a tangled mess.
“Here,” I offer to take them from her arms. She’s in an obnoxious red long sleeve with a penguin on it, and I look the opposite, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. You couldn’t catch me dead in a holiday shirt, but whatever. “You take the end,” I tell her, handing a plug. “We’ll start working out the tangles, and then we’ll check to make sure the lights work.”
“Fine by me,” she says, her gaze flickering up to where Carson is perched on the roof, opening up the clips for the lights. I can see the disapproval all over her face, and for some reason…
It’s hilarious.
I always wanted some kind of sibling rivalry or whatever it is between Julie and Carson. They don’t realize how lucky they are to have each other—and their parents—and traditions.
“So, you’re sure you’re good with the parade this weekend?” Julie eyes me as I shake some of the lights free.
I shrug, my entire focus solely on getting the lights untangled. “What choice do I have?” Julie doesn’t say anything to that, and I finally reach the end of the first strand, letting out a victorious grunt. I’m not sure why it’s so satisfying, but it is. “Let’s get this plugged in.”
“Finally,” Carson snorts from the roof.
I ignore him—and the urge to give him the middle finger—as I head to the power strip Julie connected under the front porch. I plug in the male end, anticipation rising in my chest…
And nothing happens.
“Bad strand,” Julie huffs, her shoulders dropping. “Mom warned me that most of them needed to be replaced.”
“Okay. Well, then we’ll keep trying.” I roll them up carefully, and then toss the bunch to the grass a few feet from the edge of the flowerbed. “On to the next.”
“We could just start with the new ones,” Carson throws out the advice as he lays on the roof, staring up at the clouds.
“You could come down here and help,” Julie shoots back at him.
“You two lovebirds can handle it,” he says with a sigh. “It’s a good relationship exercise. Team building and all that.” He adjusts his cowboy hat over his eyes, and I bite back the urge to make a snide remark.
But I need the deal with the Coopers more than I need to pick on Carson.
“You know, I don’t know how Jessie puts up with him,” Julie says to me, shaking her head as I start on a second strand of lights. “He got so lucky with her.”
“I heard that,” Carson calls from the roof.
Julie and I exchange a look, and then both laugh. We fall into a routine of checking the lights, and ten minutes later, we’re all good to go. Only one set of the used lights worked, and I adjust the ladder, so that I can hand the end of the strand to Carson.
“I got it,” Julie beams, grabbing the end. She gives me a grin as she scurries up the ladder, and Carson pushes himself up to standing to creep down the steep pitched roof to Julie.
“Be careful,” I tell her as I hand her the first strand. I grip the rails of the aluminum ladder, warily watching as the rickety old thing give to Julie’s weight. I don’t know why I’m worried about it, considering Carson just went up the same ladder.
But Carson isn’t Julie.
I shake it off, watching the siblings exchange the lights. Julie shakes her head at something he says that I miss, and then she starts back down the ladder. As she does, her boot slips on a rung, and she lets out a squeal.
Julie loses her grip and clumsily comes down right into my arms. I catch her as Carson steadies the ladder. Her body is warm against mine, and I inhale her sweet perfume as she awkwardly pushes her hair out of her face, her face bright red.
“Thank you,” she lets out a nervous laugh, and I chuckle, ignoring the way my heart is pounding in my chest at the contact. I hold her eyes for a few seconds longer, never having been this close to her before…
“Yeah, good save, Tuck,” Carson calls from the roof, instantly cutting the tension in two. “Let’s get moving. Julie, stay off the ladder.”
I let Julie’s legs drop to the ground, missing the warmth of her the moment she’s not in my arms again. “I’ll use the ladder from now on,” I tell her, my voice slightly uneven. I clear my throat. “If that works for you.”
“Yeah, probably best.” She looks away from me, keeping her head down as she makes her way to the pile of working lights. We fall into a routine of me scaling the ladder, Julie keeping the lights coming, and Carson clipping them in.
Surprisingly, it goes a lot smoother than I expect. We have the roof done in a couple of hours, including the peaks, which I join Carson on the roof for, while Julie gives directions from the ground with her hands on her hips. It’s…
It’s a good time.
When we finish the roof, Carson and I join Julie on the lawn, staring up at what we’ve completed. It’s still daylight—not even lunchtime, actually. It’s been a solid distraction from the lunch plans I have with Cal Cooper.
“Not bad,” Carson comments, folding his arms across his chest. “I think Mom and Dad will be happy with it. They’ll be back from taking that load of cattle soon.”
“Yeah, we have lunch plans with Dad,” Julie says, her eyes still focused on the roof. She then checks her watch. “We still have to finish this first though.”
Wait… Finish it?
“Are we not done?” I furrow my brow, my eyes bouncing between the Cooper siblings. They both look at me like I’m an idiot.
“We still have to do the nativity,” Carson says.
“And the reindeer,” Julie adds.
“And Frosty.”
“Oh, and the bushes with the net lights.”
“Can’t forget the candy cane lights down the driveway.”
I grimace openly, shaking my head. “And where is all this stuff?” I glance toward the few boxes stacked in the yard. “Because there’s no way it all fits in there.”
“The storage barn,” Carson answers, chuckling. “I’ll grab the truck.”
The truck. We need a freaking truck to get all the decorations. I breathe out a sigh, but follow along with the Cooper siblings, trying to keep my brain on the task at hand. I’ve never been involved with decorating like this. Nate’s mom and dad always did all the decorating while we were at school—and even then, while they treated me like family to some extent, I was still on the outside.
I’m always on the outside. I glance down to my boots, trudging through the dormant grass as I load up in the truck with Julie and Carson. I let Julie take the front seat with Carson, and I sit in the back, my mood souring with every passing second.
I don’t want to be a downer to their holiday traditions, but no matter how hard I try, the holidays just… suck for me. I drum my fingers on the door of the truck as it lurches forward. Julie and Carson are talking about a plan of attack for getting it all done before lunch, while also sprinkling in some childhood memories.
“Do you remember when Dad accidentally put a hole in Frosty?” Julie giggles. “Mom was so upset. She thought it couldn’t be fixed.”
“Yeah, but he fixed it,” Carson says as he navigates the gravel road around to the storage barn. “With that hideous black masking tape.”
“Oh my gosh,” Julie bursts into full blown laughter. “It literally looked like Frosty had a third eye.”
“I kind of liked it,” Carson smirks. “It scared the crap out of all my friends at the party. I still think we should’ve kept it.”
I rest my chin against my hand and stare out the window at the rolling hills of their ranch, imagining what it would like to actually bring my herd here. I really could exponentially expand…
“Tucker?” Julie pokes me through the space between the seat and the door. “Are you asleep?”
I look over at her, seeing her bright eyes peeking through the gap. “No, not asleep. It’s all good.”
“What’s your favorite holiday memory?” Carson asks the question, and I don’t miss the look Julie shoots him. It’s a warning that her brother misses entirely as he puts the truck in park and waits for my answer.
“Uh…” My voice trails off as I rack my brain for a holiday that doesn’t come with a sick feeling in my gut. “The… Um… When…” I rub my jaw, finally pulling one from deep in my past. “When I was around five or six, I was staying in one of those group homes, just outside of Dallas. Some church came and put on the Christmas story for us. They brought real animals, only it was like the cowboy version or something. They had a horse, and the kids got a chance to ride. That’s when I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
Carson and Julie just stare at me when I finish my story and I push open the truck door before they can say anything driven by pity for me. I don’t need to hear someone tell me that they’re sorry for how I was brought up. It just makes it all worse. I mean, I never believed in Santa—mostly because I rarely got anything from him. And when I did, it was like a coat, or socks or something…
Not the newest Gameboy or whatever.
Santa basically gave me the shaft.
“So, I heard it’s supposed to snow on Christmas Eve,” Carson says, as I join him at the open doors of the barn. “I thought that was pretty wild.” I can hear the sincerity in his voice. I’ve definitely tripped a nerve in his prickly exterior, and while I should see that as a win, it just further drives the point home that I’ll always be the pitiful orphan.
And I really don’t like how that feels.