Chapter 9 Dakota
DAKOTA
Niko and I had been dating for a couple of weeks, and everything was going amazingly. We spent a lot of time together, both Little and big, and I couldn’t be happier. And it wasn't just our relationship that was doing well, but my life in general.
Now that I was sleeping better, my work performance had improved, and I was no longer waiting for Gregg's disapproval every day.
Instead, he was telling me that I was on track for a promotion and how glad he was that I was on the team.
He even put some peppermint candies on my desk for the holidays.
I didn't picture him as the kind of guy who would ever be in full-on "Merry Christmas" mode, but that was fine, because my office manager, she was all about it. The Secret Santa she’d organized had been done in a way I had never seen before, where we gave her the gifts and then she hid them in random places and turned it into a scavenger hunt.
I didn't know my person. Heck, I’d never even met them before, but they liked the gift I had picked out for them.
It was a Christmas ornament that had been handmade, with a bazillion tiny beads in the shape of our state.
They absolutely loved it. My person got me a container of cocoa, and who didn’t love that?
There was a Christmas party in the office one day for lunch, but other than that, things went on as normal.
If we met our deadlines, we were promised we could get off early for the holidays, and we did.
At lunchtime on the 23rd, we were told the Christmas vacation was beginning and that we'd be off until New Year's Day… paid.
There was not much better than that.
It gave me time to make cookies for Daddy, and this time, it wasn't slice-and-bake like I did for Santa.
I wasn't half-assing it now. I went to the grocery store and bought real ingredients.
I spent the second half of the day mixing, rolling, and baking cookie dough into the shapes of snowflakes, snowmen, and Santas.
I was saving the fun part for when he came.
What was better for a little fun than decorating cookies with Daddy?
Niko came over with a pizza, my meal request. He offered for us to cook dinner together or to go out to eat, but watching a Christmas movie to welcome in Christmas Eve while eating pizza after decorating far too many cookies and consuming just as many as landed on the platter sounded like the perfect way to spend the night.
This time, he also came with the cat condo. Silly me, I thought it came assembled. So as the movie played in the background, instead of the two of us snuggling on the couch, we put together the thousand-piece condo. It wasn't really a thousand pieces, but it felt like it.
When we were done, we saw just how truly large it was. It covered the entire window. Yes, light could shine through, but that was about it.
"No more staring out the window at me," he teased, wrapping his arms around me from behind.
"No, I guess not. But don't worry, Mr. Whiskers can still stare at you."
It was near midnight when Mr. Whiskers first dared to try the condo. I had expected him to be all about it from the get-go, but he had been far more interested in the box the pieces came in. So on brand for a cat.
We were thrilled when he decided he liked it enough to sleep in the mushroom bed.
"Ready for bed, my baby boy?"
"I think so." I was exhausted, but also not ready for the night to be over.
"You think so? Was there something else you wanted to do?"
"I-I don't know. It feels like we're not ready for Christmas, and tomorrow, well, technically, right now is Christmas Eve."
He turned me in his arms and held my hand. "What would you like to do to feel more ready for Christmas?"
"Don't you think my tree looks kind of Charlie Brown?" It was a fake one, and it wasn't as bad as Charlie Brown's, but it sure wasn't good.
"Did you want to go to the tree farm in the morning and cut our own?"
"Yes, Daddy?" It shouldn't have been a question, and yet it was.
"Then go get some sleep, and I'll pick you up at 8 a.m."
I wanted to ask him to stay, as he did most nights, but he'd already told me that he had to help a neighbor who was getting a delivery first thing in the morning, so it made sense he had to go home. That didn't mean I liked it.
"You go get ready for bed," he said. "I’ll make you a bottle, and then, before you know it, I'll be back here again."
That "before you know it" always sounded like a platitude because, of course, you waited every minute for that. But I woke up to him coming in, having forgotten to set my alarm and sleeping in, something I wouldn’t have dreamed of happening even three weeks earlier.
"My sweet baby boy, look at you. Sound asleep. Do you want to skip the tree?"
"No, I'm up, Daddy. I'm up!" I ran to the bathroom so fast and got ready quicker than ever.
We drove through the coffee shop, where I grabbed a bagel sandwich and some hot cocoa, and then off we went on the hour-long drive to the tree farm.
I'd never gotten my own tree before, not fresh out of the ground.
I expected it to be more eventful than it was.
All we did was get on a tractor that took us to any of the trees we wanted, then we cut it down and brought it home.
There was no fanfare, no Santa's Village.
But that was probably better because I had my very own Santa.
That was when the fun began. We set up the tree in the stand Santa brought with him, and he told me he'd be right back. When he returned, he had a huge tote with him, red and green, the colors of Christmas.
"Where'd that come from?"
"It was in my car. Where do you think I went last night? To sleep?”
Well, yeah. Kinda.
“I stopped at the 24-hour big-box store to grab some supplies. Can't have a tree without decorations."
He set the box down, and when he opened it up, it was filled with lights, Christmas balls, and cute little Christmas trees and character ornaments. Christmas threw up in that tote, and I loved it.
I turned the television to the channel that played the Yule log for the three days surrounding Christmas, a tradition that seemed to live on forever despite streaming services, and then piped in some Christmas music from a playlist I had been working on the past week or so.
"We should do this next year, too, Daddy," I said, leaning back against him as we admired the work we had just completed. The tree was beyond full of ornaments, and by some miracle, Mr. Whiskers had zero interest in it at all.
"I think we should do it next year too. And maybe we can even make some ornaments of our own for that tree." It was the first time Daddy mentioned that far into the future, and it was better than any tree, any present, any cookie.
"That sounds perfect, Daddy. Absolutely perfect."