Chapter 16
16
GRANT
“What the fuck?” I muttered as I pulled into my driveway and saw a massive box on my front porch. Leaving the car running in the driveway, I got out and walked up to the porch, staring down at the mystery box.
Except it wasn’t a mystery. It was a Christmas tree. A deluxe seven-and-a-half-foot tree, to be exact. I stared at it for a moment, at the box with its little picture of a Christmas tree, at the tiny white flakes fluttering around me and landing on the cardboard. There was only one person on Earth who knew I didn’t have a Christmas tree. I pulled out my phone.
Grant: There’s a big ass xmas tree on my porch. Know anything about it?
For a minute I stared at my phone, but the response didn’t come right away, and it was cold outside. I walked back to the car, pulling it into the garage and bringing my things into the house. My phone dinged as I was walking to my front door.
Tessa: Dammit! I missed the notification earlier today
Tessa: Surprise!
I laughed, reaching down to pick up the box. It was much heavier than I anticipated, and I grunted as I lifted the damn thing and brought it into my foyer. Eventually it would have to go to the living room, but the box was wet with snow, and I didn’t want to get it all over the house.
Grant: You bought me a chore I have to complete.
Tessa: I bought you the Christmas spirit in an effort to warm your cold, dead Christmas-hating soul
I laughed, smiling down at the phone. Lots of girls would’ve sent cautious, worried apologies after giving me something I didn’t want or like, but not Tess.
Grant: I don’t hate Christmas.
The phone rang in my hand and I smiled, swiping to answer. “I don’t hate Christmas,” I repeated.
“Right, right, right,” Tessa replied. “You just hate trees and lights and presents under the tree.”
“I mean—” She wasn’t wrong. Those were not my favorite things about Christmas, but I liked other things. “Those aren’t the only parts of Christmas.”
“Do you like ugly Christmas sweaters?” she asked. The disgusted grunt slipped from my lips before I had a chance to stop it, and Tessa laughed. “See! You’re a grinch.”
“Are you going to come decorate this tree?” I asked.
“Only if you’ll help, Grinch.”
“I have to help. I don’t even think you could lift this on your own. How much did this thing cost, anyway? I should pay you.”
“My God, Grant. It’s a gift. You’re not paying me for it. Giving gifts is part of Christmas, Grinch,” she said slowly, as if I were a particularly dense child. My smile widened, and she said, “I didn’t know I was going to have to teach you everything.”
“I’m familiar with giving gifts. I actually like that part.”
“Holy shit,” she said dramatically. “I got him to admit to liking one teeny tiny part of Christmas. The world might end!”
“What are you doing tonight? Have you had dinner?”
“Not yet.”
“Did you want to come over? I can make dinner for us and you can teach me all about Christmas.”
“Sure. Fair warning, I don’t teach the Jesus-y parts, but I’m pretty sure our moms planned a Davis-Dupree midnight mass outing on Christmas Eve, if you need a refresher.”
“Duly noted. You want me to come pick you up?”
“Nope. It’s pretty out. I’ll walk, but I have to do a couple things here first, so it’ll be about a half hour.”
“Perfect. I’ll see you soon.”
“You’ll see me soon,” she agreed, and the line went silent.
Leaving the tree where it was, I walked to the kitchen and set the phone down on the counter, pulling the fridge open and perusing my cooking options. Although I lived alone, I had more than enough food in the fridge. I typically made two of everything I ate for dinner in order to have lunch ready the next day. I settled on steaks with smashed potatoes and green beans.
I parboiled the potatoes while I made my butter compote, then snipped all the edges off my green beans. I was only just smashing the potatoes down when I heard a knock at the door.
I’d left the tree in the foyer, completely blocking the front door, so I walked out the side door in the kitchen and down my side porch in my bare feet until I could lean around the house. “Tess,” I said, and she jumped.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she whispered, walking toward me.
“Your gargantuan tree blocked the door, so you have to come in through the back,” I whispered back.
“Are you putting it in the foyer?” she asked as she followed me toward the side door.
The question made me chuckle. “Of course not. The box was wet from the snow, so I left it there until we were ready to assemble it.”
“Oh,” she said, and then, as I stepped into the light of the kitchen, “what are you wearing?”
I looked down at myself. I’d thrown on a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of sweats while we’d talked on the phone, before I’d known Tess was coming over. I figured she wouldn’t mind a casual look, and I didn’t feel like changing back into work clothes when all we’d be doing was eating and decorating a Christmas tree. “I changed when I got home. Do I look bad?” I asked, feeling a little self-conscious since she’d begun this line of questioning.
“You look—” she hesitated and I looked down at myself again. “Pornographic.”
I had been poised to go change, but at her words, I stilled. “What?”
“Gray sweatpants and a henley? That’s some fetish shit. Like if I showed up in a schoolgirl outfit.”
“I don’t think it’s the same,” I protested.
She hopped up onto my counter and stared at me. “Where are you at in the cooking process?” she asked, and I couldn’t help but notice the way her skirt crept up her thighs.
“I could pause.”
Tessa smiled, pulling her dress up and over her head, leaving her sitting in just her panties and bra. “Perfect. Come here.”
Two hours later, we’d finished eating and Tessa sat on my living room floor surrounded by ornaments from my childhood. “They’re not very attractive,” I said as I held up an icicle made of plastic beads.
Her head tilted to one side. “I love it. Do you remember making any of them?”
I shifted from my spot perched on an armchair to join her on the floor, handing her the icicle ornament and beginning to pick through the mess. I pulled a few from the pile. “If you like that one so much, you can keep it,” I said. “But I remember making these.” I held the first—a sled with my picture glued to its flat side—up for Tess to see. “We made this at the fourth grade room party. My mom was the room mom that year.”
“Look at you,” she said, squinting at the tiny photo. Her lips were curled into a sweet smile I longed to kiss. “You were so cute.”
I leaned closer, stealing a quick kiss while I took the sled back. “And this one,” I said, holding up another, “was always a personal favorite. The ribbon inside was my exact height in kindergarten. I liked seeing how much I’d grown every year.”
“A memory you actually liked,” she said, smiling at me while she stood up. She pointed at the ornament, then held out her hand, and I set the little ball in her palm. “Come on up,” she said as she popped it open and pulled out the ribbon. “Let’s see how much you’ve grown.”
I stood up, taking my place next to her while she held the ribbon out and let one end drop to the floor. It came roughly to my waist. She looked down into her other hand and I saw she held the halves of the ornament in it. My picture was on one half, and she held it up for both of us to see. “Can you remember being so little?”
The boy looking back at me had a lopsided smile, a mess of hair so dark brown it seemed black, and bright blue eyes. “Ethan wasn’t even born yet,” I replied.
“So weird,” she said, holding the ribbon up to her own waist. I had a flash of a small, dark-haired boy pressing his face into the lush curve of her belly in a careless embrace, but I shook the thought from my head. Tessa and I were temporary, and thinking about children was the polar fucking opposite of temporary.
Tess spun the ribbon around her finger and slipped it back inside the ornament, then hung it front and center on the tree, roughly where she’d hung the piano when she’d helped with the tree at the office. This was apparently a spot of honor on any tree, according to Tess, at least. “Grab some ornaments you like, and you can fill in the front,” she instructed. I did as she asked, picking up an assortment of little crafts and filling in the tree.
“Shouldn’t grown-ups have grown-up ornaments?” I asked with a chuckle as my tree began to resemble a grade-school craft project.
Tess sighed, though the sound was more rueful than impatient. “I bet you would buy soulless glass balls from Walmart to decorate your tree if I weren’t here,” she said.
“If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t have a tree,” I reminded her, elbowing her softly in the ribs.
“Well, in that case, I’d say I’m pretty amazing.”
I stilled at her words as I hung a paper handprint on the lesser-seen side of the tree. Then I turned to face her, staring down for a moment at the woman, who was currently lost in her thoughts, hanging a miniature coffee mug with my name on it. “What?” she asked, looking up at me curiously.
“You,” I replied, cupping her chin in my palm. “You’re absolutely amazing.” I bent to kiss her, my lips pressing against hers softly. Tessa wound her arms around my neck, pulling me closer and deepening the kiss until I forgot about the tree and the ornaments, and all of my senses were attuned only to Tessa.
“Overall, everything looks great. When you get home, I want you to call the office and make an appointment for next week, okay?”
“Absolutely. Thank you doctor,” Mrs. Holt said, nodding emphatically. Her baby, Colton—whom I prayed would never be called Colt—rested peacefully in her arms.
I smiled, gave a single last nod, and slipped out the door to her hospital room, nearly running into the nurse outside.
“Grant!” Kelly said as I reached forward to grab her shoulders, making sure neither of us tipped over.
“Kelly, hi,” I said, pasting on a smile I hoped looked enthusiastic despite my desire to bypass the woman and get back to the office. I hadn’t seen Kelly since our stint hanging lights together. I wouldn’t say I ghosted her, since we’d never texted each other in the first place, but tell that to my mother, who’d asked about Kelly more times than I could count in the past couple weeks.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, tucking her hair behind one ear. I loved when Tessa tucked her hair behind her ears, and my eyes tracked the movement now, but nothing about Kelly doing this same behavior appealed to me. She was just a woman whose hair was falling out of her careless ponytail.
“I had a patient—a newborn,” I replied, hooking my thumb to the closed door behind me.
Kelly grinned, her voice low. “Ah, yes. Colt Holt. He’s a cutie.”
I nodded, not sure how to reply, and Kelly looked at her watch. Hopefully she had places to be and would provide this conversation with a neat ending.
“Have you had lunch yet?” she asked instead.
I glanced at my own watch, though I knew the time. “No, not yet. It was my plan to grab it on the way back to the office.”
Kelly smiled widely. “Perfect. You should come down to the cafeteria with me. They’re serving a Baja fish taco today, and I swear it’s really amazing.”
It took all of my self-control to not look pained by every aspect of this plan, but I’d already talked myself into a corner, and I didn’t have a way out. “Sounds good,” I agreed lamely.
Kelly looked at her watch again. “It’s my lunch now. We could head down.”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
I followed Kelly through the halls until we entered a wide eating space. Smiling big, she nodded toward the line. “They’re right up here. Grab a tray, it’s easier that way.”
I did as I was told, accepting a tray and following Kelly through the line to get the taco plate, which also came with some overcooked broccoli and a few slices of red pepper.
“I’ve got you,” Kelly said, pulling out her card at the register, but I shook my head emphatically.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, digging in my own pocket for my credit card.
Kelly laughed. “Really, Grant, it’s no big deal.”
“That’s very nice of you. Thanks,” I replied, not sure what more to say.
“C’mon. I’ll show you the good seats. It’s a best-kept secret among the nurses. Hopefully you won’t tell,” she added, glancing back at me and winking. The entire encounter made me uncomfortable, but God only knew what would get back to my mother if I was rude at all.
“How’s your day going?” I asked as we sat.
“Fine. I usually eat a little earlier, but I had a labor and delivery that went longer than expected.”
“Complications?” I asked, my brow drawing tighter as I remembered the few labor and deliveries I’d seen.
Kelly shook her head as she lifted her first taco. “Nope. Just long.”
Following suit, I picked up my own taco and took a bite. “Do you come to see patients here often? I’ve seen your dad, but never you.”
“The Holt baby is the first I’ve seen. Dad was slow to give up newborns—he always liked babies—and there haven’t been a lot of births recently.”
“It’s sweet your dad loves the babies,” Kelly said, her lips puckering out as if the very idea of my father with newborns was adorable. “How about you? Do you like kids?”
“Depends on the kid.” My brow twitched. “And the parents.”
She chuckled. “True, I guess, but I love all babies.”
I bit my tongue, catching my unguarded answer before I accidentally said it. They were words I might’ve been able to share with Tessa— I like kids, but babies do very little for me —but I knew Kelly would disapprove of this answer. More importantly, my father would kill me if I sat in the hospital cafeteria talking about my total disinterest toward babies. “Babies are sweet,” I said, trying to picture a baby whom I would actually describe as sweet. My thoughts kept wandering, though, picturing a tiny, little baby with Tessa’s big, blinking, moss-green eyes. It was a weird and inappropriate thought, and I looked down, trying my damndest to focus on my taco instead. “You’re right, these are very good,” I said. “They remind me of that place on Crescent. Have you been there?”
“Mmm, yes,” she said, speaking around her bite with one hand daintily in front of her mouth. “I love that place. Have you been to Taqueria El Grande in Cranberry Falls?”
I shook my head. “I don’t make it out to Cranberry Falls very often,” I admitted.
“You should,” Kelly replied. “It’s less than a half hour away and it’s such a quaint little town. I love it. I could see living there.”
My brain flipped through possible scenarios where I mentioned Tessa’s sister Claire moving to Cranberry Falls with her fiancé, but every scenario was more awkward than the next. Tessa wouldn’t want me mentioning her, and I had no other reason to talk about Claire. “I’ll have to check it out sometime.”
Kelly took a bite, then set her taco down as if she were in no rush to finish. I kept eating. “It’s nice that you get to work with your dad. Have you wanted to work there ever since you were little?”
Not even a little. Again, it was a sentiment I had shared with Tess, but would never share with Kelly. It would hurt my parents too much to know I’d never planned to live in Bridgeport, and I didn’t know Kelly well enough to trust she would keep it private. Instead, I smiled a wide smile—the kind that always made people smile back, and I said, “Yeah. I love it here. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than in Bridgeport.” And though it wasn’t entirely the truth, in the back of my head I knew it was more and more true every time I saw Tessa Davis.