the remains of christmas
Chris
December in Nashville wasn’t supposed to be this cold.
December was supposed to be mildly cold. Pleasantly cold. The kind of cold where you could get away with a wool coat and scarf and gloves if you wanted to look chic in the Christmas tree lot, but you could just as easily wear a hoodie.
I was bundled up for the Christmas tree lot and it still wasn’t enough.
I pulled my phone out of my coat pocket and checked the temperature. Nineteen.
Nineteen.
For fuck’s sake, we were well past dawn and still it was this cold. Colder even.
The sun had brightened the sky but the temperature plummeted. That was hours ago. Hours we’d been standing out here, bouncing on our toes to keep warm while the County Sheriff assured us that any minute now, they’d be finished securing a perimeter around a reported partial set of human remains.
It wasn’t like me to be so full of complaints. But it was nineteen degrees and we’d been standing in the scrub brush next to the railroad tracks for hours.
I’d finished my first flat white in the car on the way over here. I’d finished my second flat white approximately thirty minutes after the first.
I didn’t have a third.
On my left, my good friend and colleague, Dr. Decca Crowley huddled close, using me for a windbreak. She was worse off than I. She’d borrowed a beanie from one of the cops, but her hand knit mittens had holes.
She breathed into her cupped hands.
I sighed and snapped an extra hand warmer to life. In the decade or so I’d known her, Decca had never come fully prepared for a case. “Here. Put this in your pocket. At least you’ll be able to move your fingers once we finally get to work.”
“Th-thank you,” her voice shook. “I’ll be fine as soon as I get moving. Why is it t-taking them so long? Why did the ME call us out so early?”
Somewhere in the sparse woods ahead, below a railroad bridge that spanned a gully, a shining beige dome peeked out from the leaves and dirt and cracked styrofoam cups. It was law enforcement’s job to figure out the best way for us to descend. It was our job to determine the age of the alleged cranium once we got down there. After that, we”d take it to a lab to posit the details.
“Oh, my God.” A floaty blur of white came into my view, pulling my gaze to a pretty blonde elf in a cracked black leather motorcycle jacket. A jacket I intuitively knew had no lining and therefore, no protection against these nineteen meager degrees. “Nice car. Yours?” She directed her question to me.
“Yes. Thanks,” I smiled and looked behind me at the glossy black sports car before throwing my car-hating counterpart, Decca, a side-eyed glance. “It’s eight days old,” I explained to the newcomer. At least there was someone around here that I could impress with my fancy new vehicle.
“AMG GT, right? Two-seater? I haven’t seen one in person, but I’ve been following the redesign. Is this a special order?” She continued, in lieu of an introduction.
“Uh—yes. I—”
“The composite brake discs,” She answered my unasked question. “AMG discs are usually yellow. Yours are as black as the car. Nice.”
I’d seen plenty of women go gaga over a car before, but not quite like this, like a gearhead. I wasn’t even a gearhead and I owned the damn thing. I was just sick of driving my old Volvo around everywhere for years and wanted to splurge a little after being carbon emissions-conscious for so long.
“I drive an ’87 Firebird. She’s rough, but I do all the work on her myself. I’m Daphne, Decca’s assistant.”
“Daphne.” I repeated, unable to move past her name, her lilting voice, her easy smile. Something about her sent waves of heat through my body, like toasting my hands in front of a roaring fire.
Her brows lifted. She looked at Decca who looked expectantly at me.
Daphne. Daphne.
The name echoed in my brain, harmonizing with itself in modulating chords. A sweet smile played on her lips as we held each other’s gaze.
Decca elbowed me in the side. “Daphne, this is Dr. Chris Carter. He’s the forensic odontologist I told you about. What I failed to tell you, is that he thinks driving this fancy car here will make me more sympathetic to the idea that he’s bringing the remains back to the lab. His lab.” She said pointedly. “Since I have no time today. Not if you’re expecting to have actual food and beverages at my Christmas party tonight.”
Like hell was I putting human remains in the hatch of my eight-day-old Mercedes.
“Chris.” I stretched my hand out and she shook it.
“Wow. You’re the teeth guy?” She smiled down at our joined hands. I still hadn’t let go. I couldn’t seem to remember how.
“I’m just a dentist.”
“You’re more than a dentist. I’ve read your recent paper on current trends on bite mark analysis. And the one about facial depth thickness indicators determining masseter tissue strength and their impact on bite mark depth.”
My brain was glitching badly, and needed a reboot. Not only was Daphne a car geek, she was familiar with my research. Empirically speaking, neither of those things occurred outside my wildest dreams.
No oneread my papers, but I could just envision her doing it. Body flung sideways into an overstuffed chair, legs draped over the arm. Bare feet swinging. A pen dangling in her nimble fingers until she reached up to absentmindedly grip it between her premolars, steadying the tip with her tongue when she got to Fig. 3c, showing a closeup of the abnormal composite filling that had allowed me to identify a body pulled from the Gulf of Mexico. I was just vain–and maybe pathetic enough–to mistake her flattery as flirtation.
But no. There was no way she’d be… interested.
Daphne”s cheeks reddened. She looked nervous the way she bounced on her heels in those beat-up combat boots. And cold. She looked very very… cold in whatever she called that scrap of fabric that barely covered her long lean thighs in these nineteen degree temps.
“Um, want me to check in with the Sheriff, boss? See if he knows anything more?”
Decca’s shit-eating grin stretched wide across her mouth as she tracked my eyes. “That would be so helpful, Daph. Thanks.”
Daphne jogged away, her short skirt swinging just under her ass. I seriously doubted those tights were doing anything to keep the warmth in.
“So. Daphne, huh?”
I tore my eyes away from Daphne and the cops who”d suddenly sprung to life as she came into view.
“Hm.” I frowned. “You arrange that?”
“I… may have given a few of your journal articles I happened to have lying around. But I swear I had nothing to do with that.” She pointed to where Daphne had just been standing. “You can’t fake that kind of chemistry.”
I looked sharply at Decca.
“Yeah, it wasn’t just you. Just, Chris…? Don’t make the same mistake with her that you made with me. Take a risk. Open up.” She elbowed me in the side. ”And don’t let her get away.”
Decca left me alone to hang out with the cool kids: the medical examiner investigators and the Davidson County deputies. Hot coffee steamed from their styrofoam cups as they huddled close. Christmas music was playing from one of the patrol cars and the deputies passed around a Santa cap until it finally ended up on Sheriff Hardy”s head.
I wasn’t in a party mood. I had too many feelings to process and I preferred to do that alone.
An icy breeze whipped against my cheek and I shuddered. This was stupid. I could be sitting in my car, cranking the heat if they still weren’t ready for us after this long. I could thaw my feet and start to regain feeling in my lower half. Just as I reached into my pocket for the keys, Daphne caught my eye and started toward me.
She stopped a few feet in front of me, both of us standing there, awkwardly.
“So…” she huffed out a vapor cloud. “Something tells me you’ve never even lifted up the hood of that thing.” Daphne nodded to my car.
I cleaned my glasses on my scarf. “If you’re trying to insult me, you’ll have to do better than that. I fully admit I know practically nothing about cars other than how to drive them.”
“Well, I’ll warn you now, I don’t try to insult anyone. But it does sort of happen sometimes. Okay, all the time. I’ll say something to make you absolutely hate me before the day’s over. Just watch. I have a talent for sticking my foot in my mouth and not even realizing it.”
“Lovely,” I said through my teeth. I doubted there was anything she could say to make me hate her. Even her warning was adorable.
“What did you say?” Her face was so open, so raw. Like she didn’t walk around expecting to get hurt at every turn.
I ripped my gaze away from where her teeth had been biting into the pillowy softness of her bottom lip.
Decca’s assistant. That made her a coworker of sorts. I couldn’t be wondering what it would feel like if those incisors were biting into my lip instead. Even if I’d been given the go ahead from her boss.
“You look cold,” I said unnecessarily.
“No shit. It’s fucking freezing out here. We’re getting an ice storm tonight.” Her voice raised several notes in her excitement.
“You want to get in for a while?”
“Really? Ugh, no. I mean, yeah, I do. I’m dying to see the interior. But… I’m acclimated now. I don’t want to get all warm and toasty then have to get out again when they’re ready.”
“Here, let me…” I loosened the tight knot of my scarf, unwound it from my neck and handed it to her.
She made no move to pull her hands from her pockets. “Nice.” She looked down at it, unmoving. Her brows pinched together in confusion. “It looks very soft.”
“No, it’s—” I chuckled and moved closer, looping it over her head and around her neck. “For you.” My breath moved one of the tendrils of hair that had escaped her braid.
“Oh, sorry.” She bit her lip and reached up to adjust the fabric, her bare hand just barely brushing my glove but managing to send jolts of pressure straight into the plexus of nerves in my chest. “I can be really dense sometimes. Thanks. Chris.” She looked into my eyes for too long. Her own eyes wide and innocent. “It’s warm from your body. It might be the warmest thing I’m wearing.”
Oh, fuck. I couldn’t breathe. She said my name and I couldn’t breathe. My warmth was warming her and I couldn’t breathe.
How long had it been since I’d had any romantic feelings toward a woman?
Since Decca had gotten married. Longer, probably, if I was being honest.
This was so much more than what I’d ever felt, even fleetingly, for Dec. Not that I didn’t love her tremendously as a friend. For me, desire had to build over time. Months or even years of mutual respect and working side-by-side. It had never felt this instantaneous.
Think, Chris. Think of something—anything—to make you sound like a capable human being.
“Um… what got you interested in cars?”
“My dad, at first. He made me learn how to change the oil. Tires. Brakes. Spark plugs. I mean, he never drove anything fancy that required computer diagnostics or controls; they were all hoopties, so it was a lot easier. When I was young, I thought him teaching me was all about bonding.” Her smile faded. ”Then I realized we were just too poor to take our cars to a shop. But I ended up really liking engines. Then I saw the Fast and the Furious.” Her smile grew reinvigorated and her eyes danced. ”I was obsessed with your car as soon as I saw it. Your car in the movie anyway.”
“What’s the Fast and the Furious?” I adjusted my glasses, surprised they hadn’t frosted over. Or maybe fogged up the way I was googly-eyed over the woman in front of me.
“You’re kidding? You drive a movie car and don’t know it’s from a movie? That’s like driving an Aston Martin and asking who James Bond is?”
“Who?” I smiled down at her.
Fuck. I was actually flirting now.
She smiled and worried her lip again. God, those lips.
There was something I was immediately drawn to in Daphne. Standing out here in the cold with her felt like being at a party. But a party where you’re off in a quiet room by yourself, just feeling the joy seeping in from around you.
Being with her was like being alone. That was something I was very good at.
“Your car is actually in The Fate of the Furious, only it was the 2016 model,” she flowed on. Her voice was soft and high pitched. A bit smoky, too. “But it was so sleek. It looked like driving it would feel like being inside a bullet as it was shot from a gun. Is that what it’s like?”
“Uh, yeah. Kind of. Not that I get many opportunities to pull the trigger.”
“Oh, man. I’d give anything to drive your car.” Her eyes looked inward and she smiled dreamily, as if accessing the depths of her memory.
I hadn’t realized how close we’d been standing. Or that I was still facing her, the tips of our shoes practically touching. I could pick out the striations of gray in her irises. “I actually had a race car bed when I was a kid. It wasn’t one of those official plastic ones. It was painted wood. Blue, not red. My dad built it for me. Before he got sick.”
“Maybe, one day—”
“Finally, ugh. I’ve got so much shit to do for the party tonight.” Decca cut in. I hadn”t notice her walking back. “They’re ready for us.”
“Hell yeah. I’m excited to see what the best teeth guy in Tennessee does with the remains.”
“Oh, please. Tennessee? I’m the best teeth guy on the east coast.” Oh, God. I couldn’t stop. Nothing good ever happened when I flirted. I was notoriously bad at it. It led nowhere fast. It led to attractions to unattainable women. To friends with benefits situationships where I was too chickenshit to admit real feelings, to scaring women off with my intensity.
Suddenly, it didn”t feel so cold anymore. I wiggled my toes inside my shoes. Definitely not frozen.
I straightened my spine and steeled my mind, preparing myself to enter the sacred space of a wrongful burial. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about my love life. I was here to perform my job.
I was good at my job.
The fact that I wanted to show Daphne just how good I was, was inconsequential.