8. O’ Christmas Tree
O’ CHRISTMAS TREE
K ayn
Kandi took my hand and stared into my eyes.
I could get lost looking into this woman’s russet-brown eyes for days.
She smiled at me, winked, and squeezed my hand.
I didn’t know if it was the wink or the smile, but I felt this crazy tightening in my chest. That shit left me rocked. I had no idea what it meant.
“You okay?” she asked.
I knew that I was frowning, but it wasn’t because I was displeased with anything that she did. Instead, I was confused about what I had been feeling. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea to pretend to my family that we were married.
I didn’t have feelings for women, and they damn sure didn’t make my chest tight.
Women couldn’t be trusted. I had learned that from an early age at the hands of the best woman.
The only thing they did was use their emotions to manipulate men so that they could get their way.
Hell, the first woman, Eve, had taught us that shit.
She’d manipulated Adam straight off the rip, and every woman since her had that same snake inside of her.
So, no, I didn’t trust women. I had one purpose for women—sex.
If they couldn’t help me bust a nut, then they had no place in my personal life.
And I wasn’t about to get that from Kandi; she worked for me.
That was another thing that I didn’t do, workplace relationships.
They complicated things, and that wasn’t firsthand knowledge that I had.
I learned that from watching several of my friends try that shit and get burned.
“Aren’t you two just the cutest?” Aunt Frances stated.
I looked up and noticed that she was watching us. I leaned in and dropped a kiss on Kandi’s forehead before I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Forcing a smile, I replied. “This is my baby.”
Kandi leaned in and pressed her hand against my chest. “I’ve got a good man, and I’m so thankful for him,” she declared to my aunt.
That was when I knew the hand-holding had been for my aunt’s benefit. I hadn’t noticed her watching us, but Kandi had.
“Are we going to stand around catching feelings, or are we going to get this tree cut?” Uncle JR asked, waving the ax around wildly.
“Uncle JR, do you know what you’re doing with that thing?” I asked and released Kandi’s hand to walk to my uncle.
I knew that he could cut down the tree, but I needed something to distract me from what I had been feeling with Kandi.
“Of course, I know what I’m doing. Don’t get all big on me now and forget that I was the one who taught you how to do this.”
“Okay, but what about those knees? You sure you need to be down there on them, old man? Don’t get stuck and then be crying for me to help you up,” I teased.
He smiled up at me as he kneeled and then ordered, “Hold that tree steady, boy, and let me show you how a real man does it.”
I chuckled but did as my uncle ordered. He was right. He had taught me so much, including how to be a man. Uncle JR had been extremely patient with me throughout some difficult years. I was thankful for having him and Aunt Frances in my life. Without them, I had no idea where I would be today.
I felt a lot of guilt for leaving them and not coming back to visit, but I had to go into the world and make my way. Their expectations weren’t always easy to live by, and I was a man who needed to make and live by my own rules, and that was exactly what I had done.
The tree started leaning, and Aunt Frances and Kandi cheered behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Kandi’s eyes were lit up with what I perceived to be genuine joy.
But then again, she had looked genuine earlier when she lied to my aunt about what she did for a living.
Another master manipulator at work, although this time it was for my benefit.
I knew that she couldn’t be trusted, and I needed to be mindful of that.
After all the talk about holiday traditions, Kandi had convinced my aunt and uncle to come out to the tree lot that was a little over a mile away.
She suggested there was no better time to cut down the tree since we were here, and my aunt and uncle were expecting company later anyway.
We had a little under an hour left of daylight, so we all rushed out to grab this tree.
“Voila! That’s how you cut a tree,” Uncle JR announced and got up off the ground easily like a much younger man.
“You’d better watch that. You’ll feel all that pain in your back and knees tonight,” Aunt Frances warned him and winked at me.
We laughed and headed off to pay for our tree and have it shaken and trimmed.
“You were such a cute little boy.” Kandi gushed over yet another picture that my aunt showed her.
We had finished decorating the tree, and Kandi had asked if there were any pictures of me as a kid around. Aunt Frances had gladly rushed to get the stacks of photo albums out that she had collected through the years.
“Wasn’t he though? And he was always ready to be in front of the camera,” Uncle JR revealed.
“Well, he’s nothing like that now. In fact, he doesn’t prefer attention much at all.”
“I’ve got a business to run,” I professed gruffly.
“And you can do that and still make time to live, honey,” Kandi declared, giving me a knowing look.
“I do live.”
“Okay, fine, if you say so,” Kandi stated with a casual shrug and turned her lips down. She turned her attention back to the book, and she and Aunt Frances kept discussing the various pictures as my aunt explained what was going on in each of them.
The doorbell rang, and Uncle JR got up. “I’ll go get that. It’s probably Harold and Shirley from next door.”
“That’s right. They were supposed to be coming over for Christmas drinks this evening,” Aunt Frances stated, looking up from the photo album before she returned her attention to it.
I took the time to check out Kandi’s profile.
Her face lit up whenever she smiled or found a reason to laugh.
Her beautiful, plush lips looked so soft that all I wanted to do was kiss them or feel them wrapped around me.
When she lifted her glass of eggnog to drink and pressed her lips against the rim of her glass, I imagined them wrapped around me.
And as the creamy concoction slid down her throat and she swallowed, I wished that it was my cum she was swallowing. But what screwed with my head was the combination of her next action and question.
Kandi set the glass down, smiled at me, and then licked the milky, off-white substance from her lips.
I damn near exploded in my pants. But just as quickly, my erection went down when she asked, “Where are pictures of him when he was much younger? I’ve only seen Kayn as a teenager and preteen.
What about Kayn, the little boy and the baby? ”
Kandi giggled, and I stood. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
I nodded and spoke to Harold and Shirley as they entered the living room, but I headed to the kitchen.
Thoughts of my childhood racked my brain, removing the easy feeling that had come over me about being back home.
The relaxed state that I’d been in all evening since we’d gone to chop the tree was no longer.
In its place was tension. I could feel it in the firm set of my jaw, the hunched form of my shoulders, the churning of my gut, and the way I dragged spoons, bowls, and measuring cups from their cabinets and slammed them onto the counter.
“Hey, are you okay?” Kandi asked after ten minutes.
“Yeah,” I replied somewhat gruffly.
And I was. I’d busied myself doing something I used to love to do with Aunt Frances: baking cookies from scratch. It always seemed to calm me down in the past.
“What are you making?”
I held up the star-shaped cookie cutter and replied, “Cookies.”
“Oh, you want some help?”
“I mean, if that’s what you wanna do, you can join me.” I had a hard time admitting that I enjoyed her company. Lucky for me, she didn’t let those types of things stop her from doing what she wanted to do anyway.
She washed her hands and came to stand beside me. “I didn’t know you could bake from scratch and without a recipe,” she stated, looking around.
“Aunt Frances and I used to do this during the holidays.”
“Oh. Speaking of your past—Kayn!”
I tossed a handful of flour at her to divert her attention. Before she had a chance to recover or react, I grabbed some of the cookie dough that I’d prepared and tossed that at her.
“A food fight, Kayn? Really?” Her face changed from a surprised grimace to a mischievous grin.
I laughed and kept tossing it at her until she grabbed some flour and threw it back at me.
She laughed so happily that it shot straight to my groin.
I let go of the tension and the bad memories once more, and I also released the judgment that I had about Kandi.
Instead, I allowed myself to bask in the moment of creating a new memory, one where my fake wife had the key to my heart.