Chapter Fourteen #2
When we slowed to a halt, Anders rolled off the sled laughing like a loon, taking me with him as I was still clutching his kneecaps in a death grip.
We’d not crashed or hit any trees or even run through a shed as Clark had done.
I rolled onto my back, the back of my head resting on his chest, and stared up at the bright blue sky.
“That was fun!” Anders announced as Gilda and Kimmie arrived with a sluice of snow that coated both me and my sled steerer. Cheeks wet with snow, heart pounding, I could only agree with Anders. It had been fun. Lots of fun. “Shall we go again?”
“Only if you haul my out-of-shape ass back to the top, then give me a peck on the cheek when we arrive,” I panted.
“That I can do,” he said, giving my face a pat with a snowy mitten.
Lips coated with snow, I had to retaliate.
The face patting with snowy mittens devolved into snowballs being chucked at each other as the citizens of Grouse Falls watched and shook their heads in amusement.
Most were smiling. And those smiles lasted when Anders pulled me to the top and gave me a kiss, not on the cheek but on the lips.
That afternoon, we did five trips up and down Bateman Hill.
It’s amazing what a grown man will do to make his daughter happy and get a few kisses from his super-close friend.
***
When we were all soaked, cold, and hungry, we left the sledding and community fun behind to take Anders home.
Or that had been the plan. Seems my daughter, clever thing that she was, had other plans.
“Dad, you know we could get two pizzas at Mama Cheesy.” I shot Anders a look as he rode along beside me, damp but smiling.
Gilda sat in the back with the bags Anders had piled into the rear.
He met my sideways look with one of his own.
“We could just pick up Della, and they could come to our place to eat with us. We still have to finish making the nutcrackers for the middle school table. There are so many little nutcrackers that we need to have done by tomorrow morning…”
“And why do we have to construct two hundred cardboard nutcracker tree toppers by tomorrow morning?” I asked, shifting my sight from Anders to the road and then to Gilda in the back seat. She did have the decency to look a little chagrined.
“Because I forgot I told Mrs. Johnson I would do them.”
“Correct.” I tried my best not to let myself smile. “And when was it that Mrs. Johnson asked for volunteers for this fundraiser?”
“The day before we had Thanksgiving break,” she admitted. “But in all fairness, it was easy to forget because I had tests and the play and then there was that essay for history and the field trip to—”
“And there was Timmy,” I whispered to Anders.
“No, Timmy had nothing to do with it. I just got busy and forgot. But my forgetting is to your advantage because now you can spend the night with your new boyfriend!” she exclaimed with pride in her cleverness.
My eyes flared. “Whoa, just cool your jets, missy. Anders and I have not officially made any kind of statement about our status more than saying we’re close friends,” I rushed to say.
“Sure, like close friends make out every time they climb a hill,” Gilda snickered in the back as we turned into the campgrounds.
“She makes a fine point,” Anders commented dryly.
“You’re not helping,” I parried, my sight flicking to the rearview to see that Alfred and Arne had followed us home at a respectable distance.
“You should probably tell your two bodyguards that if they try to get into the campgrounds they’re going to get stuck with the drive unplowed and without four-wheel drive. ”
Anders huffed but pulled his phone out of his back pocket. Gilda turned around as far as the seat belt would allow to peer through the back window at the big black sedan.
“Oh my God, are they really your bodyguards?” Gilda squeaked.
“Yes, they are. My father has them looking after me while I’m touring the United States,” he explained as he typed.
“That’s pretty cool. They should come eat pizza with us.” Gilda was still checking out the sedan as it slowed at the edge of the driveway. “I mean, they work for you, right? So they should not have to go eat crummy hotel food while sitting in a hotel room with funky stuff on the sheets.”
“Gilda!” I gasped like an old woman. Anders snorted but kept typing.
“What? It’s true. I saw an exposé online about hotel bedding, and it was so gross,” she calmly explained.
I wasn’t sure if I should just be chill or forbid her from ever watching the internet ever again.
I bet that damn Timmy sent her the link.
“Also, it’s Christmas, and Pastor Pete said that showing generosity and compassion to all of God’s creations during this most blessed time is the ultimate act of love. ”
Anders shot me a glance. “She’s good.”
I sighed wearily. “Tell me about it.” I slowed to roll gently over a speed bump by the empty swimming pool. “That call is yours, Anders.”
He rolled his head in a circle and exhaled. “She’s right. It is the season of goodwill to all men.”
“And women,” floated up from the back seat.
“Yes, and women. I’ll invite them. But they may not wish to join us.” Anders resumed typing.
“If they turn down pizza and hot glue, then they must have goldfish brains,” Gilda muttered to herself as the text was sent.
Which was how forty-five minutes later, I was crammed into my kitchen pouring root beer into plastic cups with one hundred ninety-nine nutcrackers with no heads to crack nuts, three extra-large pizzas with double cheese, a duo of an almost teen plus excited dog playing and listening to the latest song from BSX2 on the floor, and a partridge in a pear tree.
If the partridge was a polite but disgruntled Anders, who was handing out paper plates while making a scratchy sort of sound that, when he hit the right note, sounded like a call a partridge might make if it were in a mood.
I didn’t know much about bird calls. The only partridge that I had knowledge of was a family from a ’70s show my mother used to tell me about. It seemed David Cassidy was dreamy…
“So, would you like two slices or just one?” I asked Arne and Alfred. There was an abundance of names that began with the letter A here today. I thought to mention it, but the tight set of Anders’ jaw made me keep that to myself.
“Two, please, and thank you,” the taller one replied.
I didn’t know which was which. Anders had not made that clear, so I smiled widely as I placed two slices of gooey pizza on a plate that Anders handed to his protector.
They were handsome men, square-jawed, rugged.
Probably able to crush my head with their thighs.
Things fell into an ugly silence for about three minutes.
Gilda, called by the aroma of pizza, rose from the floor, Della tucked under her arm, both with one ear bud in each ear, ready to feast. How she managed to get the dog to leave an earbud in when Della destroyed any mitten that came near her, I would never know.
Perhaps my daughter was a dog whisperer.
“Oh, this looks great!” She placed Della on Arne’s—or was it Alfred’s—lap and pointed a finger at a wet black nose. “You be polite. When we’re done, we’ll bake doggie cookies just for you, but you have to pretend you’re surprised on Christmas morning.”
He who now had the dog said nothing, but his flat lips spoke volumes. Della yipped a yes, or what I assumed was a yes, and sat there good as gold wagging her tail.
“This is most unusual,” Arne/Alfred said as he eyed Della. “Usually she bites our pant legs.”
“That’s because she knows I’m not happy with your presence,” Anders tossed out as he slapped a plate filled with pizza down in front of Arne/Alfred.
“Wow, that’s brutal. I think we should all be nice to each other.
Pastor Pete said this is the season of goodwill to all people.
Even people we usually don’t like,” Gilda said with an air befitting the most grand of dames and went to the sink to wash her hands.
Anders looked properly chastised. I gave him a weak smile and took a bite of pizza.
More silence fell. After Gilda dried her hands, she sat on a folding chair we’d pulled from the closet.
“So, who do we love in music today?” she asked, looking around at the men expectantly.
No one said a word. She huffed deeply. “Fine, I’ll start.
I love BSX2. These are the band members.
” Her phone came out. Lo and behold, there were the boys from BSX2 looking bubblegum sweet yet sinful all at once.
“Hoon is my husband.” And then she went on endlessly through all the pizza devouring to fill the heads of the three ‘A’ men with everything they didn’t want to know about a K-pop band.
After dinner, Gilda drafted Arne and Alfred into nutcracker repairs alongside Anders.
I was tugged into making dog cookies for Della while Gilda patrolled the kitchen like a drill sergeant, handing out compliments instead of yelling into faces ala Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket.
The night was an interesting one, to say the least. When I pulled up in front of the camper with a quiet Anders and a sleepy Della around ten-thirty, I glanced over to see my lover staring out into the dark nothingness of a winter night.
“That was the first time I ever spent more than ten minutes with those two,” he confessed softly. “I send them away quickly, always, and tell them to only observe from a distance. They seemed…decent sorts.”
“Yeah, they did. Not many guys would let a nearly teenage girl dictate to them, but they took it all in good humor. Also, they are really great nutcracker assemblers.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I may have to be less abrasive with them. They are just doing a job. I’m not mad at them. Actually, I’m mad at my father for assigning them to me just so he can spy on what I’m doing while abroad.”
“Maybe, and I’m not saying this to side with your father as he sounds like a dickhead, but perhaps, just this once, he wanted to be sure you were safe?”
I raised a shoulder as his brows knotted and then relaxed. “Doubtful but perhaps. Either way, I thank you for having us over. The evening has given me much to think about. May I kiss you goodnight?”
“As if you have to ask.” We met in the middle for a sweet kiss. He slipped out of the car, lifted his snoozing dog from the back seat, and waved at me before crawling into his fancy camper and closing the door.
I’d have to tell Pastor Pete that his sermon about goodwill had fallen on eager ears. He’d be thrilled.