Decking His Halls
Alexis Daria
CHAPTER ONE
On Thanksgiving, after I rant to my brother, Fernando, about my roommate telling me two days ago that she’s not signing our lease renewal, and the impossibility of finding an apartment I can afford alone on such short notice, Nando puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “I got you, Noelia. Just stay at my place.”
I’ve been talking a mile a minute, so it takes me a second to catch my breath. “What do you mean? You don’t have an extra room.”
He glances around, then beckons for me to follow him upstairs to the second floor of our parents’ house. Once we’re out of earshot of our nosy tías, he leans in and speaks in a hushed tone.
“Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been living with Iris for the past few months.”
My eyes widen at the mention of his girlfriend. “You have?”
“Yes, and before you ask, I am going to propose to her. I just don’t need all of them”—he gestures downstairs, encompassing our loving but overbearing Puerto Rican family—“on my ass until I’ve done it. I want to wait for our trip to DR in February.”
I scoff. “I wasn’t going to ask.”
I was totally going to ask.
I can roll my eyes about my family’s love of bochinche, but the fact is, I’m as big a gossip as any of them. Except maybe for Titi Concha, who literally keeps a set of binoculars on her windowsill.
“My furniture is still there,” Nando is saying. “But I’ve moved out most of my stuff. I’m paying rent, so you might as well put your things in storage and use my room until you find a new place.”
My heart swells with gratitude and relief. This is quite possibly the best-case scenario for my predicament.
Except for one thing.
“What about David?”
Nando’s expression doesn’t change. “What about him?”
I squint at my brother. “You don’t think he’s going to have an opinion about someone else moving in with him?”
Nando shrugs. “Why would he? It’s not like you’re a stranger. He’s known you practically your whole life.”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll want me in his apartment. What if he says no?”
“He won’t.”
There’s a commotion downstairs. Someone new has arrived, and everyone’s voices rise in greeting. My mother’s Bronx accent cuts through the din.
“David, you made it!”
Speak of the devil.
“I’ll ask him now,” Nando says, and I can’t ignore the dread settling in my gut.
Or the glimmer of anticipation.
I watch my brother go, his tall, lanky frame jogging down the staircase.
I’m not a coward, but I hide in one of the bedrooms for a little while.
Okay, maybe that does make me a coward.
I finally come out when my youngest cousin insists I be on her team for Mario Kart. When I get downstairs to the living room, my gaze immediately zeroes in on David as he exits the kitchen with a full plate of food.
Our eyes lock. The breath squeezes from my lungs.
Fuck. Me.
David Fonseca is thirty-six years old and looks like a hot Latino dad, aside from the fact that he’s not married and doesn’t have kids.
He’s got deeply tanned skin; brown hair cut short; a trim beard; straight, thick brows; and lips that I imagine are soft and kissable.
His nose is a bit large for his face, but it keeps him from looking too handsome.
It’s his eyes, though, that have always been my downfall. They’re narrow, but thickly lashed, and the most stunning amber brown I’ve ever seen.
Those eyes keep me rooted in place, unable to look away.
After what seems like a year but is probably just a heartbeat, he gives me a barely perceptible nod.
A warm, tingling feeling washes over me, but I just press my lips together and nod back.
And that’s how I end up living with my older brother’s hot best friend.
CHAPTER TWO
It’s probably obvious that I’ve harbored a massive crush on David for years. I hate being that much of a cliché, but here we are.
David is four years older than I am. He was the first kid in our neighborhood to grow a mustache, which meant he was the first one to be able to buy beer.
Not at our local bodega—please, the owner would’ve called David’s mom in an instant.
There was another store in walking distance that didn’t card, so that’s where David and Nando went.
Nando, who could not grow a mustache until maybe three years ago, would wait outside.
The whole thing made David something of a legend in our little corner of the Bronx.
It wasn’t like I was partaking in said beer, considering I was only in middle school at the time, but the fact that he was my brother’s best friend and always hanging out at my house made me feel a little more grown-up by extension.
All that to say, David was cool.
He isn’t that tall, maybe five-eight, but he still seemed like a giant to me. He played football in high school, which means he bulked up right around the time I started paying attention to his body.
I never made a move, though. And unsurprisingly, neither did he.
I had a prolonged awkward phase that lasted until I was seventeen, when I finally got a bra that properly fit the massive boobs that popped out of my chest overnight in eighth grade.
My hair is black, and I’m the palest one in my family, with a perpetual Resting Bitch Face, an inexplicably deep voice, and overly large dark eyes.
It’s only natural that I was drawn to every Tim Burton–esque fashion subculture you can imagine.
Goth, emo, grunge, punk… It’s amazing my fingernails weren’t permanently stained by black Sharpie.
These days, my style is what I call “cleavage-forward.” I topped out at five-three, and I’m curvy and soft all over.
But while I now embrace my body instead of hiding it in dark, baggy clothes, I’m still that rebellious New York City teen at heart, and to me, David is still my older brother’s best friend, the unattainable hot jock.
As of today, however, he’s also my annoying roommate.
Exhibit A.
It’s my first day in David’s apartment and I’m feeling unsettled, so I decide to put up a small, fake Christmas tree in the living room to cheer myself up.
“Already?”
David’s voice comes from right behind me, and I jump, nearly dropping the delicate glass bauble in my hands.
I glare at him over my shoulder. He’s wearing a T-shirt and an old pair of sweatpants that somehow manage to look indecently sexy on him. A feat, considering he’s got his hands planted on his hips and his upper lip is curled like I tracked dog shit across the rug.
“What’s the problem?” I say it a lot nicer out loud than I do in my head.
He eyes the tree up and down like it insulted his grandmother. “Isn’t it a little early?”
“For what?” I know for what, but I want to make him say it.
“For Christmas.”
I give him a saccharine smile. “It’s December first.”
“Exactly.”
I clamp my mouth shut, because I haven’t even been living in this man’s apartment for a full twenty-four hours, and I probably shouldn’t tell him where he can shove this Christmas tree so early into our cohabitation.
Instead, I take the opposite tack, making my voice as sugary sweet as possible. “Would you like me to take it down?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So what are you saying, David?” Okay, that didn’t come out as sweetly as I’d intended.
He raises both hands and slowly backs away. “Just that it’s early. Carry on.”
“I will.” My tone is haughty, but I watch him go, biting my lip at the way the worn cotton pants mold to his sculpted ass.
Exhibit B.
The following week, I’m blasting noughties Christmas pop songs while baking coquito snickerdoodles for my school’s annual teacher’s cookie exchange. David comes in for his daily can of ginger ale, his only vice these days, and shoots me an exasperated look.
I turn up Britney and sing along—poorly.
He sighs.
Exhibit C.
Two days later, after a tough afternoon with my kindergarten class, I pick up a wreath for the front door on my way home. It’s decorated with pine cones, holly berries, and a big red bow, and it smells amazing.
David gives the smattering of needles that fall onto the welcome mat a pointed look and passes me the handheld vacuum.
Welcome, my ass.
I can’t explain what comes over me, but something about David’s reaction to the Christmas stuff makes me want to see how far I can push him.
I buy a bigger tree—a real one, this time—and make sure I’m in the living room when he comes home.
His response doesn’t disappoint.
He’s in the process of taking off his heavy down coat when he stops short.
And stares.
The star on top of the tree brushes the ceiling. This is a prewar apartment on Pelham Parkway, so the ceilings aren’t low, and it wasn’t easy to transport a tree this tall by myself. Thankfully, the building has an elevator.
I’ve covered the branches with colorful blinking lights, the most ostentatious garlands I could find, and those silvery strands of tinsel that get absolutely everywhere.
I also remembered that my mom has a collection of lifelike bird decorations that were only used once because my father hated them.
He said their eyes followed him around the room.
Mom still has them, of course, because she never throws anything away.
So I picked them up yesterday, telling her I needed them for a class project.
Aside from keeping Nando’s secret, I wouldn’t put it past my parents, who are both Catholic in only the loosest sense, to suddenly decide I’m living in sin if they knew the truth.
Anyway, those creepy birds are now nestled throughout the gigantic tree in David’s living room. And Dad was right; their beady little eyes do follow you. They are perfectly hideous, and I adore them.
David, on the other hand, takes one glance at the tree and sends me a pained look. “One wasn’t enough?”
“Nope.” I pop the P, just to be a brat.
He squints. “What are those in the branches?”
“Birds.” I hum the opening bars of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Not real ones, I hope.”
I let out a snort of laughter. “No, viejo. You need glasses.”
He sighs and bends to untie his boots. “You’re probably right.”