28. Kai
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
KAI
A Few Weeks Later
Union Square smells like cinnamon, roasting chestnuts, and cold air sharp enough to sting my nose. Even on a weekday, the holiday market is packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people carrying shopping bags and paper cups of cider. Tinny Christmas music drifts from somewhere behind the booths.
Normally, ten minutes of this would have me ready to walk into traffic. But Oskar keeps brushing his shoulder against mine as we weave through the crowd, and my brain hasn’t exploded yet.
I’m here to find a gift for Mom, who is absolutely the world’s hardest person to buy for.
She already has everything, and she gets upset anytime I spend more than ten dollars on her.
Oskar needs to buy gifts too, so this is how we’re spending the first free day we’ve had in common since Thanksgiving.
“There we go.” I steer him toward a booth selling handmade candles. “Mom likes vanilla, but not if it’s too sweet or fake. She likes lavender too, but not the kind that smells soapy.”
He nods sagely. “Understood.”
I smell candles while the older woman running the booth answers my questions about wax blends and fragrance oils. Oskar stands beside me, listening and hiding an occasional smile behind a gloved hand. At least he thinks he’s hiding them.
After a while, I narrow it down to two choices: Madagascar vanilla bean and lavender-sage.
“Vanilla,” Oskar says immediately.
I grimace. “I like the lavender-sage.”
“Of course,” he says. “They both sound like flavors for holiday puddings.”
I stare at both candles while my thoughts skate in frantic circles. Vanilla would be safer, but maybe too safe. Lavender-sage might be more personal, except what if she doesn’t like sage?
“Fuck.” I nudge Oskar’s arm. “What should I do?”
Without hesitation, he picks up both candles and hands them to the clerk.
“There,” he says. “Problem solved.”
A little later, we stop at a tea stand where the samples smell amazing. Soon I’m stuck again while a guy with a long scraggly beard explains Darjeeling harvests to me like I’m preparing for a final exam.
Second flush. Muscatel notes. Six thousand feet…
Kill me now.
Oskar slides a hand against my lower back and rubs circles there.
“Buy one of each,” he whispers.
I exhale hard enough to fog the air between us. “You’re ridiculously good at this.”
“At tea?”
“At me.” I toss my sample cup into a nearby wastebasket. “That’s enough for Mom,” I say. Then, before I can second-guess it, I add, “I told her about you.”
The look he gives me is unreadable. “What did she say?”
Oh God. Maybe I should’ve stayed quiet.
“She asked how long we’d been seeing each other. I told her since August.”
“And?”
“She wants me to bring you over sometime. Said she can’t believe I’ve been seeing someone for months and haven’t told her. Honestly, I think she wants to be sure I’m not hallucinating.”
“Hmm. Are we going to visit her?”
“I don’t think we can. She leaves on the twenty-third for Mustique, and we’re both playing until then. She won’t be back until after Easter.”
“Maybe it’s for the best. I won’t have to worry she might smell my lavender soap.”
“You don’t use lavender soap.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Why do you think that?”
“Because I’d smell it. And I’ve taken showers at your apartment.”
“Maybe I bought some.” He holds a straight face for a few seconds, then laughs so hard I can’t resist joining in.
As we carry our bags deeper into the market, Oskar shivers in the cold. We’re both wearing coats, and I feel snug in the beautiful sweater he gave me on Thanksgiving. We pause now and then at booths selling things nobody needs but suddenly can’t live without in December.
At one stop, Oskar picks up a ridiculous felt moose wearing a plaid scarf and tiny hockey skates.
I snort. “That thing looks drunk.”
“It’s perfect.”
“You’re buying the drunk hockey moose?”
“Obviously.”
I laugh so hard people turn to look. That would usually bother me, but today I hardly notice.
The market gets more crowded as the afternoon wears on. Every few minutes someone bumps into me or cuts too close, but Oskar’s always ready with a hand against my back or his fingers brushing mine. A couple of times, he wedges his body between me and the thickest parts of the crowd.
Thank God.
Eventually, we stop to look at blown-glass ornaments.
“Your turn,” I say. “You still need gifts for your parents, right?”
His expression softens. “Yeah.”
He studies the ornaments, then shakes his head. We walk on until he stops so fast I nearly crash into him. Above us hangs a wooden sign painted with snowflakes: Scandinavian Christmas.
The booth is piled high with everything from knitted wool socks to intricately embroidered tablecloths.
Oskar goes still, and his eyes widen when he sees a row of painted wooden horses. “Vad fan,” he whispers.
A wistful smile spreads across his lips. He picks up one of the horses, bright red with little blue and white flowers painted along the sides.
“A dalah?st,” he says, turning toward me. “My dad had one when I was little, but it broke years ago.”
He runs his thumb over the painted wood with a tenderness that makes him look younger. Not childish, just someone’s son, far from home.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“It means good luck.”
He keeps his eyes on the horses while the woman running the booth says, “We got those in only this week. They were handmade in Sweden.”
Oskar looks the way he must have on the day he got his first bike. A minute later he’s holding two of the horses, the red one and another painted blue. He whispers something in Swedish and puts the blue one down.
“I’ll take this one,” he says, handing the red one to the woman. “And I need something for my mother. Any suggestions?”
“Maybe,” she says, tossing him a look that stabs me in the chest.
What the actual fuck?
She leads us to a table with bearded wooden figures wearing red caps.
“Tomtar!” Oskar says. “My mother loves these.” He picks one up and laughs. “She says they protect the house.”
While he pays, I watch him standing under the white lights as snow drifts around him. Finding things from Sweden has made him so happy.
I need to make our holiday break very special for him. With two weeks to go, and the internet at my fingertips, I can do it.
After the saleswoman wraps his gifts, he reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together. “Ready to head back?” he asks. “Or do you want to keep shopping?”
His thumb strokes my knuckles while people stream around us in every direction. Unless I’m in an arena, crowds always make me feel trapped. So why, right now, do I feel anchored?
“Hot chocolate first,” I say. “Then we can go home.”
After visiting a beverage cart, we stand by an outdoor heater drinking cocoa while the sky turns dark over Manhattan. Our shopping bags bump together as the wind picks up again. Tomorrow we’ll go back to the chaos of hockey. Practices, travel, games… It’s enough to drive anyone crazy.
Next week, the Condors and Fury will play our second game of the season. But tonight, Ozzy and I have nowhere to be except together.
I grin like an idiot as we head for the subway.