20. Holiday Loot Table #2
“You worked last night.”
“I slept.”
“Some.”
Dex lifts his mug again. “Sit down, Dad. The children have breakfast handled.”
“You are almost thirty years old.”
“And yet, emotionally, on Christmas morning?” Dex gestures toward himself. “Seven.”
“That tracks,” Ronan says.
I sit mostly because arguing with all of them seems harder than complying.
A minute later, Ronan places a mug of black coffee in front of me.
I take one sip. “Okay.”
His mouth twitches. “Okay, what?”
“This is annoyingly good.”
“I know.”
Dex’s mistletoe appears after breakfast.
Micah is the first victim.
Dex catches him by the front of his shirt beneath the living-room doorway and kisses him without ceremony. Micah makes a surprised sound before one hand settles at Dex’s waist and he kisses him back.
When they separate, Dex looks unbearably pleased. “See?”
Micah rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You love me.”
“I do.”
The certainty in Micah’s answer softens Dex’s expression for half a second before Cami walks through the doorway.
She follows Dex’s eyes to the mistletoe. “Oh, absolutely.”
Dex dips her backward and kisses her.
I mostly wonder whether this is going to result in injury.
“Don’t drop her,” I tell him.
Dex breaks the kiss and stares at me. “You are so romantic.”
“I’m a paramedic.”
Cami straightens. “Apparently there’s a parallel there.”
Then Dex spots Ronan approaching from the kitchen.
“Oh, perfect.”
Ronan stops several feet away. “No.”
“But… mistletoe.”
“No.”
“What if I ask nicely?”
Ronan raises an eyebrow. “Still no.”
Dex sighs and pouts, but then says, “Consent is sexy.”
“Yes,” Ronan says.
“And I guess rejection is survivable.”
“Also correct.”
Dex steps aside solemnly. “Health communication. Merry fucking Christmas.”
I almost make it through the door safely.
Then he moves back underneath the mistletoe.
“No.”
“Griffin.”
“I will throw you into the yard with your dragon.”
Dex grins. “You’re afraid you’d like it.”
“I am not afraid of anything about you.”
From the couch, Micah tells him, “Leave him alone.”
Dex moves with a dramatic sigh.
Cami moves and catches my hand before I can get through. “Wait.”
I glance up at the mistletoe.
Her smile is soft. “It’s like Christmas law.”
“That isn’t a thing.”
“Shut up.” She wraps both arms around my neck.
I kiss her.
Nothing rough. Nothing possessive.
Just my wife smiling into my mouth beneath a stupid plant Dex taped over the doorway.
When we separate, Dex pretends to wipe at his eyes. “Beautiful.”
“Fuck off,” I reply with a smile.
“Merry Christmas to you too.”
Gift-giving with five adults produces a ridiculous amount of wrapping paper.
I’m reasonably sure Dex violated the hundred-dollar limit through creative accounting.
“I used musician math. It’s legally distinct from regular math,” Dex argued, before Ronan could prosecute him.
“It is objectively not,” was Ronan’s only reply.
Cami hands Dex a small package. “This one’s from me.”
Dex tears it open, then goes completely silent.
Slowly, he lifts a crocheted vagina out of the box.
There are three full seconds of silence before he actually screams. “Oh my fucking God!”
Ronan winces. “Volume.”
Dex is already scrambling toward the smaller Christmas tree. “The Dickmas Tree has a queen!”
Cami folds over laughing while he hangs it beside the crocheted penis ornament.
“We couldn’t have a sexist Dickmas Tree,” she deadpans.
“They’re in love,” Dex announces.
“They just met,” Micah teases.
Dex looks offended. “Don’t invalidate them.”
Micah waits until he settles before handing him a flat package.
Dex’s entire expression changes when he unwraps it.
It takes a moment before he shows it to the rest of us. Inside is a framed charcoal-and-graphite drawing.
I recognize the source photo because I took it a few months ago—Cami curled against Micah on the couch while Dex sprawled across both of them, laughing.
Micah turned it into a drawing. A beautiful drawing.
Dex runs his thumb carefully over the edge of the frame.
“You drew this?”
Micah nods. “From Griffin’s picture.”
Dex looks at me. “You took this?”
I offer him a nod.
His eyes return to the drawing. “I look hot.”
Micah laughs. “That’s your takeaway?”
“No. I’m not discussing the other feelings yet.”
Cami moves across the floor to look more closely at it over his shoulder. “Oh my God, Micah.”
Dex’s eyes are suspiciously shiny now. He looks up at Micah and says, “Fuck you.”
“Merry Christmas, Dex,” Micah says.
Dex carefully sets the frame aside before practically tackling him.
Cami joins them, and for a minute the three of them are tangled together on the floor.
I watch them… and I don’t feel outside it.
That’s still a new enough realization that I notice.
The rest of the gifts blur together more quickly.
Ronan somehow tracks down the exact discontinued travel mug I’ve complained about for almost a year. Cami gives him a brass book embosser with an open book and tiny d20 worked into the design, and he looks genuinely delighted even though he tries to act like he isn’t touched.
There are socks and books, a couple of practical things, a few stupid things, and enough evidence that every person in this house has been paying attention to the others.
Eventually, I reach behind the couch for the smallest box I wrapped.
“This one’s yours,” I tell Cami.
She takes it but studies my face instead. “You look nervous.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re doing the jaw clenching thing.”
“Open it.”
Her smile tells me she still thinks I’m nervous.
She unwraps the small jewelry box and looks at me cautiously before she opens it.
Inside is a simple silver necklace with five small stones set along the chain.
Her fingers stop.
She touches them one by one.
I watch understanding arrive before she looks up at me.
“Griff.”
I swallow. “They’re all of us.”
Her eyes immediately fill.
“I saw Alexis’s ring, and Holden explained it when we were at their house,” I explain. “I liked what the stones represented, but I wasn’t buying you a ring… yet.”
A wet laugh escapes her. “Probably wise.”
“I found this and thought it was perfect.”
Five birthstones.
Hers.
Mine.
Micah’s.
Dex’s.
Ronan’s.
All the same size.
No stone bigger than the others.
Just all of us.
“I know I’m still figuring some of this shit out,” I tell her, even though my words are meant for all of them. “But I’m not figuring out whether I want it anymore.”
Her face crumples as her eyes turn red.
Fuck.
Cami launches herself at me.
“I love you,” she says into my neck.
I wrap both arms around her. “I love you too.”
Behind her, Dex makes a suspicious sound.
Cami turns to look at him. “You’re crying.”
“It’s Christmas.”
Micah rubs a hand over his back. “You are crying.”
“Stop policing my face.”
Cami laughs as she pulls away, then hands me the necklace. “Put it on me.”
I fasten it around her neck.
The five stones settle against her chest, and she touches them before looking around the room at all of us.
Dex clears his throat loudly. “Okay. We need something stupid immediately, or I’m going to have another real emotion.”
Cami points toward the tree. “Your crochet pussy and dick are right there.”
“Perfect! Crisis averted.”
By ten-thirty, the living room looks like Christmas lost a bar fight.
Wrapping paper covers the floor, breakfast plates have migrated… everywhere, and Dex is trying to convince Micah that the crocheted genital ornaments need some kind of wedding ceremony.