Chapter 35 ALEX
ALEX
Theo’s been cagey all week about our Christmas plans, and I don’t want to deal with it.
He wasn’t even home last night, which was the first night I’ve spent without him in over a month.
He seems excited when he picks me up from work, and the backseat of his car is full of a cooler, grocery bags, a small duffle bag, and a nice, brand new weekender bag.
I don’t even ask, I just raise my eyebrows.
He looks sheepish. “I thought we could do Christmas away.”
“Theo, I hate Christmas. I didn’t even get you anything.” He sighs as he opens the passenger door.
“Just get in the car, Alex.” I roll my eyes and get in.
At this point, I know there’s no fighting him on things.
He starts driving south down the coast, soft Christmas music filling the car, and he glances over at me as we pass through Seaside.
“Why do you hate Christmas?” he asks, and I groan, looking up at the roof of the car. I don’t want to talk about this, but we’ve been sharing so much more, and I like talking to him. It blurs the lines too much, but they’re already so blurry that I don’t think it matters anymore.
“I loved it as a kid. My parents and I had all these weird traditions.” I smile, thinking about my dad in his stupid running outfit.
“And then there was Danny, and he and his family had all these insane expectations around Christmas.
It was a huge production every year, with parties, and caroling, and gingerbread houses, and lights, and midnight Mass, and Christmas dinner, and there was this unspoken right way to do everything.
I hated it, but I had to fall in line and host and look the part and act the part, and everything had to be perfect every fucking year.
His aunt Mary was a controlling little tyrant about it, and the fucking bitch always said something that made Danny mad at me," I say bitterly.
Talking about this stuff with Theo is easier now, but it’s still not easy to talk about. He gives me a minute to calm down, rubbing my leg soothingly.
“Tell me about what you did with your parents.” He’s looking at the road, and his voice is soft, and I cross my arms and look out the window at the dark ocean. I don't think I've talked about this with anyone in years.
It might be nice to talk about it.
“Well, my dad always did a charity run on Christmas morning in this stupid elf outfit. It was so dorky, with big fake ears and a ridiculous hat my mom made, so we’d go stand in the snow and drink cocoa and wait for him to finish after we opened presents.
Once I was in high school, my mom would put peppermint schnapps in my cocoa, fah wahmth,” I say, mimicking my mother’s thick Boston accent.
Theo looks at me, his eyebrows raised, but I ignore him.
“Also, my mom had this dumb story she told every year about her entire extended family meeting in Milan for Christmas when she was eighteen, and everyone brought a panettone, so there were twenty of them or something. They ate them until they got sick, but it was so funny that my mom always wanted a panettone at Christmas. I loathed them until I was, like, nine. Have you ever had one?” Theo shakes his head. “They’re pretty great, honestly.”
“What else?”
“As a little kid, I was very nervous about Santa coming down the fireplace, so my mom had an artist friend of hers weld this insane-looking grate that turned our fireplace into a spike pit so that I felt safe that no one could come down the chimney.” Theo laughs, squeezing my knee.
“I’d find all the presents from Santa skewered on these spikes on Christmas morning, but somehow the presents were never damaged.
How she got a fucking bike on there, I’ll never know.
” I laugh again, thinking about it sticking out of the fireplace at a weird angle.
“Once I found out Santa wasn’t real, my mom told me arranging gifts on that thing was her favorite part of Christmas, so we kept doing it until -” My voice catches in my throat as I sob.
When did I even start crying?
I wipe the tears from my face, exhaling harshly. “Anyway, Christmas is hard. Don’t make me do it.” Theo reaches for my hand and pulls it towards him, kissing it softly.
“You got it. We can skip everything except the ham, okay? I fucking love Christmas ham and it’s my first one in nine years, so please indulge me.” I laugh and shake my head at him. He’s so weird about food.
“Okay. Just ham.”
“Ham and gifts?”
“Just ham.”
“Fine,” he sighs. “But I booked you a spa day tomorrow, which isn’t a gift, technically.” I close my eyes and lean back against the headrest, sighing loudly in exasperation.
“I wish they’d never let you out of prison.”
He laughs, but I can’t tell if I’m joking or not.
***
A few hours later, we pull into a quaint coastal town and turn off the highway, heading up a small, steep road into the wooded cliffs.
The houses here are few and far between, and all set far back from the road.
We finally pull down a long driveway through a small copse of trees, revealing a large, low, mid-century house with a view of the coast.
I help Theo take the bags in, and I’m floored when we step inside.
It’s a spacious, open-concept room with the living room and dining room flowing into each other.
The kitchen is tucked away off the dining room, barely visible.
The walls along the back of the house have floor-to-ceiling windows, showing an expansive view of the town, the coast, and the cliffs.
An insane-looking suspended fireplace hangs down into the corner of the living room with split logs piled beneath it, and the house looks like a spread from a mid-century catalog.
Unlike the furniture at Theo’s place, everything here looks well-kept but actually vintage.
“Shoes off, suitcases downstairs. I’ll deal with the tree.” It’s only then I notice a hilarious, ancient silver aluminum tree in the corner of the living room, decorated with large blue ornaments and pink tinsel.
He must have come down here yesterday to set this up.
“Leave the tree. It’s kind of amazing.” He grins at me as I slip off my sneakers and take the suitcases down a staircase off the entrance, walking down into a lower level not visible from the driveway.
The house is built into a hillside, so it’s colder downstairs.
It’s got a wood stove in the central seating area, with doors on either side and a huge window looking out into the trees.
I peer into the four doorways, finding two small guest rooms, a bathroom, and a master bedroom with a large ensuite bathroom.
I put our bags in there and start snooping.
Everything is neat and tidy, and there aren’t any personal effects – it might be a rental, but something about this place seems too familiar for that.
There’s nothing in the main room or the larger guest room, but in the smaller guest room, I find a box tucked up in the corner of the closet.
I pull it down onto the bed, finding it full of framed photos featuring the same couple, spanning decades.
The man is tall, with curly brown hair, blue eyes, and a square jaw, and the woman is medium height, with tan skin, straight black hair, and a warm smile.
There are photos of them taken in this house, horseback riding on the beach, hiking in the Gorge, smiling at the Coliseum, and they always look completely wrapped up in each other.
Further down in the box are photos of them with a girl with curly dark hair and hazel eyes, and she’s all sorts of ages in the photos, but never older than a young teenager.
She’s beautiful, with a long face, startlingly bright hazel eyes, and a warm, slightly crooked smile bracketed by dimples.
Theo looks so much like his mom.
Further down, there are a few photos of Theo with his grandparents, and he ranges from a cute little kid to a sad, awkward-looking preteen to a handsome, put-together-looking teenager.
There are no photos of him with his mom.
I leave the pictures scattered on the bed and keep snooping.
In the nightstand drawer, hidden underneath some papers and a flashlight, I find two more photos, both taken in front of the silver tree upstairs.
One photo is of Theo, his mom, and a man who has to be his dad.
Theo has his sharp jawline, nose, and general build, but his dad is thinner, his muscles are ropier, and his skin is pale and a little sallow.
Theo’s mom is still young, certainly younger than his dad, but she looks wildly different from the photos of her as a teenager.
She’s thinner, with dark circles under her eyes and pockmarked skin, and her teeth are all sort of yellow.
In her arms is Theo, maybe three or four, smiling and happy and clutching a big teddy bear. God, he was such a cute kid, all dimples and wavy curls.
I don’t know why the photo is making me so sad.
The other photo shows Theo, maybe eighteen or nineteen, thinner than he is now and with short hair, smiling broadly next to a handsome kid his age with ginger hair and blue eyes, their arms around each other’s shoulders.
Theo’s wearing the college sweater languishing under my bed, and the kid is wearing a crewneck sweater with a cartoon duck.
I flip the photo over, seeing “Theo & Kevin, Christmas 2011” written in a looping cursive on the back.
I stare at the words for a second, processing them.
Oh, my god.
“Sweetheart, do you wa-” My head whips up as Theo walks in on me and sees all the photos spread over the bed. His eyes widen, and he tenses up immediately, and we stare at each other for a long moment.
“Put. Those. Away,” he says, his voice low and clipped.
“Theo, what -”
“Don’t,” he snaps.
“I have questions.” He closes his eyes and breathes deeply.
“Alex, please,” he begs quietly.