Chapter Eight Christmas Clusterfuck
WILDER
“What the actual fuck?” I bark, alarmed.
“What is it now?” Zander groans.
Dropping the tree, we hurry across the yard to the back porch, where Carson, Jensen, and Owen are trying to put out a fire in the grill.
Shit, shit, shit! What’s in the grill? What’s in the grill?
“What the hell is going on?” I demand to know when we reach the guys.
The three look up at me with wide eyes and guilty expressions. No. No, they didn’t…
I look into the grill and my stomach drops when I see that my turkey is surrounded by flames, burnt black.
“What. Did. You. Do?” I snarl through gritted teeth.
“It was Carson’s idea,” Owen blurts.
Carson turns wide eyes on him. “You little bitch!”
“You’re all idiots.” I look down at the knobs on the grill and quickly switch them off, then close the lid to try and smother out the flames.
When I open it again, the fire is indeed out, but goddamn it, my perfectly brined turkey is ruined!
What am I going to tell Mrs. Clay when she calls to ask about this weekend?
“You guys fuuuucked up,” Zander says with a low whistle.
“You don’t know that!” Carson insists. “Yeah, the outside is… crispy… but the inside might be all right.”
“Or it’s as dry as Skyler will be when she sees this,” Zander snickers.
Carson glares at Zander and points a finger at him. “Oh, yeah? What about you, Mr. Perfect? Where’s the tree?”
With a flourish, Zander extends his arm to point to where we dropped the tree at the edge of the yard.
“Right there!”
Carson raises his brows, looking almost impressed. “Well, shit. You guys actually got a tree. Good job!”
“Come on,” Jensen says, sounding exasperated. “Let’s just get the turkey inside and see what we can salvage. Grab the tree.”
“Carson, Owen, you’re helping this time,” I grunt, all done with lugging this damn thing between two people.
I grab Zander’s arm — can’t let him think he’s getting away — and tug him back toward the tree.
Between myself, Zander, Owen, and Carson, we easily pick the 12-footer up and drag it into the house.
When we get inside, we find Jensen staring at the turkey on the kitchen island with an exhausted look. He turns his focus to the tree as we move to set it up in the living room.
“Uhhh…” Jensen suddenly mutters, looking around. “We might have a problem.”
“What now?” I snap.
“Do we have a tree stand?”
We all glance around at each other and slowly, panic starts to settle over the group.
“Did we not bring a fucking tree stand?” Owen gasps.
“Are you kidding me?” Zander lets go of his side of the tree and drops to his knees. He lays face-first on the floor. “Done. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore…”
Jensen starts to chuckle. We all look at him with surprised expressions.
“What’s so funny?” Zander groans, his voice muffled by the floor.
“I brought a stand,” Jensen declares with a grin. “I was just fucking with you guys.”
Zander pushes himself up so he’s sitting on the floor and shoots daggers at Jensen with his eyes.
“Not. Funny.”
Jensen smirks. “It’s a little funny.”
“Can we please just put this thing up?” Owen begs.
“Yeah, yeah, hold on.” Jensen moves to the tote filled with his and Grace’s decorations and digs around until he produces a nice heavy-duty stand.
“Thank God.” I move to pick the tree up as Jensen sets the stand in the corner near the fireplace. Owen helps me and Zander lumbers to his feet. It’s not until we have the tree standing and secure that we see it.
Half the branches are bent or broken, giving the tree a sad, squished sort of appearance.
“Maybe dragging it wasn’t such a good idea after all,” Zander whispers.
We all stand and stare at the half-naked tree for several long moments until Carson says, “Just… turn it.”
“Good idea,” Owen nods. We adjust the tree so that the wonky side is facing the wall, giving the illusion that the tree is full and lush.
We all stand and stare at it, tilting our heads to the side almost in unison.
“It’s… definitely leaning,” Jensen says.
“Just a little,” I murmur, even though it definitely looks like it’s significantly sagging to the right. “Probably because the trunk is just a tiny bit messed up.”
“Cutting down a tree is hard,” Zander nods.
“Why didn’t you guys use a saw?” Owen asks, frowning.
“Because we didn’t think of that,” I admit with a sigh.
“Well, let’s get it decorated so we can get back to dinner,” Jensen says. “Maybe just put heavier ornaments on the left side. It might even it out?”
“Sounds like solid logic to me,” Carson declares.
We move to grab ornaments, but something small and furry suddenly zips by us. Carson shrieks and jumps out of the way as Gizmo leaps up into the tree, tail fluffed and eyes wide and crazy.
“Gizmo!” Zander hurries over and reaches for the cat. “Bad kitty! Get down!”
Gizmo releases a long yowl and swipes at Zander’s hand before wiggling deeper into the branches.
Zander narrows his eyes but mutters, “I’m sure it’ll be fine. He’ll come down… eventually.”
“Will he?” Owen asks. “The tree might just be his, now. Maybe we should just get a new one.”
“Come on,” I grin. “It’s just a cat.”
All the guys turn and stare at me with harrowed looks.
“That’s not just a cat,” Carson whispers. “It’s a demon.”
“You’re not wrong,” Zander nods.
When nobody moves for several moments, I let out a long sigh. “Well, we’re not getting another tree, so if you could all please find your balls, we can get this tree decorated and not surrender it to a tiny kitty.”
The guys reluctantly get to work, stringing up lights along the branches and hanging the ornaments. At one point, as Zander is adjusting some of the branches, Gizmo bursts back out from among the pine needles and freaks him out so badly that the big guy goes tumbling to the floor with a scream.
“Gizmo!” he shouts as the cat begins playing with some ribbon on the floor. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
The fuzzball ignores him completely.
Millie’s Elsa tree topper is the last thing to go on, and when we’re done, we step back to admire our work.
“It’s, uh, interesting,” Jensen says.
I tilt my head and take in the tree. Carson’s weird-ass penis ornament is all-too visible, as well as his Santa one.
Between that strange mix of classic, family-friendly ornaments and a few additional less-appropriate ones, plus the lopsided shape of the whole thing, it sure isn’t the prettiest tree I’ve ever seen.
“It is what it is,” Zander declares, obviously done with this fucking tree. “Let’s just finish dinner, and we still need to wrap presents. We’ve only got a couple hours left.”
Fair. The tree is decorated and that’s what matters, even if it looks like it was done by a group of thirteen-year-olds.
“Okay.” I point at Zander. “You get the presents wrapped and the rest of us will go cook.”
“Works for me,” Zander shrugs, but he’s grinning in relief.
“Maybe I should help Zander…” Owen begins but I shake my head and cut him off.
“Not a chance. It’s all hands on deck in the kitchen. I’m just giving Zander slack because he almost froze his balls off outside.”
“Literally,” Zander grumbles.
“All right, fiiiine,” Owen sighs.
We return to the kitchen to salvage what we can of the meal.
I work on the turkey, cutting past the charcoal outside to find as much edible meat as possible.
Meanwhile, Owen and Carson peel potatoes and get them boiling.
Jensen starts putting a green bean casserole together.
We manage to make it ten minutes without any other disasters happening.
Then it all goes to shit.
“Fuck!” Jensen exclaims. “Why wasn’t the pepper’s top screwed on tight?”
We all look over and he’s holding a pepper shaker over the green beans. The top of the shaker has fallen into the casserole dish, and there’s a pile of black pepper in the middle of the beans. I wince and my tongue feels like it’s shriveling at the thought of eating that.
Muttering under his breath, Jensen sets the shaker down and scoops as much of the pepper pile away as possible.
Shaking my head, I try to focus back on digging meat out of the turkey, but then another issue pops up to distract me.
“Guys, did you know you need to leave these rolls out to defrost for, like, three hours?” Owen asks, shocked. He’s holding a bag of frozen dinner rolls he just pulled out of the freezer. “Why didn’t we pull these out earlier?”
“Can’t you just microwave them?” Carson shrugs as he grabs the potato pot to drain the water off them. “Defrost them that way?”
“It doesn’t work that way…” I mutter, but Owen’s already throwing the bag into the microwave. Okay. We’ll just see how that goes, I guess.
Focus on the turkey. Focus on the turkey…
Owen grabs a handmixer and turns it on high.
Shit, now what’s he doing?
“Hey, Owen, hold on…”
He doesn’t hear me over the sound of the handmixer as he plunges it into the pot of potatoes. He hasn’t even put milk or butter in with them.
The potatoes immediately start flying into the air.
“Shit! Fuck!” he shouts, jumping back, the mixer’s hands still spinning and flinging potatoes everywhere.
That’s it! I can’t take it anymore!
“Everyone stop!” I shout, my voice booming throughout the kitchen.
The other guys freeze and look at me with stunned expressions. Understandable… I’m not one to raise my voice often.
“If you don’t want this meal to be a total disaster, you’re all going to listen to me,” I snap. “No one touches a damn thing without my permission!”
Carson blinks at me. “Uhhh… what the hell?”
Jensen furrows his brows. “Wilder… you really can cook?”
I let out a hiss of breath. “Yes I can fucking cook! I’m a multifaceted person with a collection of interests.
Now, shut up. You’re captain on the ice, but I’m captain in the kitchen, and right now, you’re all just idiot sandwiches.
You’re all going to listen to me now so I can save this goddamn meal. ”
The guys look at each other before returning their gazes to me.
“Yes, sir.” Jensen grins, looking relieved. “What should we do first?”
I release a long breath, relaxing as the guys stare at me expectantly.
“First things first. Don’t even glance at the microwave again, or I will kick your damn asses.”
Before anyone can respond, we hear Zander let out a startled shout.
“Ah! Gizmo! No!”
“Zander?” I call out as Jensen, Owen and I hurry back to the living room. “You okay, man?”
We slide to a stop, nearly running each other over in our shock at the sight of the mess before us.
Zander is on the floor, wrapping paper scattered around him, some of it with tell-tale claw marks ripped through it.
He’s gazing down at Gizmo, who’s undone a whole spool of ribbon and is playing with it, looking totally innocent of any wrongdoing.
“It happened so fast,” Zander murmurs. “One second, I’m wrapping presents, the next, Gizmo is going full gremlin…I didn’t stand a chance.”
“Owen,” I say slowly. “Maybe you should help Zander after all.”
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Sure.”
Gizmo lets out a happy meow, as he continues tearing apart the ribbon as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.