December 14th
Hollis
Jay
Bad news—the ice sculpting guy cut off a finger working on an ice yeti last weekend. We need something new.
Hollis
That’s alarming.
Jay
Hi.
Hollis
Hi.
Jay
Is it weird I miss you?
Hollis
Only because we just got off the phone.
Jay
You’re right, it’s weird.
Hollis
You could come over here tomorrow. We could come up with a plan or I can show you my recording studio.
Marv
pjkldeapqrsde pqrstmnop
Hollis
Definitely didn’t realize this was the group text. There is no recording studio.
Jay
Marv’s traumatized me enough, he deserves it. We’ll come to your house tomorrow morning and come up with a plan.
Marv
wdeapqr abcjklmnotghdepqrs
Jay
Or don’t.
Hollis
I still don’t understand.
Owen, Millie, Ava, and Jack are currently having a staring contest in the kitchen with Jay and Marv.
Because Ryan got called into work and dropped them off without warning.
Because the ice sculpting competition The Holiday Club was attending got cancelled, and we were coming up with plan B.
Because this is my complicated life and I’m fully expecting as soon as this staring contest is over, I will never see Jay nor Marv again. Then I will kill Ryan for thinking he can pull a stunt like this after he’s the one who got exactly what he wanted by taking every weekend of the holidays.
Asshole.
Since the second the kids barreled into the house and saw Marv in his socked sandals and Jay in his flannel and antler-clad hat in their space, I haven’t taken a full breath.
“Who are you?” Owen demands.
“Depends,” Marv says, skeptical crease to his brow as he plants his hands on his hips. “Who are you?”
They all answer at once:
“We live here.”
“That’s our mom.”
“I’m Ava.”
“We’re kids.”
“You sure about that?” Jay asks with playful squint folding his arms over his I’m with Santa T-shirt. “You look like grownups to me.”
At this, they preen.
I step between the opposing sides. “Guys, this is Jay and Marv, they are my—” I look at Jay, and he winks at me. For a split second I forget I’m in a room. Wearing clothes. With kids. And Marv. “Friends.”
All four of them blink at the two men.
“And these are my kids. From oldest to youngest”—I tap each of them on their heads as I call them out—“Owen. Millie. Ava. Jack.”
Jay steps down the line to shake each one of their hands. “Your mom has told us a lot about you.”
That simple line paired with the ridiculous hat on his head causes them to visibly warm up to him. As do I. More than I already am.
“We’ve been doing things on the weekends you’ve been with your dad,” I explain. “What we were doing today got cancelled and we were coming up with a new plan when you walked in. But now that you’re here”—I flick my eyes to Jay—“they’ll probably be going.”
While Marv’s eyes stay suspiciously glued to the kids, Jay’s are on mine.
As happy as I am to see my kids, I hate the thought of him leaving.
The week was pure chaos—his with work, mine combined with last week of school busyness of classroom parties, gift exchanges, and final tests.
We haven’t seen each other since last weekend.
We’ve talked every night, but I’ve been looking forward to today—to time with them then being alone with him.
I’ve missed him. Since last weekend, I’ve only thought of last weekend. Being in his camper. His bed. His arms.
When he showed up this morning with Marv, my first thought was to eat his face with a kiss but didn’t want to come on too strong, so—like a moron—I shook both of their hands.
“Jay already told me you’ve fornicated,” Marv had said with a flat tone. “And I’m an expert at reading body language. Your fake handshake needs practice.”
Jay pecked me on the cheek and whispered a raspy good morning in my ear.
And then, the kids arrived.
“What do you usually do this weekend?” Jay asks them casually.
“The Nutcracker,” Owen says with a very on brand eleven-year-old groan.
Jay chuckles. “Not a fan, eh?”
“Ballet is for girls.” My eyebrows pinch; Owen notices. “Sorry, Mom.”
Another tradition down.
“It’s fine.” I wave a dismissive hand. “And I don’t have tickets anyway, so you’re safe from the ballet.” A wave of celebratory sounds follow, which briefly annoy me. “But we’ll do something else. Come up with a plan.”
Jay leans over and whispers in Marv’s ear behind a cupped hand. Marv grunts. Twice.
“If you four tiny humans can keep a secret, I’ll show you the back of my truck.”
From anyone else, that line would be incredibly unsettling, but when said tiny humans look at me for approval, I nod and they trot after him.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a jumbled rush to Jay as soon as the door closes. “I didn’t know. He didn’t call. I—”
He kisses my mouth to shut me up. “You’re a mom of four kids, Hollis. Don’t apologize.”
I search his face for any sign of a lie but find none. He means it. I kiss him again and it doesn’t last nearly long enough.
“I’ve missed you,” I admit. “This makes things, I don’t know, not what I want.”
He chuckles, and tucks my hair behind my ears. “That’s life. We’ll leave if you want. We’ll stay if you want.”
I bite my lip. I don’t know what Jay and I are, but I know I don’t want him to leave.
Not that I’m testing him, but I want to see him with the kids.
Four kids is a lot of kids, that has to be intimidating.
Hell, I made them and half the time I’m intimidated by all of them.
He has to see how unsimple this is to really know what this would look like.
“Stay,” I hear myself say, kissing him lightly again. “But I don’t know what we are, and I’ve never introduced them to a man who’s, you know, a man.” His mustache twitches. “I can’t be the way I want to be, I guess is what I’m saying.”
He leans in, scraping his mustache along the curve of my ear, whispering, “And what way do you want to be?”
“Naked,” I admit easily and with a smile on my face.
He laughs, kisses me once more, and steps away, adjusting his ridiculous antler-covered hat. “So we’ll keep our clothes on and I’ll follow your lead.”
Before I can say anything else, the door swings open and the kids appear, arms filled with food.
Food?
“That truck is awesome,” Millie cries, delighted.
“It’s like a whole grocery store,” adds Jack, impressed.
Marv comes in last. “We have everything needed to make gingerbread structures. Hollis”—he tosses me a bag of powdered sugar—“make icing. Tiny humans”—he looks at the kids—“sort the supplies. Jay.” Jay lifts his chin. “We need music and beer.”
Then, like it was the plan all along, we make gingerbread structures from supplies Marv keeps in the back of his truck for God knows why. For the first time this year, loud Christmas music blares through the house, and Jay doles out three beers.
Jay is great with the kids. He makes a house—it’s awful—and asks them questions. Favorite colors, favorite movies, favorite dinosaurs.
“What about Christmas tradition?” he asks as he lines the roof of his dilapidated shack with gumdrops. “What’s your favorite one?”
“Mom wakes us up at 12:01 a.m. to see if Santa came and open presents,” Owen says, tongue pinched between his teeth as he focuses on placing M we did that last year. “And say funny things about the food.”
“Turkey Durkey does a hurkey,” I recite, earning a chuckle.
Jay hooks his gaze with mine but says to them, “Sounds like a good mom.”
And there—despite years of hauling four little asses all over town to sit through shows, contests, and parks, it’s accidental pie dinners, midnight hot chocolates, and half-delirium fueled poems that they remember.
Emotion clogs my throat as I watch them all work with little hands around the table.
The remaining icicles of the season that have clung to me melting away.
This, right here, despite my best efforts to run from it and hide from it and prove some kind of point of what the holidays are and aren’t, feels like Christmas.
“Hollis,” Marv demands. “Icing.”
I hand him the full bag I forgot I was holding, eyeing his creation. A rectangular building in the middle is surrounded by a perimeter of gingerbread walls. And what appears to be a satellite dish made out of pretzels. And a candy-covered spaceship.
“Did you make a prison?” I ask with a laugh.
“Christmas compound,” he responds without looking away from it. “The walls keep the government out and can detect flying objects from as far away as the moon. Trust me, it’s possible.”
This makes the kids squeal with delight and unleash an assault of questions on him: “Is it real?” I’m not at liberty to say.
“Can Santa get in?” Depends on his intentions.
“Where do they get food?” From an underground greenhouse with solar sun lights.
“Do they have TV?” TV makes you stupid. “Why is your shirt tucked in your sweatpants?” Speed.
“Why do you have all that food in the back of your truck?” Only the ignorant trust the government with their food supply.
“What kind of name is Marv?” A fake one.
It’s pure gold.
I work on my own house across from Jay, and his foot finds mine under the table. I smile at my gingerbread house like it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“I like your hat,” Ava tells Jay in her seven-year-old voice from next to him. “You look like you work at the North Pole.”
Jay smiles, taking it off his head to set it on hers and flicking a jingle bell. “Looks better on you.”
She beams; my chest tightens. Because as sweet as it is, he can’t make these kids love him right out of the gate—I don’t even know what we are. If we’re seeing each other after the holidays. If this is all too much for him.
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell him.
“I want to,” he says. “She likes it.”
He winks at Ava; she giggles.
“But you don’t have to,” I insist. “Because I get it. It’s nice, but you don’t have to.”
He props his elbows on the table on either side of his house and interlaces his fingers, rubbing his mustache against a knuckle as he looks at me.
“Get what?”
Damn him for latching on to my words.
I huff a breath at the token smirk on his lips. “Get that we are a lot of people in one house and you”—I look at Ava, considering my words carefully—“might have other plans next year.”
“I was planning on doing this again next year, actually.” He cuts his eyes to Ava and scrunches his nose as he leans toward her slightly. “If Ava will have me, that is.”
He means it. She giggles. I swoon.
“Do you like my mom?” Ava asks him, making me choke.
“Ava,” I scold in a whisper, stilling my icing bag mid-squeeze. “That’s not polite.”
“If I do like your mom,” Jay says, ignoring me, “would that be okay with you?”
She nods, smiling wide.
Jay flicks his gaze to me, working a playful tongue over his bottom lip as he leans toward her and asks with a stage whisper, “You think she likes me back?”
“Yep.” Ava looks at me and my face heats. “She’s smiling a lot.”
He gives me a smug look, but to her he says, “That’s good info. I need someone on my side.”
I press my lips between my teeth, lips begging to split with a smile. They both get back to work on their gingerbread houses like he didn’t just say that.
Mariah Carey’s voice sends “All I Want for Christmas is You” blasting through the speaker, and Marv says something about aliens that makes the kids laugh. Under the table, I play footsie with a man I like a little more now than I did this morning.
This isn’t the day I hoped for, it’s better.