December Wishes (A Year in Paradise Book 12)

by Hildred Billings

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Keep Up With Hildred

  December Wishes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  December Wishes

  A Year In Paradise #12

  Hildred Billings

  BARACHOU PRESS

  December Wishes

  Copyright: Hildred Billings

  Published: December 10th, 2019

  Publisher: Barachou Press

  This is a work of fiction. Any and all similarities to any characters, settings, or situations are purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  Keep up with Hildred’s latest releases by joining her mailing list! Behind the scenes, first looks, and even some free snippets!

  December Wishes

  Chapter 1

  SKYLAR

  Burl Ives blasted over the speakers for the second time that afternoon. Skylar gritted her teeth and checked on the pizza slices beneath the heat lamp on the front counter. Grease dripped from the cheesy tips and congealed at the bottom of the catch pan. One of her oh-so-important duties at Paradise Pizza was to empty and clean that pan every chance she had.

  While “A Holly Jolly Christmas” drilled into her skull, Skylar pulled the greasy pan back to the nearest sink and rinsed it off for the second time that day. Discolored grease swirled around the drain. Sunlight glared through the window behind her. It was only three in the afternoon, but already the sky was turning dark and her mood sour.

  Hell, her mood had been sour for months. Not since moving to Paradise Valley, but around the time when she realized that making such a move might not have been the smartest thing she had ever done.

  Skylar Kersten was a woman of whims. She followed them like fish follow the river current, which was a great idea when she was in her 20s and had no plans beyond, “Dunno, guess I’ll do whatever feels right!” She had recently turned twenty-nine, however, and the Portland transplant was reaching an age where she realized going with her “whim” was a rather stupid way to go about life. One year ago, when her best friend Mikaiya Marcott announced she was moving in with her grandmother in the rural wilds of Oregon, Skylar had the under-the-influence idea to join her in Paradise Valley. What had Portland been offering her besides cheap weed and a dead dating scene? Mikaiya used to complain about the lack of lesbian dating in Portland, but it wasn’t much better for us straight girls. Even if one’s type was “guy in flannel, beard, and IPA in hand,” that didn’t make them fine catches. Kinda like those fish swimming upstream. They may be directed by a woman’s whim, but that didn’t make them a fine catch for the bear swinging his paw into the water.

  Sigh. This is what I think about when it’s three in the afternoon and I realize I’m still working at a pizza parlor in the middle of nowhere. The sad thing? Skylar had turned over every rock and stump those first few weeks living in Paradise Valley. She had free rent at Mik’s place as long as she helped out Grandma Marcott, but no woman wanted to live with strangers and feel like a burden. I should have known this was a bad idea when it took me three months to find a steady job. Pizza Girl at Paradise Pizza wasn’t exactly a grand job. It wasn’t going to get her a career. For hell’s sake, she was surrounded by teens and burnt-out adults who couldn’t do any better with their high school degrees. I have a Bachelor’s… God, she was a Millennial stereotype! Four year degree and nothing but a fast food job to show for it. Was she going to make manager one day? Hell, no. Even if she stuck it out long enough to be considered, everyone knew that in small towns like these, jobs of any full-time note went to friends of friends. Nobody was friends with Mikaiya, so that meant bupkis.

  Absolute bupkis.

  The door opened. An electronic bell chimed. Yet Skylar didn’t bother to look up from the form she filled out after cleaning the slice warmer. She knew what time it was. A half past three on Friday? The evening crew was coming in after finishing up school.

  “Hey, Sky.” The most insulting thing? Carrie Sage didn’t look much older – younger? – than Skylar, and they were a whole ten years apart. The nineteen-year-old may be repeating her senior year of high school, but she had lost most of the baby fat from her face and she didn’t cover up any of her puberty stretch marks or the acne scars on her forehead. That wasn’t to say either she or Skylar were ugly. No, they were positively normal. Skylar was aware of what people looked like on Instagram. Ask me what Mik looks like in her business posts. Go on, ask! Nobody wore more filters in her selfies than Mikaiya, who always looked like an uncanny valley version of herself whenever she posted about online marketing and social media – on social media. There’s something to unpack, there. Skylar had ditched most of her makeup since realizing there was no place for it in Paradise Valley. Most of the women didn’t wear makeup beyond a little blush and some lipstick. Skylar, who had used makeup as part of her identity in Portland, barely recognized herself in her Throwback Thursdays. Not that she cared now.

  She only cared when she compared herself to young women like Carrie, who were such breaths of fresh air with their energetic youthful glows and flat stomachs… although they ate their fair share of pizza every damn shift.

  Listen to me. I sound like I’m forty-five or something. Skylar forced herself to smile and say hello to Carrie, who went into the staff room to put her things in her locker and don the apron. Their manager was out running a professional errand, which meant Skylar could tell Carrie to either get to work with prep in the kitchen or take over the counter. Which do I want to do the least? Prep work required concentration. Manning the counter required looking like she was alive.

  Ugh. It was Friday. While Skylar was grateful to work the three busiest days of the week – and therefore score her share of the tips – she wasn’t happy when Friday evening rolled around and they were slammed with to-go orders. Sometimes, that meant climbing into the beat-up Ford truck that had a magnetic sign slapped on the side and driving around Paradise Valley with pies in the passenger seat. That had been a wild time when she first started work three months after moving there. At least Paradise Valley wasn’t easy to get lost in. The grid of numbered streets and those named after states was the most confusing thing, but Google always came through until she randomly lost reception because she went two inches beyond the city limits.

  Carrie reemerged from the staff room with her hair up in a ponytail and her green apron snug around her waist. She said hello again, this time with the insinuation that she would take over the counter since she was expecting a few classmates from school to show up with orders later. There was an unspoken rule at Paradise Pizza that waiting on your friends was allowed as long as you didn’t give them discounts. After all, knowing that a friend worked somewhere meant people were more likely to order! Or such was the logic Skylar was told when she first started working and was constantly stuck back in prep.

  At least she knew how to do it, she supposed.

  “Are you going back to Portland for Christmas?” Carrie ask
ed during a lull around seven. She had returned from a delivery, yet her pep was hardly lost. Probably because, as Skylar later found out, Carrie had delivered to a small party her own girlfriend was attending that night. If there’s one thing I really love hearing, it’s the ongoing sagas between girlfriends in this town. Carrie had been no exception. From the day she started working back in September, she had been nothing but girlfriend and political drama. Most of that had cleared up by now, but that didn’t stop Skylar from rolling her eyes every time the topic of Leigh-Ann Hardy arose.

  “Don’t know why I would go back to Portland.” Skylar sliced through an onion with hardly any reaction. She never cried when slicing onions. Mik once told her that was a sign of her genetics failing her, but seriously, who cared? This was 2019. There was no biological reason for Skylar to cry when she cut onions. “I don’t have any family there.” She had moved to Portland to attend college and never left until Mik invited her to Paradise Valley, but before that, Skylar was a valley girl. As in California valley girl. “Gonna do what I did for Thanksgiving. Look Abby in the eyes and dare her to call me a flop again.”

  “A flop?” Carrie asked.

  “She gets really intense playing Scrabble. I think that’s the real reason she had a couple of strokes.” Mik was big on getting Grandma to play thinking games like Scrabble. Was supposed to be good for Abby’s brain. So far, all it did was make her call Skylar names. Probably because Skylar called Abby out on her rule breaking. “Scrumdillydumptious” is not a real word. Skylar had gotten out the rule book for that one. “Why? Are you going back to Alabama for Christmas?” Skylar already knew the answer to that. Nobody left Paradise Valley once they were shipped there. That definitely included high school students.

  A tinge of red touched Carrie’s cheeks. “No, of course not. My mom wants me to come home, but neither of us can afford the ticket for that time of year. Besides, Christmas in ‘Bama is highly overrated. At least here I might get some snow.”

  Good luck with that. Snow wasn’t hard to come by, but Carrie was in no way prepared for the shit that kicked up once a light dusting touched the Oregonian streets. Between trucks spinning out in the middle of the road and children attempting to build snowmen out of muck, it made Skylar wish she knew how the hell to transport southern Californian mentalities to Paradise Valley. I thought Portland was bad. It had mildly snowed last January when she first moved to town, and she never met a group of people who panicked more over a few snowflakes.

  That Friday was one of many nights in which they made a little too much pizza, anticipating a higher volume of orders than they actually received. While Carrie was always happy to trot home with a couple medium pizzas in her hands, Skylar sighed to cart home a large everything. Because she knew what kind of fanfare she would receive upon stepping into the Marcott house around nine.

  “Is that pizza I smell?” Abby looked up from her knitting – and her “NCIS” reruns. “Good God, how much pizza can this family sustain themselves on?”

  Skylar left the box opened on the kitchen counter. She glanced at Mik’s closed laptop only a few feet away, but there was no sign of her best friend. “Where’s Mik?” Skylar asked.

  “No idea. She took off about an hour ago. Think she got a call from Ari.” Abby laughed. “You ask me, they’re up to some no good. Hey, pass me a plain cheese slice, would you?”

  “I only got everything.”

  “Everything! Well, you know what to do, then. Come on. I’m an old, invalid woman.”

  Furrowing her brows, Skylar slapped a piece of pizza onto a paper plate and began the arduous task of taking off every single topping while leaving behind as much cheese as possible. She’s not my grandma… But she saved her griping for when Mik eventually walked through the door a few minutes later.

  “Pizza again, huh?” Mik placed her bag in front of her laptop and smacked her stomach. “Good thing I’m not looking for a girlfriend. I’ve gained like fifteen pounds since moving back here, and that’s from the pizza.”

  “Can’t help it if it’s free,” Skylar muttered.

  Mik took a small step back. “Uh, why don’t you let me do that? I’m guessing it’s for my grandma.”

  “Where’s the pizza?” Abby called from the living room.

  Skylar dropped the paper plate onto the counter. “Cool. I really want to take a shower. Maybe go to bed early. Wild Friday night, you know.”

  “You okay, Sky?” Mik followed her to the hallway. “You’re a bit… more than usual.”

  Although she didn’t say the word she wanted, Skylar knew what it was. “I’m fine. Just tired. Been a long week.”

  Hell, it had been a long year, but Mik didn’t want to hear that rant. She would merely end it with some roundabout “I told you so” that would send Skylar into the stratosphere of frustration. She had enough of that so far that week.

  Chapter 2

  CARRIE & LEIGH-ANN

  The leftover pizza was chilled by the time Carrie pulled into the trailer park on the north side of town. One streetlamp illuminated the entrance, but the fog had settled enough that she drove five miles per hour to ensure she didn’t ram into someone’s home. As luck would have it, the Hardys’ trailer was at the rear of the lot, tucked between a red Dodge Ram and a municipal shed.

  Carrie almost discovered how many hoes and rakes were kept in that shed. She only realized at the last minute that she was about to mow it over when a motion-sensor light flashed through the fog.

  Totally meant to do that. She thought that when she got out of her car and admired the “perfect” parking job, inadvertently behind Mr. Hardy’s rig. His dark blue pickup truck that didn’t stick out in the night fog half as well as the neighbor’s red Dodge Ram.

  Carrie knocked on the door, pizza box balanced on her hand.

  “The cavalry’s here!” she called, ignoring the chill eating through her thin jacket. She direly needed a real winter coat to get her through winter in the PNW, but her Alabaman sensibilities told her to put up with the cold in her usual jacket. Usually, it wasn’t so bad. She spent her time either inside a building or in her car. It wasn’t until she was stuck on somebody’s steps, knocking and yelling, that she realized how freakin’ cold it was in Oregon. “Girl, I know you got a hankerin’ for some pizza. Open this door and try to tell me my experiment ain’t slap your mama good!”

  Finally, the door and the screen opened. Leigh-Ann was dressed in nothing but a bath towel that barely covered her torso. Uh, hi! Hello! How are you, honey? Carrie couldn’t hide the grin that instantly warmed her up better than the pizza in her hands.

  “What are you yellin’ for?” Leigh-Ann motioned for her girlfriend to get the hell into the trailer. There wasn’t much heat on, but the coziness of a couch, chairs, and pictures on the wall sure beat standing outside in the freezing dark. “Don’t tell me you were ‘fixin’ to break down my door should I have left you out there.”

  Leigh-Ann marched back to her room, hand barely holding up that towel. “No, but I reckon I might yank that towel off if you don’t get a move on to put on your PJs. Where you keep the plates, again?”

  She got a tongue stuck out at her, but Leigh-Ann didn’t close her bedroom door as she threw on a fleece PJ set covered in bold, red roses. Carrie helped herself to one gratuitous look of her naked girlfriend before hopping into the kitchen and rummaging for utensils.

  “Did’ya eat yet?” she called down the hall.

  “Not much! Had some Hot Pockets when I got home from school! I’m starving for some pizza.” Leigh-Ann appeared at the corner of the kitchen, her wet hair left drying on her shoulders. “Was afraid you wouldn’t have enough to bring by. How often are my parents out of town and don’t mind that you’re coming by to keep me company for the night?”

  “I’m telling you, it’s the best part about being gay with acceptin’ parents.” Carrie slung some slices onto plastic plates she found in the back of a cabinet. “Even if they know you’re fooling around with their da
ughter, they tell themselves it’s not as bad as a boy doing it. Not like I’m gonna knock you right up, you know.”

  Leigh-Ann scoffed. “More like my parents think this is a phase I’m having. They think you’re a regular ol’ friend. Don’t think they’d be scandalized to know we’re gonna sleep together tonight, but that ain’t on their radar.”

  They took their pizza to the living room, where Carrie admired the small, fake Christmas tree brought out of storage for the season. She took a generous bite of her half-warm pizza. Leigh-Ann got back up from the couch, took her girlfriend’s plate, and announced she was throwing them in the microwave.

  “You guys just now put up your tree?” Carrie asked.

  Leigh-Ann stood in front of the microwave. “Since you were last here? I guess so. Seems like it’s been up forever to me.”

  “Yeah, my aunt just put up ours. Guess my uncle was mad about it because he says it feels like fake Christmas, but my aunt isn’t hearing it. She wants my stupid cousin to have a ‘normal Christmas’ while he’s still under house arrest.” The best part about having a girlfriend – besides the obvious – was the built-in excuse to not be home outside of work and school. Carrie got along with her aunt and uncle well enough, but her cousin Dillon was the definition of needs work. The fact he was under legal house arrest after setting fire to a few barns only made tensions higher in the Musgrave house. “Can you believe it? Little twerp doesn’t deserve a Christmas.”

  The microwave dinged. “So you’re definitely not going back to Alabama for Christmas?”

  Carrie hadn’t missed the smell of pizza, yet here it came for her once again. “Can’t afford it,” she said. “Looks like I’m spending my first Christmas away from home here. Works for me, though. Means I get to see your face Christmas day when you open your present from me.”