by Jamie Knight
Plus, Charlie’s happy, so that’s all that matters. I’m not a fan of the cold and snow unless I’m skiing so I would rather decorate a tree someone else had to go get, anyway.
“Here you go, boss,” says another of the guys, who is carrying way more boxes of pizza than we could possibly eat tonight. “Smells good.”
“Thanks!” Daniel says. “You want a piece?”
“Really?” the boy asks, looking shocked.
“Sure. Chow down; there’s plenty.”
He opens one of the lids to the pizza box and the guys gather around the counter and take a slice each.
“This is really good!” one of them says.
“Sure is. You can’t beat Maggio’s New York Pizza,” Daniel responds happily. “Best in the city.”
Soon, the guys are gone and the three of us are eating pizza and playing Christmas music and decorating the tree. Charlie is running back and forth between the box of ornaments that Daniel had also had someone pick up on the way, the tree, and then my legs and Daniel’s legs, as he took turns hugging each of us that way. I’ve never seen the kid this happy.
Come to think of it, I think, as I watch Daniel putting the star on top of the tree with a big smile on his face, I’ve never seen Daniel this happy, either.
“Daddy, will Catharine be with us on Christmas?” Charlie suddenly asks, gazing up at his dad.
He had dropped the subject, but Daniel and I had already talked about it and decided what to tell him the next time he asks. This would help transition me from the role of nanny to “Dad’s girlfriend” in Charlie’s eyes.
Although, Daniel and I didn’t specifically use the word “girlfriend” when we talked about it. I certainly feel like that’s what I am to Daniel, but neither of us have broached the subject of making the relationship status official.
“Yes,” Daniel tells him. “Catharine will be coming over for Christmas dinner.”
“Woo hoo!” Charlie says, hopping and skipping around while wearing a Santa hat.
And I have to admit that my inner child feels just as excited as he looks.
Chapter 11
Daniel
Time seems to have flown by even faster than it normally does, and now it’s already Christmas day. I’m not normally one to celebrate holidays – in fact, I usually get rather depressed around this season – but this year is completely different.
It’s been so much fun to get ready for Christmas with Catharine and Charlie. I enjoy watching his child-like wonder come out and I can’t help but think that Catharine puts me in the best of Christmas spirits as well. She makes everything fun, whether it’s changing the words of Christmas carols or adding different fruits to hot cocoa as if they’re cocktails that Charlie can drink, too.
I told her that was a strange way of doing things and she fake pouted and said, “Have you never heard of chocolate strawberries? It’s exactly the same thing!”
“I like them, Daddy!” Charlie had protested, and I had pat his head and told him, “Well, that’s all that matters.”
I was happy to see the changes that had come over him. He had always been a sweet, smart, funny boy, but he had had those horrible tantrums and was difficult to regulate. Now, it was as if he was a shining star example of the perfect child.
Sure, he pouted and cried some, and he ran around the house knocking into things without looking where he was going, which drove me crazy, but overall, he has been an amazing kid lately. And I give all the credit to Catharine, who has made a much better nanny than I ever expected.
Charlie and I open gifts under the tree on Christmas morning and I enjoy my time with him but I also can’t help wishing that Catharine was here with us. I know he feels the same because he points to the one gift that’s still wrapped under the tree and says, “I can’t wait until we give that to Catharine!”
“I can’t, either, bud,” I tell him.
We watch some Christmas movies and I let him stay in his pajamas until about four, when I tell him we have to start getting ready for Catharine to come over for dinner. He’s very excited about this and actually changes quickly, whereas usually I have to argue with him about it or just put his clothes on him myself so as to skip the argument about which parts he can do on his own and which parts he thinks he needs my help with.
The caterers arrive first and set up our Christmas dinner: delicious turkey and stuffing, ham and pineapple, cranberry sauce, rolls and butter, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy and, of course, apple pie.
“Yum!” Charlie says. “Can we eat yet?”
“No, we have to wait for Catharine to get here…” I start to say, but then she’s right there at the front door, arriving a tiny bit early and carrying two gifts.
“Hello!” I say, resisting the urge to kiss her as I go over and take the gifts out of her hand. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, guys!”
“What did you get me?” Charlie asks, pointing at the gifts.
“Charlie, that’s rude!” I tell him, but Catharine says, “It’s okay! Charlie, I’m going to put the gifts under the tree, and we’ll open them after dinner and before you go to bed, okay?”
“Okay,” Charlie says, a bit anxiously.
As we start to eat dinner, I can tell he’s wanting to open the gift, because he keeps looking over to the tree and bouncing his leg up and down. Catharine keeps him entertained with a Christmas story she knows, though, while we’re eating, and the food is really so good that soon Charlie has almost forgotten about the gift.
Almost.
As soon as we’re done eating, he asks, “Can I open the gift now?”
“Don’t you want to have pie?” Catharine asks him.
“Hmmm, after the gift!” Charlie says.
“He’s a good little negotiator,” she remarks.
We go over to the tree and she gives Charlie his gift, which is an activity mat that he can lay down and draw on.
“Awesome!” he says. “Now we can practice drawing Transformers on this!”
“And now you won’t feel the need to draw all over the house, right?” she asks, winking at me.
Last week he had decided it would be a good idea to color all over the walls and floors, while Catharine had been making a snack for him in the kitchen. They’d talked about it and he’d promised to only draw on paper or other drawable surfaces – and now he’d have plenty of space to work with!
“Now, for you,” I tell her, taking the small gift from under the tree, “Charlie and I got you something special.”
Her eyes light up when she unpeels the wrapping off a small jewelry box. I bet she’s wondering if it’s a ring, and maybe it should have been, but we still haven’t even explained the status of our relationship to Charlie yet, so I think that would be taking things a little fast. Then again, we’ve been taking everything else very fast, so I’m starting to think we should at least make it boyfriend/girlfriend official.
“It’s gorgeous!” she says, as she takes the necklace out of the box.
It’s a gold chain with a custom decorated snow globe hanging from it. Inside, there’s a snow angel and when you shake it some, or when it just swings hanging from your neck as you walk, it causes snow flurries everywhere.
“This is a really unique gift,” she tells me, and then looks at Charlie, too. “Thanks so much.”
“It’s because you made a snow angel with me!” he says. Then he looks at Daniel and says, “Daddy, will you make a snow angel with Catharine and me, too?”
I laugh and tell him, “maybe next time we go skiing.”
“Can we go tomorrow?” he asks, expectantly.
I look over at Catharine and shrug, as if to say “why not?” I don’t have to work tomorrow. Or, I always have to work some, but I can do it at home when Charlie’s asleep.
“Why don’t we go up to…”
“North Pine Lodge!” Catharine rushes in to suggest, even though I was going to suggest the resort she had worked at when
we met.
She looks anxious to switch the location, and I realize that she probably doesn’t want to see her old co-workers now that she left that job. Maybe they would think she ditched them or something.
“That would work fine,” I say, shrugging.
“Yay!” Charlie says. “This is the best Christmas ever!”
“Wait,” Catharine says, then smiles at me. “Daddy hasn’t opened his gift from us yet.”
“Oh yeah!” Charlie covers his mouth with his hand and giggles. “I almost forgot.”
“Silly,” Catharine says, handing me the gift. “After all that time we spent on it.”
“I know; I just want to go skiing and make snow angels!” he responds.
I open the box to find a digital photo frame with a lot of pictures of Charlie in it. And there’s a wooden box with handprints on it.
“That’s for your office,” Charlie says. “I wanted you to always have a picture of me!”
“And the handprints are his,” Catharine says, as she points to the box. “You can keep that at home or work but it’s a nice little box to put your things in and we made it based on a YouTube video I watched about how to do moldings of handprints in wood.”
“Wow, look who’s becoming crafty!” I exclaim.
“I know, right? I never thought I was the domestic type, but the next thing you know, I’ll be making dinner for… for whoever needs to eat dinner.”
She hurries to finish her sentence a different way than she started it. I like that she wants to make us dinner, even though she doesn’t have to. I can imagine coming home to my little family of her, Charlie and me every night for a home-cooked meal.
Maybe there’d even be a little brother or sister for Charlie down the road; a cute little girl who looks like the female version of Charlie, or, more accurately, half me, half Catharine – now that would be cute.
Stop thinking like this, I scold myself.
Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean I have to get all emo. But this is really one of the best holidays I’ve ever had. I become more and more convinced that it’s time to ask Catharine to be my official girlfriend.
And not just because of our hot sex or even because she just essentially said she’d cook for me. But because I always love to be around her and I can’t imagine my life without her in it.
I’m pretty Charlie can’t imagine that, either, so even though we’ve been trying to protect him by taking it slow, I’m starting to think we should provide him with some security by cluing him in on the fact that Catharine and I are an official couple – just as soon as I ask her to be that with me.
Chapter 12
Catharine
The day after Christmas is always a good time to ski. Most people are still at home with their families, vegging in front of the TV or suffering a bellyache or laziness from too much turkey the day before. Or people are traveling and still celebrating the holiday with different family members.
North Pine is always more crowded than the resort I had worked at but it’s not too bad today. And it was worth it to me to come here instead, although I didn’t tell Daniel why. I never told him I was fired from my job, because it’s so fucking embarrassing, and also because I don’t want him to feel bad, since it involved the incident that happened when he was there, although it certainly wasn’t his fault.
We drove separately, because I’m meeting up with some of my friends tonight – Sally, Gia, Amanda, Maya and others, to do our own Christmas present exchange – and I don’t want to cut Charlie’s and Daniel’s time on the mountain short because of it. But as soon as I got here I was so happy to see my two favorite guys.
As we’re waiting in line for the ski lift that takes us all the way up the front of the mountain and to the black diamond slope on the back – Charlie being loudly happy about being able to go there this time instead of having to be slowed down by his friends who can’t ski – I see someone familiar manning the boarding area.
“Catharine!” Matt says, waving at me.
It’s my former co-worker, who had helped carry out and set up Charlie’s cake.
“Matt!” I say, surprised. “You work here now?”
Charlie is butting his way forward, and trying to get ahead of another kid in line, so luckily, Daniel is kind of wrestling him back and telling him to wait his turn, and doesn’t hear what Matt and I are talking about.
“Yeah, I just couldn’t keep working over there after everything they did to you and Michelle, and all of that drama,” he says.
“Yeah, that sucked,” I agree. “So, Michelle was fired, too?”
He nods as if I should know this. “Well, yeah, I mean, now she…”
Suddenly Daniel and Charlie are beside me and it’s our turn to get on the lift. Just in the nick of time, because I don’t want to be talking about this in front of them.
“Nice to see you, Matt!” I say, as we board the chair.
“You too,” he calls after me, and then he says something else but the wind is behind me when I turn around and so I can’t tell if he said he’ll let Michelle know I said hi, or if he said that I should tell Michelle hi.
I would prefer that no one tell Michelle I say hi, and especially not me. She’s the whole reason I got fired! I figured they’d fired her too, unless maybe she had thrown me under the bus to cover for herself somehow, but to have it confirmed is a bit reassuring.
At least I shouldn’t take it personally, I think.
And I barely think about it at all anymore. What started out as a depressing, unexpected event – to be unceremoniously canned by the job I’d worked hard at for a few years now during the winter seasons – had turned into the best thing that had ever happened to me. Because it had forced me to work for Daniel and Charlie, and I don’t know what life would be like without them, now.
I think about how nice our Christmas was yesterday. And also about how at first I’d thought Daniel was giving me an engagement ring.
I hadn’t expected that, but I didn’t know what else to think when I saw the box and I guess I naturally got my hopes up. I love the snow globe necklace he got me – it’s very unique and he obviously put a lot of thought into it – but I wonder if he has any intention to make me his girlfriend soon, if not his fiancée.
It’s not like I can’t ask him about it but I don’t want to be clingy. And my pride would be hurt if I was turned down. I’m thinking that pretty soon, though, we’ll have to talk about it one way or another, if only for Charlie’s sake.
“Was that the guy you used to work with?” Daniel asks, as the lift takes us high up on the mountain, the crisp air stinging the part of my face – mostly my cheeks and nose – that aren’t covered by my ski googles, helmet or scarf.
“Yeah,” I confirm, at the same time Charlie shouts, “That was the guy who made my cake transform. ‘Auto bots, roll to the rescue!’”
Daniel and I look at each other and smile, and I’m glad that he isn’t asking me any more questions about what Matt and I were talking about or why Matt would work here now. Maybe he just thinks it’s better pay or maybe he just isn’t curious.
We’re at the top before we know it, and then skiing down the fast, exhilarating slope. It’s so much fun to be next to Charlie and Daniel the whole time. My, how things have changed since just a little over a month ago when I was teasing the hot, older single dad of the birthday boy and he was trying to get me to come work for him.
“That was fun!” Charlie says, as we get to the bottom. “Can we go get some hot chocolate?”
“Sure,” Daniel says, leading the way to the restaurant area.
“Do they have fruit here to put in it?” Charlie asks me.
I say, “We’ll see!” at the same time that Daniel says, “You two and your fruit in your hot cocoa. That is just the strangest thing.”
“Wait, Daddy!” Charlie says, once we’ve taken our skis off and put them on the racks outside the restaurant, but before we’d headed in side. “We need to do our snow
angels!”
“Oh, yeah!” Daniel says, not sounding too thrilled about it.
“I was hoping he’d forget,” he mouths to me.
I laugh but I dutifully get down in the snow to make my angel. Daniel and Charlie do too, and soon we’re standing back up and there are imprints of three angels – two big ones framing one small one – left in the snow.
I snap a picture with my phone really quick, because it really is a cute sight.
“Thanks!” Charlie says. He takes hold of each of our hands as we walk towards the restaurant. “That was fun!”
“Fun for you, maybe,” Daniel laughs. “For me, it was wet and cold!”
“For me, it was a bit of both,” I admit, as I reach down with my other hand to wipe snow from my ski suit, but that’s a futile goal because it’s everywhere.
“Since we’re cold, we just need to get our hot cocoa and fruit!” Charlie exclaims, as we head inside the building that houses the restaurant and locker room and ski rental area. “So, soon we won’t be cold anymore!”
“That’s right, son,” says Daniel.
I look up at the stairs I have to climb in my ski boots to get up to the restaurant area.
“I’m going to go pee before walking up there,” I tell them.
“Catharine has to potty!” Charlie giggles.
“Do you have to potty?” I ask him.
“No!” he announces.
“He went right before we left the house,” Daniel says.
“That’s what I should have done,” I say.
“We’ll meet you up there,” Daniel says. “See you soon.”
We almost go to give each other a peck on the cheek but we stop. We should really fill Charlie in on this whole thing soon so we can just be like a normal couple, I think.
The thought crosses my mind that maybe Daniel just wants to fuck the nanny forever, and that he doesn’t have any real plans for the future with me.
