Let's Scrooge

by R. L. Caulder

  Panting from the others filled the room before Carter slowly turned to look back at Grant with a question in his eyes. At Grant’s nod, he started to untie Beckett after unplugging the lights, the two of them heading into the bathroom to clean up before joining us on the bed.Carter snuggled in beside me as Beckett laid down on the other side of Grant, the four of us just enjoying some closeness. It was silent for a minute before Grant let out a sigh.

  “I feel kinda jealous that Beckett got all that attention tonight, I’m not gonna lie.”

  I burst out laughing, finding his admission utterly adorable. “What am I, chopped liver?” I hit his shoulder in mock outrage while Beck gave a breathless laugh. Carter, for his part, hummed in thought beside me before he propped himself up to look at Grant.

  “I am a good kisser,” Carter teased, giving him a wink that had me thinking about round two. I clutched a hand over my heart like I was hurt by them ignoring me, but not so secretly, I loved it. I was here for any and all fun that the three of them wanted to get into.

  “Prove it,” he challenged, and Beck let out a breathless chuckle, not the least bit bothered by Grant’s words. Carter leaned over me to grab Grant’s face, making him still, before brushing his lips against Grant’s in a gentle kiss. I watched them above me as Grant deepened the kiss, and if I wasn’t so exhausted by all the sex before this, it would turn those thoughts of round two into a reality. I loved that they were so comfortable with each other and that this could potentially be a new element of our dynamic. Even if it was just for sexy stuff.

  They broke apart soon after, and Grant watched Carter carefully as he nonchalantly settled back down beside me. Beckett threw an arm across Grant and brushed his hand along my leg as he snuggled into our boyfriend, Carter brushing a whisper of a kiss to my neck as he cuddled close to my other side. As we all got comfortable and sleep overtook us, my last thoughts were about how unbelievably happy I was with these men of mine.

  Chapter 5

  Hollis

  “I need your help, guys!” I exclaimed over the phone, not caring that the people around me turned to stare at my declaration. I was desperate.

  “Holls, you know them,” Lanie tried to calmly reason with me. Big mistake. “You’re overthinking this.”

  “Of course I’m overthinking this!” I told one of my best friends as I walked around a store in Denver. “This is our first Christmas together as a couple, unit, thing, whatever. We aren’t just friends anymore. I need to find the perfect gift!”

  “Hollis,” Drey said firmly, her voice filling the line. “You could just have sex with them. Sex is always a good present.”

  “Well, I mean, sex is already a given,” I told her.

  “This is where this line of conversation ends,” Bailey announced, and I didn’t bother to hide my snicker at her adamant tone.

  “Fair, fair. No talking about sex when your brother is invovled,” I allowed. “But do you have any idea what Grant would want for Christmas?”

  “He hasn’t hinted at anything?” Bay asked, and I let out a tired sigh.

  “No, none of them have,” I whined, my voice sounding as resigned as I felt. I had been looking for the perfect gifts for the past month, but nothing stood out. “Christmas is just around the corner, guys! What am I going to do?”

  “How about we meet up for lunch?” Drey offered. “The guys are all working, and I’m at the house, reading. Can the rest of you guys come up?”

  “I can pick you up, Lanie,” Bay offered. “We can carpool.”

  “Perfect! Just give me thirty! I need to get dressed after I finish editing this last bit of my video,” Lanie rushed out.

  “How about I meet you at your place, Drey? Then, when they’re closer to the city, we can pick a place to eat.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Drey answered. “I’ll let security know you’re on the way.”

  “See you soon!”

  We all hung up after saying our goodbyes, and I made my way out of the store. Hopefully, a relaxing lunch with the besties will help me pull off some kind of Christmas miracle.

  Beckett

  “Do either of you have any ideas for what to get Holls for Christmas?” I looked at Carter and Grant who had met me for lunch at Gino’s while I was on a quick break.

  Carter shook his head as he sipped his Coke. “No idea. I’ve been trying to think of something, but I keep coming up blank.”

  “We could always do a bigger together gift,” Grant offered before taking a big bite of lasagna. “Then something small from us individually?”

  I nodded at his idea, liking that it was another way we could show her that we were all in. “Yeah, but we still need to come up with an idea. I know she’s been talking about new costumes for dancing, but I don’t think we’ll get anything in time for the holiday.”

  “No, but that’s a good idea for another time.” Carter nodded as he sat back, thinking. “We could get a bigger couch? There has to be something bigger that comes in that orange color she loves.”

  “I think that vintage orange died in the seventies, Carter,” I replied dryly. “But a couch isn’t a bad idea. I bet we could find something used.”

  “I know I haven’t seen anything like that here in Sugar Bush,” Grant replied thoughtfully. “I wonder if her brothers remember where she got it.” We sat in silence for a bit, mulling over ideas of where to look. “I mean, we have a little bit of time. We can always think of something soon, right?”

  We all nodded in agreement and ate in comfortable silence until Carter spoke up.

  “I’m still surprised she didn’t freak out about the same house comment,” Carter mused.

  “Yeah, me too, if I’m honest.” I nodded. “But I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Right now, I just want to figure out my own gift to get her… What are you thinking of?”

  Grant had a wide grin on his face as he held up a finger for us to wait while he chewed. “As we were looking over the tree, it occurred to me that we don’t have any ornaments up there that are ours. What if, for the tree you’re setting up in the bedroom, we slowly made that our tree? We can get new ornaments every year and add to it.” His face flushed as we remained silent, just staring at him in surprise. “It would be a good way to show us growing together, all of us. And it could be our joint gifts.”

  “I like that idea,” Carter exclaimed, bumping Grant’s shoulder with his own. “I think Hollis will love it too. The quirky one downstairs for everyone and a personal one just for us.”

  “I like that.” I smiled, thinking of how excited Hollis would be about the idea of a personal tree just for us.

  We didn’t say anything else for a minute, none of us sure how to navigate out of this emotional moment. Thank god for Carter. “You know, instead of a new couch, we could find a loveseat or something in that orange? So we’re adding to something Holls already loves and making the space work for all of us.”

  “You’re a genius! There are a few vintage stores in Denver we could check out tomorrow when I’m off duty. I can drive my truck up there.”

  “Works for me as long as it’s in the morning.” Grant agreed. “Plus, there’s a new sex store in the city that just opened. I can think of something else we can give her that will be like a present to all of us.” Well, that might be one of the most promising things I’ve heard all day.

  “So, tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow,” they chorused in agreement before we dug into our lunches again.

  Hollis

  “You really think they’re going to like this?” I incredulously questioned my best friends as I looked at the thing in front of me.

  “They’ll love it!” Bay tried to encourage me, but I could tell she was just as hesitant as I was. We were all standing on the sidewalk, eyeing the rundown camper that we’d found for sale on Craigslist while we were at lunch. Okay, so the food and mimosas might have made this sound like a better idea than it really is.

  “You need to practice you
r acting, Bay,” Lanie scolded under her breath before coming to stand beside me. She and Drey looked at it critically as the owner talked about the different features and a list of what needed to be repaired. I was a bit overwhelmed by all the jargon, and honestly, I was positive that they didn’t know what it all meant either, but my friends nodded like experts as the guy talked.

  It was an old Airstream camper, and it was completely run down from what I could see. It almost needed to be gutted and completely rebuilt. Furniture was scratched and torn up. Cabinet doors were missing, and some of the flooring even looked like it was somehow ripped up. I furrowed my brow, not wanting to ask too many questions.

  “So what do you girls think? It’s at a very reasonable price of $20,000.”

  I choked on my own spit as he said that with a leering look. “That’s not what your ad said! You listed it for $500!”

  “That was before I knew what I had on my hands.” He gave me a haughty, offended look. “The price increased.”

  “That would have been better to know before you drove all the way out here,” Drey told him coolly. “We aren’t interested in this dumpster fire for that price.”

  “What did you call my camper?!” The guy’s chest puffed out at her words, but Drey was completely unfazed as she fixed her black and red scarf.

  “Dumpster. Fire,” she reiterated slowly with an unimpressed once over before looking back at the silver sausage thing. “We will pay you $500 like the ad said and not a penny more.”

  “There is no way—” he started, getting red in the face, but Drey cut him off.

  “The entire damn thing needs to be gutted and put back together. It’s falling the fuck apart, and you know it. You decided to scam us because it was just a bunch of women and not guys you were meeting. Well, too damn bad for you that you ran into us.”

  “When I listed it on Craigslist, I didn’t know what I had,” he tried to backtrack, looking nervous as we all glared at him. “Now I know, so I want to charge more. It doesn’t have anything to do with you being women.”

  “Bet if one of us had a dick right now, it would be five hundred, no problem,” Lanie muttered darkly.

  A hysterical laugh burst out before I could stop it, and they all turned to look at me like I was certifiably insane. I shook my head, digging through my purse until I found what I was looking for, then I proceeded to pull out a nine-inch, veiny and thick, dark green dildo. I had dubbed him the angel maker since the toy could make you see fucking cloud nine every time.

  “Does this dick count? Or should one of us shove it down our pants?” I waved it around, and he jumped away from us. Bay groaned as she wiped her face with her hands, clearly wondering how we were still friends. Drey burst out laughing, trying to get a decent picture of me waving the giant green dong. Lanie, for her part, was giggling uncontrollably, on the verge of wobbling over. “Your ad said $500, so take it or leave it. I’m not paying you a penny more!”

  “I’m out of here. You four are crazy!” He rushed into his truck, and before long, he had pulled away with the Airstream.

  I let out a sigh as I threw the dildo back into my bag. “Now what am I going to do?”

  “I think the real question is, what the hell else do you have in your purse, and how did that giant dildo even fit in there?” Lanie was staring at my bag like that would uncover all of its secrets.

  I shrugged. “Well, my dildo duffel is at home, and you never know when you might need one. The angel maker just happened to be a perfect gift.”

  “Name one time you needed a random dildo!” Bay threw her hands up in exasperation, the twitching corner of her mouth betraying her amusement.

  “Besides scaring off weird Craigslist guys?” I tapped my chin with a finger in thought. “Sex?”

  “Is that a mold of one of the guys?” Drey questioned as she unlocked her phone. She must’ve been scrolling through the sales ads again, trying to help me find a new gift.

  “Don’t answer that!” Bay covered her ears with her hands as she shook her head violently. Drey looked up from her phone and I winked at her, earning a laugh before she went back to browsing.

  “Ah ha! I think I found something better than that bucket of rust that just left.” Drey gave us a triumphant grin a few minutes later. “How about this?”

  She turned her phone to show me the ad, and I swiped through some of the pictures, a wide smile filling my face as I started to nod. It’s perfect. Drey had found one of those small skoolies that someone had started to create but ran out of funds partway through. The seats and floors had been ripped out of the school bus, and the outside had been primed but not painted yet.

  After our camping trip, I knew that we would be going on a lot more, but we’d found out the hard way that tent camping didn’t work for us. Four-person sexy times were not something that ended very well in a tent. While we were at lunch earlier, Bay had mentioned that a cheap camper could be the perfect solution. A skoolie, though... we could create a camper that was exactly what we wanted, and we could all ride together since we could take turns driving. The price was a bit more than the Airstream, about $900, but I had a gig tomorrow night after work, and I should make more than enough to cover the rest of it.

  “Tell him I’m interested and see if we can take a look at it today. I told the guys I was having a girls day, so they won’t expect me back until tonight.”

  Drey started tapping out a response as Lanie looped her arm through mine. “That’s what I told my boys too. So, anything else we want to do before we potentially look at the skoolie?”

  “We could get high and track down the taco food trucks?”

  “Oh my god,” Bailey muttered, and I bumped her shoulder.

  “Come on! My brothers haven’t seen you high, and it will probably wear off before you get home anyway.”

  “I do have Carson to think of too!”

  “Carson isn’t here though, Bay,” I pointed out. “So... dispensary?”

  “Hell yes!” Drey answered as she put her phone back in her purse. “Bay, are you coming?”

  “Yes,” she groaned, sounding resigned but amused. “If only to keep you three out of too much trouble.”

  Chapter 6

  Hollis

  It had been two weeks since I had paid for the skoolie, and today was the big day that I was going to show it to the guys. To say I was nervous was a gross understatement; my stomach had been in complete knots all day. Will they like it? Will they look at me like I’m crazy? Will they just act like they liked it but secretly hate it? I mentally groaned at my swirling thoughts. I had coordinated with Spencer so he could pick up the skoolie for me while the guys and I went into Denver to do some last-minute shopping for our families.

  I checked my phone again, trying to see if Spencer made it back to Sugar Bush with no issues, but I still didn’t have any messages from him.

  “What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, princess?” Grant glanced at me with a concerned look. He took a hand off the steering wheel and placed it on my thigh, giving me a quick squeeze as if to reassure me. “You keep looking at your phone like something’s wrong.”

  “No, nothing’s wrong,” I responded quickly, trying to sell the statement with a smile at him. His eyes narrowed like he didn’t believe me, and right when I could see Beckett and Carter about to follow up with questions from the backseat, my phone buzzed.

  Swiftly unlocking my phone, I was relieved to see a text from Spencer.

  Spencer: Just got to your place! The skoolie is parked right outside.

  Spencer: Sorry I didn’t get to text ‘til now. Damn phone ran out of battery, and there was no way to charge it in that thing.

  Spencer: You guys definitely need to add that in.

  Hollis: Thank you so much, Spence! I owe you one.

  Spencer: I’ll remember that, Holls LOL. Merry Christmas!

  Hollis: Merry Christmas to you too!

  Hollis: Don’t forget, five o’clock tomorrow at my place is th
e get together.

  Spence: Wouldn’t miss it!

  I smiled as some of my anxiety calmed. At least the skoolie was in place… Now I could go back to obsessing over whether they’d like it.

  “Who was that?” Beckett asked, and I looked back to find him raising a brow at me with a scrutinizing stare.

  “None of your business,” I insisted, with a haughty sniff.

  “Oh, now I definitely want to know,” Carter called out. The pain in the ass tried to reach around to grab my purse, but I playfully smacked his hand.

  “Carter Anderson, don’t you dare take my purse or I’ll hit you with the angel maker!”

  “The angel maker?” Grant asked, coughing as he tried to cover his laughter.

  “Yeah, my giant green dildo.”

  “You have that in your purse?” Beckett lifted both eyebrows in question this time, giving me a scandalized look that Bay would be proud of.

  “Of course!” I exclaimed, my lips curled in a small smile. “It’s always useful to have one around. For self-protection or sex. I mean, it would hurt to be hit by one of those things.”

  Carter just chuckled as he sat back, that edge of mischief turning into something with a little more heat. “Fine, keep your secrets, gorgeous. But we will find out.”

  I didn’t bother responding; instead, I placed my hand on top of Grant’s. Rubbing his hand absently, I started to dance to the music on the radio, singing along as he drove the rest of the way home. They tried to get what I was hiding out of me, but I just turned up the music every time they asked me questions. I was bursting at the seams to tell them, but there was no way I was ruining the surprise. Not when we were so close.