Holiday Magic

by Tl Reeve

  No sincerer words could have been spoken, and she found herself melting into him, trying to get as close as possible.

  “Now, before I get to kissing you, we have one more side to explore.” He picked up the dreidel and put it down again on the hay, the one they’d designated to reveal the one thing they wished they could do over. “Tell me, Eden.”

  It was her turn to pause. She gazed off into the setting sun, then looked down into her lap. “I regret not spending more time with you when I had it.”

  He hooked his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up to his. “What does that mean?”

  “The parts are going to have come in at some point, and you’ll have to go home. You have a life, Perry.” Her eyes heated, but she refused to allow any tears to fall.

  “Here is the truth.” He pulled her closer. “We will figure it out. We will have all the time we want. We can have a life.”

  “Do you promise, Perry?” She pressed her forehead to his.

  “I promise.” At last he kissed her.

  No doubt he was slick. She hoped he would keep his promise, but she promised herself she would enjoy the time they had left.

  7

  Night Seven

  Sunglasses on, dressed in all black from his head to his toes, Perry stuck his head out of his room at the boarding house.

  Eden’s mother gave him a thumbs-up, their signal for the coast was clear, or in this case, the porch, but at the moment, he would take what he could get.

  He tiptoed down the stairs, gave her mother one nod, and stuck his head outside. Though his informant was pretty good, perhaps one of the best, he could trust no one. When they’d driven the ATVs home last night after their games and their kisses, he’d known that today he had to give Eden something special, and he’d spent many hours dodging and weaving around her to make it happen. She was the one, the person with whom he kept his promises, his chance, so he had to do something, prove himself and show her what could happen when they came together. Then hopefully, later tonight they could come together again. This whole kissing-and-fondling thing was incredible, but he needed to make love to her, really make love to her.

  Yes. Make love.

  With no sign of Eden, he ran across the main and only street, scurrying into the diner.

  “Perry!” One of Eden’s uncles motioned him over.

  Silencing the man, he put his finger over his lips. One thing Perry had learned about his woman was she had superhuman hearing. She knew all; she saw all. If he could pull off tonight, it would be the ultimate coup.

  After a quick look over his shoulder to ensure he wasn’t being followed, he dashed forward and leaned over the counter. “Did you get the goods?” He made sure to only speak out of one side of his mouth and barely move his lips.

  Her uncle nodded. “You wouldn’t believe it—we got this case of champagne I didn’t order, but the deliveryman said to keep it. Then you told me we were having this special night. The town always provides.”

  Fine, the town was magic. It even provided for his entertainment of the evening in the form of those vintage turntables and a mixer.

  “We got everything ready down to the last detail,” her uncle said.

  “Are you sure?” He could leave no stone unturned, or, in this case, boulder. “You got the eats too?”

  “Check.” Her uncle saluted. “It’s all in the refrigerator.”

  “You got the booze?” Suddenly he was speaking as if he was in a gangster movie, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  “Affirmative.” He stood up straight, chest puffed out. While Perry may have been a gangster, this man was definitely playing the role of the military general. Well, he liked war movies as much as the next guy. Actually, he didn’t really like war movies, but in this case he could make an exception.

  “Voltage?” Perry continued to go down the mental list of what he needed to pull off his night.

  The man blinked. “Voltage?”

  “Voltage, watts, kilowatts.” Perry grunted. “You know, electricity.” The man really needed to stay in character.

  “Oh yes.” Her uncle cleared his throat. “We set up the generators exactly like you wanted with those two turntables you wanted, the records, and the speakers.”

  Perry smiled, a satisfied smile of a plan come together. Somehow, in the land of Eden, his credit was platinum. No one even asked for money; everyone simply gave, and the town did provide. He swore then and there he would pay these people back, and he knew exactly how. He only had to get Eden on his side.

  “Why did you need two turntables?” her uncle asked.

  Why did he need two turntables? Perry stared at the man. “That, my friend, will become apparent when the sun sets and the moon glows.” He went from gangster movie to a character in a Kung Fu flick, but it was all good. Blending genres was where it was at nowadays.

  “The moment Eden goes to get ready, we will all leave.” The man read ahead on the script. “The town will be yours.”

  Everything was perfect, and he only needed to tend to one last detail. “Don’t say a word.” Though the entire town knew not to speak of the evening ahead, he needed to make sure security was at a maximum.

  “No one will.” The man pointed toward the exit. “You can count on us.”

  Perry grabbed the man’s hand. “I trust you, comrade.” With precision, he spun on his heel and marched to the door. The next few moments were mission-critical.

  Once more he found himself outside.

  A quick glance around told him the troops had gathered to pull off their maneuver. In the windows of the boarding house, he spied several sets of eyes gazing down upon him. Little Leah even waved to him.

  He gave his onlookers a slight nod, their secret message that he was going in.

  With quiet low strides, he snuck across the street to the garage. At the building, he pressed his back to the wall and inched toward the door to Eden’s office. Right around now she would be checking on the status of his auto parts.

  Rather than the click click of the telegraph, he made out her voice on the phone.

  Actually it wasn’t that hard—when she used the phone she had to yell to get her message across. All the better for him.

  “Ralph!” she screamed. “What’s the status?”

  In order to fully concentrate, he closed his eyes and focused solely on her voice.

  After a pause, she spoke.

  “All right,” she said. “Well, we will try again tomorrow.”

  He took a full breath. Apparently water pumps were a premium commodity.

  “Oh yeah,” she continued. “I guess I forgot to ask about a tow.” Her voice lowered.

  His stomach dropped. He couldn’t get towed now, and it wasn’t lost on him that for the first time, she hadn’t asked about it. She was in no rush to get him out of there. He ground his teeth together. The parts that were only supposed to take a day now had stretched to a week, so certainly they would have the same luck with a tow, right? How long could they keep tempting fate?

  He held his breath, having to believe in the fact that the town always gave its residents what they needed, and right, now they needed him. Especially Eden.

  “I understand. It’s a busy time of year for towing.” Eden’s voice lightened, rose like a bird in flight. “All right. I have to go.”

  Only after he heard her hang up did he venture inside. “Eden.”

  She jumped, put her hand to her chest, and turned her chair toward him. “Perry.”

  All right, they’d made progress: he wasn’t Slick, and she didn’t want him to leave. He went toward her, slid down on one knee, and took her hand. Now he was the romantic lead in a love story, a role that fit him to perfection. “How are you?”

  She licked her lips and glanced at him through her long, thick eyelashes. “No parts yet, no tow.”

  “Good.” He kissed the back of her hand and glided his way up to her forearm to her elbow. His gaze affixed on her gorgeous face
, he took a soft, playful nibble on her elbow.

  The reward for his actions was a gasp from her. “Really?”

  He gave her a slow nod. Yes, he knew no matter what eventually he would have to get back to his life. At least show up and tie up loose ends, make his connections to plan his Untethered Concert, but that wasn’t tonight. “I made plans for us.”

  Her forehead crinkled in question, yet her eyes sparkled in excitement.

  “Actually, let me formally ask.” He kissed her shoulder, then whispered in her ear, “May I take you out tonight?”

  “Where are we going?” She took the initiative to wrap her arm around his neck and pull him toward her lips.

  Before giving in to her kiss, he answered, “A look at the past, a flash of the present, and a glimpse of the future.” Finally he gave in, sweeping his lips over hers. “Are you with me?”

  “I have no choice.” As she spoke, her lips skimmed his.

  “Then let’s do this.” He took her hand and stood. He would show her everything that could happen.

  The second Eden stepped out into the hallway of the boarding house, she knew something was different. Her family, her town, possessed a certain vibration, and her intuition told her that she and Perry were alone. She should have guessed. All day everyone had stared at her and whispered, but she’d been so caught up in her own life she’d never put it all together.

  When this had happened the first time, she’d cursed it. Tonight she welcomed the solitude, and as she made her way down the stairs, her heart raced.

  No sooner did she reach the bottom than she stopped. There stood Perry, all dressed in black, leaning against the wall, waiting for her. Somehow the man had swooped into her life, and even though she’d promised herself not to, she’d let him inside.

  The windows let in a little glow from the setting sun, and from her vantage point, Perry’s profile cast a perfect silhouette. Strong, angular, sharp. There was something about him she craved.

  No doubt their time was limited. Parts couldn’t be out of stock forever. Tow trucks had to run by here eventually. He’d had a life before he came here that he would have to get back to at some point.

  The thought made her shudder.

  At some point he would leave, and though he would promise to return, he never would. It had happened before, but never like this. Never this long, never this intense.

  He held out his hand, and acting on automatic, she rushed over and took his offering.

  Since she’d been a small girl, her entire family had told her the town would provide, would give them what they needed. She’d grown up thinking she lived in a fairy tale, and once old enough, she’d thought any man that found his way to their little pinpoint of land was here for her and her alone.

  Time and again she learned that no shining prince ever stayed.

  Did she allow herself the luxury of believing that Perry would be the one to make good on his promise? The man didn’t have anything to be proud of, and he admitted he had regrets. Was this where she could put her faith? Did the town bring her him and the rest had been only practice?

  Perry lifted her hand to his lips and then opened the door. With a bit of Hollywood flourish she pictured him having in his real life, he hit a large switch and the entire town lit up.

  Her breath caught. Perry must have worked on their evening all day and corralled her entire family to pull this off. She couldn’t stop a smile.

  Along with the lights strung up and down the street, right in the center was a large table set with what appeared to be a big set of speakers.

  “In our present here and now, we have the town of Eden all to ourselves. I am told that your uncle even put up a sign saying the off ramp on the highway is closed.” He winked.

  Yes, every once in a while they could close down the town. A simple sign saying No Services was all it took for no one to bother them.

  “Now if you will indulge me, I would like to share with you a bit of my past.” Her hand in his, he guided her over behind the table. Now she recognized the two turntables and other stereo equipment they’d found the other day at the antique store. What was all this?

  “Way back in the day, I was always the life of the party. Actually I made sure I was the center of it.” At another flip of a switch, the electronic equipment came to life, a vintage record filling the air with a throbbing beat. Perry hooked a pair of headphones around his neck. “When you are the DJ, you are the king.”

  Mesmerized by the music and his words, she stood staring at him.

  “Back then, there were no laptops to help blend the music, and we didn’t use CDs, or digital tunes. It was purely vinyl, and in many places it still is.” He turned up the volume. “The DJ oversees his kingdom and sets the tone for the party. They can make it a success or a failure.”

  He lifted one side of the headphones to his ear, and Eden watched as with expertise he seamlessly blended one song into the other. If she were dancing, she would have never skipped a beat.

  “If you’re really good, you develop a following.” He glanced over at her. “I was the best.”

  Then he proceeded to demonstrate how he mixed the music together. He put the headphones on, and she was treated to him blending and cutting the two songs together. Much like he was playing an instrument, he used his fingers to twirl the records to highlight certain phrases, went back and forth between the songs, and even at some point switched to two new songs entirely without ever skipping a beat.

  At one point he left one of the songs on, turned to her, and took her in his arms, swaying in time to the music.

  “What happened?” She had to ask, had to know. The man was telling her the fairy tale she always wanted.

  Before answering, he quickly changed records, then turned back and took her by the hips, drawing her to him. “I could pack a house. I had fans who followed me, bands who stalked me to play their stuff, and I made the clubs money.”

  All of a sudden, his entire job made sense. She understood how he’d ended up in concert promotion. It was a natural progression.

  “I was booked almost every night and months in advance and as the music played and the beat vibrated through my body, I would look out over the crowd for one thing.” He pulled her in tighter.

  She shook her head.

  He pulled the headphones off, then guided her out into the middle of the street. Telling her to stay there, he lifted his hands, then backed away, returning to the table. The music lowered. “I always looked for that one woman in the crowd, the one who belonged to me, the one who, when our eyes met, we didn’t need to talk because we knew we were together. Now I know who I was searching for.” Again the music rose.

  For several moments she stood there. They watched each other, and she moved in a solitary dance orchestrated by him and his music.

  The melodies of the two songs merging, ebbing, and flowing in perfect synchronization echoed all around her, encompassing her and caressing her.

  She was gone, completely and utterly. In the last insane, unbelievable week, she’d fallen for him. She wanted to be the one he looked out in the crowd for.

  The music continued, and rather than be in his audience, she chose then and there to be with him. Once more, she made her way behind the table with him. “Perry.”

  He pulled the headphones down around his neck and faced her.

  “What about the future?” In the garage, he’d told her he would give her a sampling of the past, present, and future.

  He swiped his arm in front of him. “This is it, baby. We are the headliners, and it’s all right here.”

  His was a future she could handle, one she wanted. This was what the town had given her, and giving in to her innermost needs, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  The music continued to vibrate around them, through them, and he held her tight as their mouths opened and they let their tongues do the exploring.

  Along with the song, the beat, and the bass, they continued to kiss. Thei
r hands roamed over each other, and as if they both knew they weren’t going to stop, didn’t want to stop, and couldn’t stop, their fingertips unfastened buttons and undid zippers, leaving their clothes hanging on them in their need to connect.

  “This is the future.” His hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs teasing her nipples to life, and his erection pressed against her.

  “Then let’s make the future happen.” Since the second he’d shown up, disheveled and needing repair, to this moment, when he offered her what no other man was willing, she wanted him. She took his hand and led him back to the boarding house.

  They didn’t need words. They only stopped along the way to kiss, remove their shoes and their shirts, and as they made their way up the stairs and to his bedroom door, finally get rid of their pants. As he opened the door, she stopped and took a second to admire him, smooth and hard, muscles defined but not overdone, his cock impressive and aiming right toward her.

  “I think you’re gorgeous as well.” He brought his arms around her and palmed her backside. “I want to make love to you.”

  “Is that the future?” She stared into his eyes.

  “The present and the future.” Once more, he kissed her.

  “If it’s the future, then don’t leave me.” She had to say the words.

  “Then I’m making love to you.” He guided her into his room and kicked the door closed.

  They wasted no time getting to the bed, where he tossed the covers aside and they continued kissing as he lowered her on to the mattress among the pillows. “Eden, I need you.” His voice came out strained as if he were asking for permission to move forward.

  “If I’m your future, then make love to me.” She pulled him down for a deep kiss.

  Though she expected him to give her a hard thrust, enter her, and open her up in an instant, like the records he played, the songs he merged into one another, he entered her slowly, allowed her time to adjust, filled her in the most exquisite way. “Oh.”

  At first he ground against her in circles, hitting her in all the right spots. His kisses never stopped, his hands skimming over her.