Christmas Cliché

by Tara Sivec

  I have no idea where our pajamas go. I have no idea whose arm breaks the—first—shelf and sends all the snowmen knickknacks tumbling to the ground. And I certainly have no memory of ripping down the red Christmas shower curtain with happy, smiling snowmen on it when Jason’s head was between my legs… or of pulling the towel rack with the festive, pipe-smoking snowmen stitched on the towels right out of the wall when I was bent over the sink.

  It’s all a beautiful, hot blur, and there are just a lot of snowmen decorations in this tiny room. Not my fault.

  I smile at Jason when he slides one of his hands behind his head, the other one lazily drawing circles over my lower back, while I’m sprawled across his sweaty chest on the floor of the bathroom with my hands under my chin, both of us trying to catch our breath.

  “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” Jason suddenly asks in total seriousness, which makes me burst out laughing. “What? I thought I could trip you up after all the orgasms I gave you.”

  I smack his chest and shake my head at him.

  “Nice try.”

  Scrambling off of him, sitting up cross-legged, and—for the first time in my adult life ever—not caring one bit about my nudity in front of a guy, I snap my fingers and motion with my hands for him to sit up and do the same.

  Since he’s damn near fucking perfect, he does as I demand without a protest and with nothing but a smile on his face. Literally. This is probably why I’m totally fine, sitting here with everything hanging out, even though he’s just spent the last hour kissing all these things hanging out. Jason is just swinging around down there in the breeze without a care in the world as he crosses his legs right in front of me, totally comfortable.

  Squeezing my eyes closed, I quickly whisper my words.

  “The only thing I wish for Christmas is that I could have the best of both worlds. I wish my mom and my sisters could be here and appreciate a small, intimate Christmas with just the people you love the most under one roof.”

  When I’m finished, I open my eyes and nod at Jason.

  “Okay, you’re turn. Make your Christmas wish.”

  He closes his eyes and wishes that I get my Christmas wish. When he opens them again, I reach down and smack his knee.

  “That’s against the Christmas wish rules. You have to make a wish of your own.”

  “Too bad. That’s my wish, and I’m not changing it,” he says stubbornly.

  The goofy smile on my face is almost impossible to erase, but I do it anyway.

  “Fine. Raise your right hand, please.”

  When his hand is up and our palms are a few inches apart, I explain the rest of the process of this whole Christmas wish tradition.

  “I’m sorry, you want me to lick what?” Jason asks when I finish.

  “You just did a whole bunch of licking it and sticking it, so pipe down,” I tell him, both of us trying not to laugh as I get serious and raise my right hand up higher. “I promise that, no matter what, family means everything.”

  Jason smiles at me softly, cocking his head to the side and repeating the same words.

  “I promise that, no matter what, family means everything.”

  After a few seconds, I lower my hand, crawling over and onto his lap, as he wraps his arms around me.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to make you lick your hand,” I reassure him, settling down onto his lap, happy to discover he wasn’t doing any math in his head while we were making our Christmas wishes. “Let’s just consider this Christmas promise sealed.”

  “Well, that’s good. I planned on placing my licking efforts elsewhere,” Jason says, trailing kisses down the side of my neck. “But one of us is going to have to go grab more nightstand condoms, and by one of us, I mean not me. You are very limber. I think I might have pulled something.”

  Yep. I’m definitely going to remember this laundry shoot memory over any other memory in my entire life.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to walk today? Maybe we should get you a wheelchair.”

  “I’m telling you, Jason, I think there was a struggle in that bathroom last night.”

  I immediately start choking on the last bite of toast in my mouth, when Joy and Jason walk into the dining room, pausing a few feet from our table.

  “Oh, there was a struggle all right.” Millie snorts, patting my back as I continue to cough, trying to get this damn toast unlodged from my throat.

  A couple other guests are sitting around us at small tables spread around the room, each one covered in a red tablecloth with mini, decorated Christmas tree centerpieces. Christmas music is playing from another Bluetooth speaker perched up on a shelf with Christmas knickknacks. Everyone is quietly talking and enjoying their breakfasts, completely oblivious to the fact that, ever since Joy woke up this morning and went into the bathroom off the living room, she has assumed something nefarious happened in there.

  “I just want you to make sure you ask every single guest if they’re okay,” Joy tells him. “Someone might be hurt.”

  Jason looks over the top of his mom’s head and gives me a conspiratorial wink, which just makes me start coughing even harder.

  “Someone was definitely hurt,” Millie says under her breath, handing me a glass of water. “By a mountain penis. Are you sure you’re okay to walk today? Maybe we should get you a wheelchair.”

  “Shut up,” I mutter, finally finished coughing after chugging half the glass of water.

  I’m unable to hold back my coy grin when I look up and find Jason still staring at me with a cheesy smile on his face, while his mom continues to demand he personally check each guest’s well-being.

  “At least tell me you were satisfied once before that dick bomb went off in the snowman bathroom. I saw the carnage when I heard Joy screaming earlier. You actually decapitated a stuffed snowman,” Millie says with an appreciative nod, as I casually hold up four fingers while I take another healthy chug of my water.

  “Well, well, well, mountain man even knows how to use that mountain penis,” Millie muses. “I guess the less fortunate really don’t have much else to live for up here. Good for him!”

  Joy spends a few more minutes complaining about the bathroom to Jason before she heads back into the kitchen to do some baking, while Millie runs upstairs to her room to change into her “after breakfast outfit.”

  When it’s just the two of us, the handful of other guests finishing their breakfasts and meandering out of the room in the last few minutes, Jason walks up to me, holding his hand out and pulling me up from my chair until we’re standing toe-to-toe.

  “Good morning,” he says with a smile, his eyes staring right into mine.

  “You already said that to me two hours ago,” I remind him, my smile permanently glued to my face at this point.

  “Well, it was a really good morning. Just wanted to make sure I said it twice.”

  Last night, when we realized we’d been upstairs so long that people might have noticed we were missing, we scrambled back into our pajamas in record time and raced back downstairs without even bothering with the mess we’d left behind in the bathroom. Jason reassured me he’d sneak back in there and clean everything up before his mom saw it.

  Clearly, that never happened. We finished game night with everyone else, and then I immediately helped Jen and Joy clean up the basement, while John and Jason did the dishes and tidied up the kitchen. After that, I couldn’t find Jason anywhere, so I went up to my room, wondering if that was when all the awkwardness would set it. I figured I’d go to sleep and see him at breakfast the next morning, and neither one of us would be able to make eye contact.

  Twenty minutes after lying at the end of my bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if I just imagined the amazing connection we had, there was the faintest knock on my door. When I opened it to find Jason standing there looking nervous and like he wasn’t one hundred percent sure I’d want him to be there, I grabbed the front of his pajama top in my fist and yanked him into my room. It happen
ed so fast that he tripped, slammed into me, and we both went down to the ground in a pile of hysterical laughter.

  Needless to say, there was zero awkwardness. I felt like a teenager, sneaking my boyfriend into my bedroom in the middle of the night. We had to keep our voices down, smother our laughter—and our moaning—with pillows over our faces, and Jason mentally added “fix squeaky headboard in Grinch room” to his bed-and-breakfast to-do list. We talked, we had sex two more times, and when I rolled over this morning and found him still curled up in bed next to me, I woke him up by attempting to fit that mountain penis in my mouth. All-in-all, it really was a good morning, until he had to sneak out before anyone else woke up.

  “Since you’re the one who destroyed the bathroom, you can help me finish cleaning up before we head to the other side of the mountain with Millie and Jen,” Jason tells me with a wink as he grabs my hand and starts pulling me toward the kitchen.

  “Watch it, buddy,” I reply, playfully swatting his arm. “Or you’ll wind up with a snowman head in your bed tomorrow morning.”

  “Don’t you mean your bed? I mean, that’s where I hope I’ll be tomorrow morning.”

  There is absolutely no playing it cool when he says something like that to me. I giggle like an idiot, and my cheeks get all hot and sweaty. And since I really do hope he’s in my bed tomorrow morning, I suck it up and help him clean the snowman massacre, which was all his fault anyway.

  “Have you ever noticed how ridiculous these movies are?” Jason muses, glancing up at the handful of small televisions hanging above the bar, all playing the same made-for-TV Christmas movie.

  After Jason and I cleaned the bathroom, which involved a quick trip to the boutique to replace a few items, we hopped into his huge, four-wheel-drive truck along with Jen and Millie and headed to the other side of the mountain to do our last-minute shopping.

  Christmas music played softly on the radio while he drove, pointing out where he and Jen went to high school and other special landmarks we can now see in the daylight that we couldn’t see on the dark trolley ride. We both talked about the horrors of our teenage years, while Jen and Millie chatted in the back seat, until we got to the other side of the mountain. We held hands while we walked in and out of stores and shopped. He put his arm around me while we perused all the Christmas decorations, and now we’ve stopped at one of the restaurants for some lunch, leaving Jen and Millie on their own.

  “Millie seems to think we’re currently living one of those movies.” I laugh, digging into my bowl of pasta as Jason looks away from the TVs to take a bite of his burger. “Since you don’t have a side hobby of woodworking, nor own a Christmas tree farm, nor have an old flame that came back to town that you fell in love with, nor are you actually a big city developer who’s here to bulldoze his parents’ bed-and-breakfast to put in a strip mall, I’m pretty sure she’s wrong.”

  When he doesn’t laugh or say anything, I look up from my food to find him holding his burger a few inches from his mouth, not moving or blinking.

  “Do you have an old flame who came back to town I don’t know about?” I ask, kind of joking, kind of not.

  “You have to promise not to laugh,” is his response, setting his burger back down on his plate.

  “I’m holding a fork in my hand that can easily stab through flesh if I put enough effort into it. Try again.”

  “Fine! I like to dabble in woodworking from time to time, using downed trees I find when I’m hiking through the woods. I’ve sold a few pieces. People tell me I’m talented, but it’s no big thing, and it’s not like I’m going to start a business selling my furniture pieces,” he quickly rambles, dropping his head and acting really interested in the garnish on his plate all of a sudden. “Peg actually sells my stuff at the boutique when I have time to give her items. The bookshelves and side tables are all mine.”

  Picturing the things he mentions in my mind, I know they were all very good quality, and I just assumed Peg ordered them along with everything else she sells. Millie is going to have a field day with this information when she finds out, but I think it’s amazing he has a creative side to him.

  Realizing I’ve slept with this man and I’m going to spend Christmas with him and his family and I don’t really know all that much about him, I make him tell me everything about himself while eating. Both of us pause every so often to catch some of the movie still playing above the bar, and I only tease him a little about his secret love of woodworking and how well it fits into Millie’s theory.

  “I’m just a regular guy from West Virginia. I’ve never traveled out of the state, although I’m not opposed to it. I’ve just never had anywhere I wanted to go that badly. My favorite food is anything with meat, and I’d much rather watch a movie on the couch on a Friday night and order takeout than go anywhere,” he finishes, popping a french fry into his mouth.

  His Friday night sounds like my dream.

  “I have so many decisions to make about my life, and tomorrow is already Christmas Eve.” I sigh, pausing when our waitress stops by to see how our food is and if we need anything.

  I told Jason earlier when we were cleaning the bathroom that I’m supposed to go to my cousin Jamie’s house the day after Christmas and stay there until the New Year so I can “figure my shit out.” The problem is, I think I already figured my shit out. I know what I want to do; I just don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. The idea that I could actually stay here in West Virginia is exciting and terrifying all at the same time. And no, I’m not a complete moron, contemplating this idea because of a guy I just met—no matter how excelled he is at giving orgasms and making me smile. I can actually think here, instead of being pulled in a thousand different directions. I can reconnect with my dad’s side of the family, I can make my own schedule without checking with other people first, I can be me without apologies and without having to hide behind a camera all the time, and I can just… breathe.

  But staying in West Virginia to see if I could actually make it work here on my own doesn’t just change my life. It changes entirely too many other lives back in California as well. A week of losing my mind and fleeing the state is one thing. Staying here indefinitely is a whole other one.

  “I know it might feel like it, but you don’t have to make every decision about your life by Christmas,” Jason reminds me, pushing his plate out of the way to rest his elbows on the table and lean closer to me. “If it makes you feel any better, Jen said there hasn’t been one word about you being gone in the tabloids. Everyone is still talking about the Christmas Eve party, and I guess your sisters have been posting non-stop about how excited they are for it.”

  I’ve avoided social media since I turned my phone back on, but Millie has kept me updated that the twins are still business as usual, and they haven’t mentioned one word about me disappearing. Being over here on the busy side of the mountain meant more chances for me to be recognized, but so far, only one person stopped us when we were in a store, asking me if anyone ever told me I look just like Allie Parker.

  “I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse,” I admit, as Jason reaches around the pinecone and greenery centerpiece to grab one of my hands.

  “It should make you feel good,” he reassures me, giving my hand a squeeze. “You know they love you. And I’m sure they know that you doing something so drastic, when you’ve spent every waking minute of your life the last twelve years handling their shit, meant you really needed a minute. They’re respecting your privacy and giving you time. Are you sad you’re missing the party tomorrow night?”

  I think about the abundance of Santas back at The Redinger House. And gingerbread men, and snowmen, and candy canes, and the constant melody of Christmas music, the warm hugs, the friendly smiles, the easy conversation, the presents in my stocking—another new pair of Christmas pajamas this morning, and another bag of Christmas nougats—cooking food that people love and appreciate, being needed for something other than a babysitter to two adults, a
nd yes, the orgasms. Holy hell do I think about the orgasms.

  Then, I think about the film crew, the hundreds of caterers walking around serving fancy, bite-sized food on silver trays, the paparazzi, the couple hundred faces of people I’ve never met looking at their phones all night, doing nothing but taking selfies, the celebrity DJ playing nothing but shitty music, never having even one minute alone with my family, and nothing but stark-white as far as the eye can see.

  “I’m not sad about missing the actual party…” I trail off.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “No, it’s fine. I swear,” I reassure him. “It just makes me a little sad thinking this is the first Christmas Eve we won’t be in the same place. Even if we never spent any time together because of the party, at least my mom and my sisters and me were still under the same roof.”

  “I can’t imagine a Christmas Eve in which my family wasn’t up my ass the entire time,” Jason laughs. “I wish you had better Christmas memories since your dad died.”

  “Things weren’t always bad with them. The bad things just stick out in your mind more when you’re hurt, and angry, and frustrated,” I explain, glancing out the window next to us and watching the snow start to fall and all of the people hustling around doing their last-minute shopping. “Even though those Christmas Eve parties were the bane of my existence, every year, no matter what time it was when everyone left the house, the caterers had cleaned up, and everything had been shut down, Tori and Zoey still stumbled into my bedroom and spent the night on my floor so we would all still wake up together on Christmas morning. We’ve done that every year, since the year they were old enough to climb out of their cribs and come find me. And we used to laugh a lot. When it was just the four of us. Just me, my mom, and my sisters, no cameras, no film crew, no assistants or security team. When we could just be us and not be fake in front of other people. I forgot about the good times. Like the one year Tori tried to bleach her eyebrows an hour before the party, and she bleached them clean off. I thought Zoey and I were going to need CPR from laughing so hard.”