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Lawson
With the snowman built and the last of my outdoor winter fun ideas finished, it was time to finally go inside and get warm. The idea of relaxing by the fire was amazing, and the idea of being there with Holly was even better. I took her hand and guided her up the stairs, making sure she didn’t slip on them, and opened the door.
The last time I had been inside, to grab the ugly scarf and old shoes that I had grabbed on accident when I left home and stick them on the snowman, it was louder inside than when we walked in together now. Seemingly, everyone had gone off to bed. The main room was empty as we walked in and shed our coats, putting them on the rack to dry.
“I really don’t feel like going up to change again,” Holly said, sitting down on the hearth in front of the fire and stretching out her legs.
“Then don’t,” I said. “I dried off just fine out here earlier.”
“I could use a drink, though,” Holly said. “Something warm.”
“Hot toddy?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Irish coffee?”
“Sure, I’ll get it.”
I went into the kitchen and opted for the cup-coffee brewer rather than making a giant pot. It wasn’t as good, but the little pods had some flavored stuff that was pretty decent. I made a couple of mugs and poured some whiskey into them. It countered the effect of the caffeine as well as made it delicious.
I brought them out and sat down on the hearth beside Holly, handing over the mug. She took it in both hands, holding it up to her face and closing her eyes as she took in the smell. Then she coughed.
“How much whiskey did you put in this?” she asked.
“Enough,” I said, grinning. “Go on, taste it.”
She took a sip, and when she lowered the mug, she had a familiar smile on her face, and her eyes were shut again.
“Yeah, alright, that’s good,” she said. “Good job calling on your ancestors there.”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I guessed.” She shrugged.
“Fair enough,” I said, taking a sip of my own. The burn was light but warming in my throat, and the coffee helped it go down smoothly.
“Alright, I’m warm enough,” she said. “Now it’s couch time.”
I stood up with her and walked over to the couch facing the fire. My own clothes had long since dried out, so I wasn’t surprised when she sat down beside me, curling up into my arm, and was warm to the touch. She took another sip of her coffee and tucked her feet under her as she leaned sideways into me.
“This is good,” she said. “A stick of peppermint in this and it would be suitably Christmas.”
“Do you want me to go get some sticks?” I asked.
“Hell no,” she laughed. “I want you right here, sitting on the couch, being the world’s best pillow while I drink this.”
“I can do that.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, watching the fire crackle. It was the perfect end to a perfect evening. With the house going silent, or near enough to silent as to not be noticeable, it was nice to just have that space and quiet. It had been an eventful day. Ending it on a couch with nothing but the sound of a fire was as ideal as I could have dreamed up.
“Thank you for helping me,” she said as she yawned. “I really don’t think I could have handled all this...” She gestured widely at the house. “Christmas stuff without you.”
“You are more than welcome,” I said. “But you are the reason this thing worked. I just added a little Christmas cheer to the festivities. All this is your hard work.”
“Pfft. The Christmas cheer is ninety percent of it, I think.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “And in any case, you did a lot of that yourself. I overheard one of the guests saying they were having such a good time their stay that they were thinking about booking another one for next year before they leave.”
“Great,” she said, rolling her eyes and sighing dramatically. I laughed and hugged her tighter. She put her mug down on the coffee table, noticeably near empty, and snuggled tighter down into my chest.
I adjusted myself so she could get more comfortable, and she pulled a blanket down over her. I felt the urge to kiss the top of her head and did, eliciting a small sigh from her that was different from the fake one she did at the suggestion of next Christmas. It was a happy sigh, a contented one. The sigh of someone who was happy where they were and hadn’t a care in the world outside of that moment.
I felt it, too.
What was going on between us was getting too strong for me to ignore. I was beginning to feel things about her that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Ever, really. I had been thinking about it since things first started up between us and had tried to start that conversation after the phone call mishap. But I chickened out. I didn’t want to mess up the delicate balance we had reformed and instead wanted to focus on strengthening that and enjoying the time I had with her.
And I did. I enjoyed every single second I had with Holly. She was fun and silly and sarcastic, and now that she was seemingly opening up more and more, she was enjoying the season I loved so much in a way that made me just fall harder for her.
I really wanted to talk about what came next. What was in the cards for me and her after Christmas. Where did we see this going if I had to go back home to work or if we found ourselves months from now still feeling like we did right then. Were we serious? Was it a thing?
I hoped it was. I knew it was fast. Really fast. But the feelings I was having were too strong to just pretend they weren’t there. I was falling in love with her, and I knew it. She was the first thing on my mind in the morning and the last thing on it before I fell asleep. And that wasn’t just because I could see the door of her room from my own, but because if I closed my eyes, I could just smell her perfume. I could trace the shape of her face in the air. I could hear her laughter, floating around me.
There was no way around it. This was something I wanted to pursue. Something I wanted to roll the dice with and see where it went. Especially now that she knew who I really was. I wasn’t pretending to just be some schmuck. I had a whole life, a life that I wanted to share with her. A life I wanted to give her a part of. I wasn’t just chasing after the girl of my high school dreams. I was falling hard for the woman who I felt like I could spend my adulthood with.
“You know,” I said.
A small, cute, and ultimately disarming snore rose up from my chest. I stopped and smiled. She had fallen asleep.
I didn’t blame her. It had been a long day with a lot of physical activity. Skating and sledding and building a snowman on top of all the walking, it tired me out, too. But Holly had apparently reached her limit and had zonked out before I could talk to her about what was really on my mind. I sighed. It would have to wait.
For right that moment, I just wanted to sit there in the darkness by the fire, stroking her hair and enjoying the sound of her tiny buzzsaw snores. At one point she seemed to startle herself awake and then shifted so her head was on my lap before resuming her sleep. I laughed quietly to myself and reached for the remote control on the table beside me. Turning it on, I found a show to watch and let myself relax into the couch, the volume low and the sound of the fire mostly drowning it out.
Maybe it was too much for tonight anyway. A talk like that should be done when we were both wide-awake. I wouldn’t want her to say something she didn’t completely mean just because she was tired and not thinking clearly. So, I relaxed on the couch, watching a baking television show that always helped me relax and listening to the fire just below where the television was mounted on the fireplace.
Eventually, I felt myself starting to doze and realized I probably needed to get us to bed. That presented its own problems. Holly was sound asleep, and I hated the idea of waking her up. At the same time, I didn’t want to be presumptive and bring her back to my room or stay with her in hers. Until we were able to talk about everything, I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea to sleep with her again or put myself in a position where we might let passion take over.
It took a tremendous amount of willpower not to want to curl up in a bed beside her, but I eventually decided I needed to get her in her own bed and me off to mine before the guests found us asleep on the couch. I scooted her head until she was off me and I could wiggle out from under her. She didn’t stir much when her head gently went back down on the couch, and I slipped my arms under her legs and torso.
Briefly, her eyes opened as I lifted her up and carried her to the stairs. She draped both arms around my neck and smiled, her eyes fluttering closed again. I got to her door, and she woke up enough to reach down and open it, and I swept her into her room. Laying her down on her bed, I kissed her forehead and pulled the blankets up over her. I knew she would probably wake up in the middle of the night and toss off her clothes, but I didn’t feel right undressing her either.
I shut the door quietly and turned off the light before heading back to my own room. As I got undressed, my mind went to Holly and the million thoughts going through my head about her. I crawled into my own bed, pulling the sheets over me, and found myself staring at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes.
I just couldn’t sleep. Holly and everything about our current situation was all I could think about. For as relaxed and seemingly capable of sleep as I was downstairs on the couch with her head in my lap, I just couldn’t settle down in a bed alone. Not just alone. Without her.
Where was my life going to take me next? I needed to figure that part out. I needed to know what I intended on doing when this stay was over. And I needed to know what role Holly would play in it.
