Page 55 of King of the Crease

“Why?”

Hank shrugs. “It’s fun.”

Brody runs up ahead and crawls over an inflatable climbing wall that’s decorated like a roof. Hank and I meander in between massive reindeer inflatables. The real world has gone away. I’m in a holiday cocoon; I hope Hank knows the way out of here.

“What about you guys? Why doesn’t your house look like these?” I ask Hank.

“It’s a Christmas arms race. Most of the houses we saw? They hire people to design and install their Christmas lights. Where’s the holiday spirit in that? I’m happy with my setup. Some strings of lights. A Christmas doormat. It’s a proud five on the scale.”

“I like it, too.” It’s simple but charming.

“You having fun tonight?” he asks.

I nod yes. “I love my family’s Christmas traditions, but they’re very staid and formal. There’s nothing like this. But I do have one memory…my mother and I tried baking Christmas cookies one year, and it was a disaster. We burned them. We didn’t wait long enough for them to cool, so when we went to decorate, all the icing melted.”

I remember my mother’s bright red face as she couldn’t stop laughing. She made us clean up our mess, not the staff.

“For one night, we weren’t pretending to be all proper and dignified. We could be silly.”

“When did she pass?” Hank asks.

“How did you know…”

“I can tell.” Hank shrugs. “I’m a member in that club.”

“Just over twenty years ago.” It doesn’t feel real when I say it. I’ve been alive longer without her than with her in my life. That doesn’t compute. “You?”

“Fourteen for my mom, sixteen for my dad. I miss ‘em like crazy.”

“Same. I have pictures and videos of her. Even an oil portrait. But I wish I could still hear her laugh. I can’t remember what it sounds like anymore. That piece of her is…gone.”

There are archival videos of her speeches and interviews, but none where she’s being her relaxed, natural self. The mother who sang into her hairbrush or made a silly face for my eyes only during a ceremony.

“It isn’t. It’s in there, somewhere.” Hank presses his finger against my chest, over my heart. “There are memories we can’t remember, but that doesn’t mean they’re forgotten. I like to think they exist in an in-between place, like that place in your mind right before you wake up from a dream.”

“That’s beautiful, Hank.” Tears bead at my eyes, touched by his unexpected soulfulness. I cling to the hope this is true, that the things I don’t remember about her aren’t forgotten. I wipe away my tears. “I’m the only person crying next to an inflatable Prancer.”

“Christmas isn’t just for joy. It’s for sadness, too. Some of the best Christmas movies are kinda sad.”

I glance at Hank, grateful for my time with him. He reminds me of the joy and warmth I felt while I was baking those disastrous cookies.

We stop behind a giant inflatable red Christmas ornament. Hank holds my hands in his to warm them up. The quiet between us rumbles in my chest.

“I think there’s mistletoe above us,” he says.

I look up at a plastic Christmas tree. “I don’t see it.”

“Can I still kiss you?”

He waits for me to nod yes, then steps forward and closes the space between us with a kiss just as glorious as the previous ones. His mouth is soft and tender. For all his playfulness, Hank seems to take kissing seriously. I love all of it. The feel of his body against me, the sounds of our lips smacking together, the awkwardness of him breathing through his nose.

“I’ve had a really good time tonight,” he says.

“I really love Christmas decorations,” I respond, a bit dazed from the power of his lips.

17

NICK