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“Great. I’ll get my movie stash out for you to choose from.” I laid them all on the end of the bed in no particular order. “You decide which one,” I said. “I’ll open the wine.”
“You have wine?”
“It’s vacation, Grant. Even little miss-goody-two-shoes can let down her hair.”
“Is that what you are?” Grant asked as he knelt to blow on the flames.
“That’s what they called me in college because all I did was study. But it’s kind of true.” I grabbed a bottle of red from the shelf and opened it with the corkscrew the staff had left for me.
The fire roared to life.
He was studying the movies, hands behind his back as if he were deciding on which deli meat to order.
“What was your favorite?” I asked. While You Were Sleeping, right?”
“That’s right. You remembered.”
“I have a good memory,” I said. When it came to everything Grant Walker. “Let’s go with that one.”
“No, that’s the wrong—” He stopped himself. “I mean, we should watch them in your favorite order, like we did last time. I don’t want to tempt fate by breaking tradition.”
“Do you happen to remember the first one?” I asked, testing him just for fun.
“Sure. Last Holiday.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I remember exactly because you said it got you in a festive mood the fastest of all the movies, so you always started with that one. It’s the pretty clothes and the lodge. That’s what you said, anyway.”
“Always gets me in a Christmas mood.”
He started rattling off the order and my logic behind it. “After that, it’s Family Stone. You like the realism of it compared to Last Holiday, which is more of a fantasy. You need a reminder that not everything works out perfectly and that’s okay. Love Actually has Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, and they alone would be reason enough, but you like how it explores all the different kinds of love, which makes you feel less alone around the holidays. While You Were Sleeping gives you a happy ending you want after some of the sad plots in the two previous movies. Elf because it makes you laugh really hard, even though Christmas makes you kind of sad. Then The Holiday because you want another romance and you love the house swapping idea, and Jack Black makes you giggle and Jude Law makes you swoon, plus the old guy all alone but so brave. Finally, The Holdovers because it’s a work of art and deserves to be last. Plus, it was the most recent addition.”
I was staring at him with my mouth slightly open. “I thought you said you didn’t remember the order.”
“I lied.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I was kind of embarrassed about it,” he said. “I’ve watched them in order every holiday season since that Thanksgiving.”
“You have? But why?”
“They remind me of you. How much fun we had. It’s kind of silly.”
“Not silly,” I said. “Wonderful. That makes me so happy.”
“All right, let’s get on with it.” He took the DVD from the bed and put it in the machine. “It’s old school here,” Grant said.
“I find it refreshing.” There was no cable, spotty cell service, and a DVD player in every cabin. “I love everything about this place. I don’t want to ever leave.”
Grant pushed the leather chairs back a little from the hearth so we could watch the television above it.
I poured us wine, grabbed a couple of throws, and joined him. But it was obvious the moment I sat down that this would not do. “It’s hurting my neck to look up like this. Let’s lay on the bed.”
He hesitated for a moment, his expression one of a startled animal in the woods.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my hands to myself,” I said, referencing one of the songs we’d heard earlier.
