AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Miller shrugged. “I have to work. I’m taking more hours over the vacation. What about you? Going anywhere with your aunt and uncle?”
“They’re going to Seattle to visit my parents.”
“You’re not going with them?”
You’re going to be alone on Christmas?
“I will be staying here,” I answered stiffly. “I was invited but I politely declined, saying I’d rather gargle shattered glass and wash it down with dog piss.”
“Subtle,” Miller said. “Well, Christmas at my place is going to be shit. Probably for Ronan, too. We can hang out at the Shack.”
“Maybe.”
Miller stopped walking to face me. “Not maybe. We’re meeting at the Shack on Christmas Day.”
“We’ve never needed to make it official.”
“I’m making it official.”
His worried gaze pinned me down. I could practically see visions of me holed up in my guesthouse, drinking myself into oblivion play across his thoughts.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.”
“But nothing can stop me from bearing Christmas gifts.”
“No gifts,” Miller said quickly. “I…don’t need anything.”
He meant he couldn’t afford anything. I shifted gears so as not to embarrass him.
“I was talking about food. A feast. That’s allowed, right?”
“That’d be okay, I guess.”
“Thank you.” I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Jesus, so many rules and regulations, Stratton.”
He sniffed a laugh and I made a mental note to pay the heating bill for his and Ronan’s entire apartment complexes through the winter. Anonymously, of course.
No sense in getting those two knuckleheads riled up over nothing.
Drunkenly wandering off campus on the last day of school before the holiday break meant I had no reason or opportunity to see
River again.
“Good,” I told myself a few days later as I paced my guesthouse. Alone. It was stupid of me to have indulged in him. I was on a strict diet of no emotional complications, and he was an entire damn buffet. Better to cut myself off before things got worse.
Then I called James and told him we were going Christmas shopping.
We wandered down the quaint streets of downtown Santa Cruz. I bought Beatriz a necklace of colorful glass beads. They weren’t suitable to wear for housework, but that was the point. My aunt and uncle had proudly told me that aside from a Christmas bonus, they’d gotten her a brand-new vacuum cleaner.
Awesome. Wow.
The fact that Beatriz was actually a whole human being with a life outside of our house apparently didn’t occur to them.
I bought James a humidor packed with Cuban cigars. I was going to leave them in the backseat of his car before he left for his vacation, during which I’d have to Uber myself around town like a schmuck.
For Uncle Reg, I bought a new set of golf clubs and for Aunt Mags, a gift certificate to a two-day retreat at a luxury spa up in the redwoods. Sterile, unemotional gifts that were more of a thank-you for putting up with me these last few months than anything else.
