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“Whoa…!”
The word left her beautiful lips as a long, drawn-out hiss. It reminded me comically of something out ofBill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
“This is the one, right?” I asked proudly.
“Yeah…” Sloane murmured. “It just might be.”
She walked around it in a semicircle, where it leaned against one of the long wooden tree-cradles.
“Do you actually have room for it?” I asked, a bit skeptically. “I mean some people don’t realize how—”
“I’ve got a top floor loft apartment with sixteen-foot ceilings,” she said, still staring at the tree. “And plenty of space for how wide she is.”
She.She was already personifying the tree in her own mind. I knew I had her.
“Yeah, well she’ll get even wider once she’s inside, and her boughs open up a bit more.” I reached into the center and grabbed the trunk. It took more than a little effort on my part to shake off the snow and spin it around for her.
“Wow,” said Valerio. “It doesn’t even have a bad side.”
“That’s the one then,” Sloane nodded happily. There was a twinkle of excitement in her eye that wasn’t there before. “I’ll take her.”
“Great!” I said, laying the tree back in its wooden cradle. “What are you driving?”
“A pickup truck,” she answered. “Long bed Ford, F-150.”
Damn, could she get any more perfect? Probably not.
“I think I just fell more in love with you,” I told her.
“Oh? And were you in love with me before?”
“Probably, yeah.”
I swooped in quickly, sliding an arm over her shoulder and guiding her in the direction of the parking area before Valerio even knew what happened.
“Let’s you and I go pull your truck around,” I said merrily. “While my friend here drags the tree up front for a fresh cut.”
Valerio looked like I’d just put an arrow through his heart. “B—But—”
“We’ll meet you at the wrapping machine in five minutes,” I grinned triumphantly at him. “So don’t slack off.”
Six
SLOANE
I’d chosen this Christmas tree lot because it seemed big and fun, but mostly because it was the one place Drake didn’t want to check out. He’d driven us straight past it, on the way to make sure we stopped at his girlfriend’s lot. Once there we’d “split up” to look for the perfect tree; a ploy I now realized was nothing more than an excuse so he could hang back and flirt with her.
But now…
Now I stood in the center of the parking area, where flames from a roaring fire leapt from a circle of cinder-block stones. I was drinking a Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate, thrust upon me by one of several other workers decked out with antler headdresses like Santa’s reindeer.
No less than three workers were tying trees down on the tops of family cars. A blue metal cylinder lay on its side nearby, operating as the wrapping machine. Warming myself by the fire, I observed the interesting process of putting trees through it and watching them come out the other end all tightly-bound by white plastic netting.
Christmas music played merrily from a trio of large, blocky, overhead speakers. I’d heard the Snoopy vs the Red Baron song so far, as well as Jingle Bell Rock and half of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. There were kids with candy canes, holding hands with their parents. People wandering around in another area, where wreaths and grave blankets had been woven together from live pine boughs and decked out in red and green ribbon.
Brock eventually returned, and handed me my change. Rather than have me wait in line, he’d taken my payment directly inside.
“You have some pretty good connections here, huh?” I joked.
