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He leaned across the couch and tried to flick my knee, but I pulled away. “Like, ice skating or something stupid.”
“Ice skating is very romantic. I’m not laughing.”
“And then sex.”
I somehow managed to not-offer to ice skate and have sex with him. Mon Ami I could take or leave, but I would have done that part too if it meant I could catch him like a dashing gentleman when he slipped on the ice and then take him home and fuck him. “That sounds like a good time. Tell me howyou, Cassidy Sullivan, haven’t found anyone to take you on a date.”
“I dunno.”
“Still hung up on me?” I tried to tease.
“Yeah.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Yeah.”
“Cass, you’re drunk.”
He nodded, still staring at the tree. He picked up half a gingersnap that had fallen on the floor and threw it at the tree. The branches rustled, and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” began to play.
“I like your whole face,” I said, as we stared at the tree together.
“Thanks.”
* * *
Once the Kahlua was gone, we decided to unpack some more boxes. We were both too drunk to figure out where anything went, so we mostly ended up just taking things out of the boxes and setting them on the floor.
“Oh my God!” Cass exclaimed suddenly. “Look!” He pulled something out of a box marked ‘Odds ‘N’ Ends.’ Pretty sure we’d unpacked at least five boxes marked that, and I suddenly had the profound drunken realization that my whole life was just odds ‘n’ ends.
I squinted at what he was holding up.
“The tree chicken!” he prompted.
“Oh my God. Ruth!”
“We named her?” Cass handed me the light-up chicken tree topper.
“Fuck yeah we did,” I said.
We’d found Ruth at Elfwood when we were teenagers and had bought her. Then on Christmas Eve, under cover of darkness, we’d swapped out the angel on Linda’s tree for the light-up chicken. “I can’t believe you still have her,” Cass said.
“I forgot I did,” I lied.
“She’s bigger than I remember.”
“Yeah, she almost bent Linda’s tree, remember?”
“Poor Ruth,” he murmured. “We felt bad for sticking a tree branch into her butthole. She looked so uncomfortable perched up there.”
“Yeah, it led to that whole discussion about where chickens’ buttholes are.”
“I still don’t know.”
