AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re an ever-surprising man. And I’ll be honest. Most men? Not that surprising.”
“On behalf of everyone who calls themselves a man…you’re not wrong.”
She shuffled off the bed. “I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t indulge this little exercise, wouldn’t I?”
“A massive hypocrite. The very worst kind. Like politician level.”
“Oh, that’s bad.” She sighed heavily. “If I participate in this, do I get one of those?” She pointed toward the steaming cups of hot cocoa.
“You do.”
“Fine, let’s take back Christmas. But,” she held up a finger. “This will require you to tell me a little about your happy holidays so I can know that I’m doing this properly.”
He groaned. “Fine.”
She gave a little squeak of delight at getting her way. “Tell me.”
He sat heavily on the mattress. “Let’s see. On Christmas Eve, we played obnoxious Christmas music.”
She nodded and got on her phone. A moment later, a cheesy Christmas ballad about going home filled the room.
“Okay, now this is important. We would take our baths and then put on identical pajamas.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m not. It was a thing my mom loved. The whole family did it.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, next?”
“We took family photos. Just candids. And then we filled each other’s stockings with joke gifts or fun ones. We didn’t do the Santa thing. My parents thought it was lying to us, so they brought out the real gifts and put them under the tree. We turned on the lights, sang songs, and watched holiday movies. At midnight, we opened our presents.”
Her brows drew together. “Then what did you do on Christmas Day?”
The other stuff was easy to recall. But Christmas morning hurt like a punch to the throat. He sat for a moment, trying to push past the pain. “On Christmas morning, we make breakfast. My mom made cinnamon rolls, and my dad made kuku sabzi, which is sort of like a Persian frittata that my great-grandmother used to make. And everyone got a helper job. I cracked the eggs. Even as an adult, that was my job.” He smiled, the memory so warm and vivid he could touch it. “After we ate breakfast, we’d watch Christmas cartoons and then my dad would bundle us all up and take us for our holiday walk. No matter the weather, we always took that walk. My dad—” he paused to let the emotion leak away before it came out in his voice. “My dad saw beauty in everything. He’d point out the ice on the trees and the way our breath formed shapes in the cold air. He’d say things like, ‘Look look look, Gabriel, look at that sky. How does it make you feel?’ And whatever I answered, he’d say, ‘You are blessed to feel so much!’” He closed his eyes. “He made every day magical, but especially Christmas.” Tears tightened his eyes. “My mother and my sister, they don’t like to feel too much. They’re pretty…reserved I guess, comparatively. My father was an artist and a poet. He felt everything. I felt everything.”
“You say that in past tense. You don’t feel everything, now?”
He stared at the wall. “I guess I—I don’t want to, now.”
She reached over and gripped his hand tight. “Alright, so what’s all this stuff?”
He was relieved that she didn’t push for more information than he could give at that moment. “Decorations. Lights. A tree. We’re gonna put it all up.”
“Well, let’s start at the beginning,” she said. “We have to take our baths and put on identical outfits.”
“Um, we don’t have identical outfits.”
Her smile was wider than the Cheshire cat’s. “Oh, but we do.”
After her shower, Talia emerged from the bathroom and struck a pose. “What do you think?”
“Holy fu…” He stared at the red and white striped onesie she was sporting. It clung to her every full, generous curve. Especially her ass, which was quite honestly, the best gift he’d ever been blessed with. Also, he could count at least two piercings, because her nipple rings were not hidden by the stretchy thin material. None of his musings about her form had done justice to what had been under that ugly sweater. The room was suddenly a lot warmer.
“That good, huh?” She threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t think I look as good as you do in yours.”
“I cannot believe you bought two of these.” He shifted uncomfortably in his green and white striped onesie that was far too tight for his tall, broad frame. When he’d left the bathroom in it, he was mortified. The damn thing was obscene, showing every inch of his dick and frankly, it squeezed his balls, cleaving them into a swollen cameltoe. Also it was made for someone much shorter so the whole thing only came to his mid-calves. Then, to add insult to injury, it was v-neck, which left his rather Gaston-like chest hair exposed.
She’d nearly cried from laughing though, so it was kind of worth it.
