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I lift the trunk with one hand and drag the tree behind us back to the truck, a few workers stop hammering to look up at us, and laugh.
“How are we going to decorate it?”
“Everything’s at home already. Although, the branches might be too weak for some of them.”
“We can do the balls, those are light.”
“If you play your cards right, you might do more than the balls tonight.” I waggle my eyebrows, and she nudges me with her shoulder.
“You keep those puns up and I’ll roast your nuts over an open fire.”
“Oh!” I laugh, amused that she’s joining in. “That’ll put you on the naughty list.” We stop at the truck, I drop the tree, and pick her up. She wraps her legs around me. That’s what I’m talking about. I’m two seconds from fucking her in the snow, with my truck being the only thing blocking us from an audience.
“Is that a candy cane in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?” she whispers.
I grind into her. “Candy cane? More like the North Pole. You want to climb on Santa’s lap and tell him what you want?”
She laughs and kisses me. “Maybe later. Put me down.” I nip at her lower lip and let her slide down until her feet hit the ground. I wrap a mittened hand around her neck and bring her mouth to mine for a final kiss. If it weren’t for her cold nose reminding me to get her home, she’d still have her legs around me.
I toss her the keys and heave the tree into the truck bed. She races around to her side and starts the engine while I strap down the pine abomination. Once it’s finished, I wave to the guys before I climb in the driver’s side. She holds her hands out in front of the heater and looks behind us, checking the tree and smiling.
When we get back to the house, she holds the door open wide so I can haul it inside. I don’t mind the way it fills the space with the scent of evergreens. It actually smells a little like Christmas in here. It’s nice.
I turn on the fireplace. “Why don’t you go pour us a couple glasses of wine, and I’ll do this part.”
Surprisingly, I’m enjoying making it festive and cozy. It’s something I never bothered to do before, other than paying for a company to come out and string up some exterior lights so I didn’t look like the neighborhood Grinch.
“You’re going to put it upyourself?”
I jerk my head, feigning disgust. “No! I’m putting it in the living room,you sicko.”
She gawks and gives me a small shove. Hopefully, we can get this tree stuff over with so I can put something else in that open mouth. With her eyes shooting playful daggers at me, she trudges off to pour the wine, and I get the tree locked into the stand. However, I quickly learn the trunk needs to tilt to the left so the off-balanced limbs don’t cause it to tip over.
On her way back with the wine, she stops in her tracks. “Oh my God, Cam! It’s incredible!”
Incredibly hideous.I stand and admire my work. Reaching inside the tree, I grasp one of the weird, oversized limbs and rotate the tree a couple degrees—obviously joking, it’s not like this tree has a good side. I back up and she steps beside me, handing me a glass, and I hold it with the hand less covered in sap.
“Thank you.” We observe the disfigured conifer, and our heads lean to the side at the same time. From this angle, the trunk seems slightly straighter.
“Oh, Chris Smith Tree, Oh Chris Smith Tree, how homely are your branches...” I mumble.
She turns and clinks her glass to mine. “Cheers.”
“To our first Christmas . . . on Valentine’s Day.”
She takes a sip and smiles at me. “The first of many...”
“How come you wanted such an ugly tree? Don’t deny it, a tree this mangled is only chosen on purpose.”
A slow smile forms on her lips as she turns to marvel at the monstrosity like it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. “Since I’ve met you, you’ve encouraged me to question conformity and do what makes me happy. I’ve never had a tree that wasn’t professionally cut, trimmed, decorated, and themed to perfection. I wanted something with... character.”
She leans her head against my shoulder. It means so much to know that I’ve helped her get to this point. “Ready for lights?”
“Hell yeah,” she says, her smile growing.
I love this Jordan, she’s imperfectly perfect.
By the end of the night, I’m fucking exhausted. We’ve crammed about three weeks of Christmas into one day. We did the whole tree thing, baked cookies while listening to holiday music, ice skated on the lake—after I shoveled the recent snowfall, the ice underneath was shit, so that didn’t last too long, and we opted for sledding instead.
