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Beth’s just managed to clean up the mess that Christmas Day yesterday with four kids along with Annie and Ben had created when it’s time to start making another mess. Dean had come to pick up the kids that morning so he and Judith could celebrate the holiday with them and Rio was set to come over soon.
He’d had Marcus this year for Christmas and brought him to his Grandmother’s for their two-day long gathering, so they’d decided that they would celebrate “Christmas”--referring to it as Christmas in air quotes whenever brought up in conversation–together the day after. Exchange gifts, watch a couple of movies, relax after the stress of the holiday season. Rio had made it all sound very casual. But now that the chatter and laughter and chaos of her children has departed, she’s surrounded by silence that she’s no longer accustomed to--she’s usually either working or with Rio when her kids aren't around. And she’s starting to feel an anxiety sprouting in her stomach.
Everything is as it should be. She has the house thoroughly decorated, the buttermilk-brined chicken for dinner marinating in the fridge, a selection of her Christmas movie DVDs set out for selection, her most festive sweater on, and these artisanal hot cocoa bombs stored in her fridge for sipping while they watch movies and open gifts. Each domino is in the exact right place.
But as she’s preparing sugar cookie dough for Christmas cut-outs to decorate together, watching the softened butter and white sugar beat together in the bright natural glow of her kitchen, watching the mixture become lighter and lighter, she feels the pit in her stomach getting heavier and heavier. She’s trying to focus on the sound of Mariah Carey’s voice and the smell of her balsam and cedar candle burning so as not to have a panic attack.
Because she and Rio haven’t done this before. A major holiday together. Rio had been traveling for Thanksgiving so she hadn’t thought much of it. And last Christmas they were still so new and delicate. So ill-defined. But now. Now they were Real. And, yeah, it wasn’t the actual day, but it still felt big. That they were acknowledging their importance in each other's lives. That they were exchanging gifts. Giving each other tokens of their... affection. Tokens that represent their knowing of each other.
She was relatively happy with what she had settled on, all things considered, but that didn’t stop her from panicking at the last minute. But she didn’t have time to doubt herself today because soon Rio would be here and she had a whole afternoon and evening of plans to get through.
After finishing up the dough, she rolls it out on auto-pilot--she’s made this dough countless times for countless holidays--and sets it in the fridge to chill while she makes the frosting and pulls out her food coloring and sprinkles. She’s digging out the cookie cutters that she had stored away in the back corner of a bottom cabinet when she thought she’d finally finished her holiday baking, before she and Rio had Plans, when she hears the familiar sounds of Rio coming in her backdoor. The tinkering with the lock, the soft yet firm way he closes the door, the shuffle of his feet as he wipes off the soles of his shoes, the sounds of a plastic bag with something heavy and glass in it being set down.
Pretending not to have heard him come in, she stands up and starts sorting through her cookie cutters until she feels Rio’s strong arms slinking around her from behind, pulling her to him. She reaches back to run her hand over his beanie-covered head where it's notched into the crook of her neck, where he breathes in her scent like always, his cool nose pressed against her skin, before placing a couple gentle kisses there.
“Missed you,” he breathes out like a secret.
He always seems to be able to more easily say these things when he isn’t looking at her.
“Missed you, too,” she whispers back. It’s only really been a couple days, but she means it.
And she takes a second to appreciate this peacefulness, but she’s quickly startled from it when his hands come up to cover her eyes. “Close your eyes,” he purrs.
“Why?” she asks suspiciously.
“Got a surprise for you.”
“Should I be scared?” she deadpans.
He chuckles. “Nah, just close ’em.”
She pauses, not wanting to give in that easy, but now she’s curious. “Good surprise or bad surprise?”
“If you don’t–”
“Okay, fine, they’re closed,” she sighs, shutting her eyes.
He starts to lower his hands, but pauses. “You not peeking, are you?”
She huffs in exasperation and slaps his hands away to replace them with hers. “Is this better?”
He hums. “Should’ve brought out the blindfold….”
He nips at her ear and she feels something fluttering in her stomach at his tone, at the memories he’s evoking.
“Can I turn around now?” she asks, impatient.
“Gimme a sec.”
She waits several seconds, really showing some restraint given the mysterious rustling sounds she hears, before complaining. “Rio.”
“Aight, aight I’m ready. You can turn around.”
She tentatively swivels around with her hands over her eyes.
“Open,” he commands.
She drops her hands and opens her eyes to find Rio with his dazzling, brown eyes beaming at her through his ridiculously long eyelashes. And she glances up to see his massive hand looming above their heads dangling a tiny, little bundle of mistletoe.
She leans her head forward into his shoulder to laugh and shakes her head.
“If I must,” she jokes with a shrug.
Going on her tiptoes, she pulls him into a kiss, short and sweet. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, darlin’,” he responds, forehead to forehead. She strokes her hand over his face, strokes her thumbs over his cheekbones. And then he’s pulling her mouth to his, into another kiss, something deeper and with intent, hands moving to her hips and then her ass, one of them still gripping the mistletoe.
She lets herself sink into it for a second, into the taste of his tongue and the heat of his body, before she pulls away, cutting his intentions short. They’ll have time for that later.
He pouts slightly, but puts the mistletoe down on the counter and points to the cookie cutters to ask, “So whatchu’ got going on here?”
She takes a deep breath to settle herself before answering, “Cookies. We’re gonna decorate them.”
“Oh we are, are we?” he asks as if she hadn’t laid out her plan to him the night before. When he’d called her in a hushed tone so as not to wake Marcus where he’d crashed in his grandmother’s spare bedroom.
“Yep.”
“Aight, boss, give me a minute and we’ll get to work,” he rubs his hands together like a dork. As much as he likes to call himself a pro in the kitchen, he’s horrific at baking.
He rounds the counter and grabs the plastic bag he’d set down, pulling out a bottle of rum and store-bought eggnog.
She sighs. “I told you not to bring anything. I already have it.”
“Well, now you got more. ‘Christmas’ is for drinking anyway,” he replies, smiling at her easily.
He does his best to do air quotes around Christmas while holding two bottles and placing them in her packed fridge.
Finding a space for them, he rounds the island to pull off his coat, the nice structured wool one, and Beth takes a second to admire the sight before her. God, even the way he takes off his jacket is sexy. She gets lost in watching his hands pull off his beanie, meticulously fold his scarf and jacket, and place them over the back of one of her chairs. He catches her ogling him because of course he does.
He bites his lip and smirks. “What’re you looking at?”
She smiles, lost in thought. “I’ve always liked that coat on you,” she says without thinking.
His slight smile spreads like wildfire across his face, his eyebrows raise to his forehead. He looks positively delighted. “Oh yeah? Always?”
She looks away, rushing to busy her hands with sprinkling flour on the counter so the cookies won’t stick.
And, god, the wildfire of his smile must spread to her face because she feels her cheeks burning up. She’s embarrassed by what she’s just admitted to. She’s really only seen him wear it maybe a couple of times since they met all those years ago, when they were still washing cash through the stores she buys most of her kid’s Christmas gifts from. She’s revealed just how much she enjoyed aspects of him long before they really got together.
And it's not like it isn't true. She has always liked it on him. Always liked everything on him. Always thought he was distractingly good-looking. Almost obscene, really. But she feels so exposed with the way he’s looking at her. Like he’s just happened upon a new way to tease her, something she should be ashamed of admitting.
“You were thirsting over me in a wool coat?” he teases, a smile on his face absolutely dripping with smugness.
“I wouldn’t say thirsting.”
He comes back around to her side of the counter and reaches out to pinch her waist playfully and encircle her with his arms.
“Had a lil' crush on me, ma?”
“No--,” she starts, but he interrupts her with a boisterous laugh.
Rolling her eyes as he continues to guffaw, she huffs and pulls away from him to get the cookie dough from the fridge and slide it onto the counter with slightly too much aggression.
And he follows her like a pesky magnet, positioning himself behind her and hooking his chin over her shoulder to watch what she’s doing.
He kisses her on the cheek. “Aww c’mon. Don’t worry. S’cute you were crushing so hard way back then,” he says through giggles.
She ignores him, dusting her tree-shaped cookie cutter with flour and punching out a cookie, throwing it onto her prepared baking sheet like she’s chucking a rock. The laughter dwindles as he pulls himself back together and seems to recognize that she’s genuinely upset with him.
The silence from earlier is back, but somehow it feels louder. All she can hear is Rio’s breath, Whitney Houston’s flawless vocals on “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and her own movements of passive-aggressively pressing on the cookie cutter and launching her dough to the parchment.
“Eh, ain’t we supposed to do that together?” he asks, trying for a light tone to break through this heavy quiet.
But she perpetuates the silence, continues punching out cookies, moving onto Santa-shaped ones that might turn out slightly warped from the sheer force she’s using so haphazardly. When she doesn’t respond, he puts his hand into harm’s way, into the warzone that is her countertop at the moment, to place his hand over hers to stop her movements. She whips around with a glare and stomps over to the oven, wrenching it open, shoving the baking sheet in, and slamming the door.
“Elizabeth, don’t ignore me,” he starts, trying to get her attention.
She takes her time setting a timer before turning to face him, arms crossed.
“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t notice you there,” she says with over the top mock-surprise. “But you must know how that feels, right? Cause what? You didn’t see me until I was bending over for you in a dirty bar bathroom?”
She says it, She lashes out. And she doesn’t care if she knows it isn’t true, knows he saw her long before that. Because sometimes she can’t help but think there’s some truth to what she’s feeling. That there’s a part of him that doesn’t truly want this like she wants it, want her like she wants him. And that? That’s more terrifying than any gun she’s had pulled on her.
He barks on a laugh, looking at her like she’s insane.
And maybe she is. Because she’d put so much effort into today, despite the fact that she was bone-tired and had been stressed for weeks over making this Christmas as perfect as possible for her kids. Because she cares--about them. About… him. Because she wants their “Christmas” to be perfect even if he doesn’t care about the details. Because they’ve always been so flawed. Because she’s made so many mistakes.
She wants this to be perfect. And now he’s standing in her kitchen laughing at her.
And she’s standing there hot with fury in a stupid fucking sweater, feeling the telltale sign of tears welling up, piercing through the fury and peeling it back to reveal her shame.
When he notices her tears, she watches his face transform and sees him breathing in like he’s about to say something, but she can’t take any more. She turns away and puts her hand up to stop him from speaking.
She takes a few deep breaths and it’s a minute before she hears his footsteps as he approaches, sees his hand raise up out of the corner of her eye before he pauses. “You gonna hit me if I touch you?”
She lets out a wet laugh and sniffs through her nose. God, she can’t believe she’s crying this quickly into their “Christmas” together. She feels so ridiculous.
“Please just--” she starts and then pauses to give herself another second to collect herself.
She looks up at Rio, sees that the jovial face he’d walked in with–the one tinged with something akin to joy as he’d held up mistletoe–has turned into one of worry and irritation. She sees the pinch between his eyebrows, the tilt of his lips into a frown, the clench of his jaw. And she thinks this is it. She’s ruined it.
He opens his mouth to speak, but she cuts him off. Again.
Because if he doesn’t want this–her and her tears and her shame and her painstaking “Christmas” fun–then she doesn’t want him here.
“If you want to go, you can. I don’t want to force you to be here and do all these things you don’t want–”
“Stop,” he interrupts.
“--to do. And I don’t want you to–”
“Elizabeth,” he booms.
She looks down and hears him huff out a laugh, but she doesn’t hear any humor in it.
“Baby.”
But she’s staring down at her kitchen floor, trying not to break out in tears at the sound of that name.
“Baby, look at me,” he coos, so gentle.
She meets his eyes with her own tear-filled ones and he shakes his head. “That sister of yours got you on drugs or something?”
She breathes out a laugh, rolling her eyes again. Before she can answer with no, he continues, raising his voice slightly, speaking to her sternly.
“What could’ve gotten it into that head o’ yours that I don’t wanna be here?'” he asks, pointing to himself. “Yeah, I dunno if you noticed, but I’m here every fuckin’ night. Even though I have a much more comfortable bed at my place.”
She starts to argue, but he continues.
“I’m here cause I wanna be.”
And, oh.
“S’not like you got me locked up—not this time at least,” he jokes with a smile.
She slaps him on the chest. “Ok, let’s not–”
“And you think I didn’t see you way back when?” He breathes out a laugh, his frustration with her coming through in his tone. “You liking my coat is nothin’. You were driving me fuckin’ insane day one with them pearls and those tight-ass jeans and those sweaters teasing me with just a taste of all you got underneath ‘em and that fuckin dress from Kenny’s party…got no idea how bad I wanted to touch you that day.”
Oh.
And he keeps going. “So if you wanna get your panties in a twist about a lil crush, go ahead. You wanna ruin ‘Christmas’ over some bullshit? That’s fine. You can ruin next year’s too if thats whatchu' wanna do.”
She’s stunned. At a loss for words. Like she’s standing there riffling through her purse for a stick of gum and coming up empty. She blinks and feels a single tear run down her face, sees him reach out, and then wipe it away with his thumb.
She’s not sure how to respond, how to reply to such a…declaration from Rio. All she knows for sure is the feeling soaring in her chest at his words. That he wants to be here–wants her. That he’s not planning on leaving any time soon, that he wants to be here next year. And she thinks she knew that, but to hear him say it out loud…that was different. They’ve always been so stilted when talking about nearly anything, let alone stuff like this.
So, she says the only thing she can think of.
“Don’t say panties,” she almost whispers.
He throws his head back in a laugh and the tinge of joy—or, really, it’s quite opaque now—is back on his face and the feeling in her chest is soaring and she just needs to do something to communicate everything she’s feeling.
Tentatively, she steps toward him and closes the last of the gap between them, reaching her hand up to brush over his face, to cup his jaw. And then she kisses him. And kisses him. And kisses him. Kisses him for staying. Kisses him for wanting her. Kisses him to show him she wants him right back.
The kiss quickly turns filthy and soon she’s backing him against the island, pressing up against him, definitely getting some leftover flour on him, but she doesn’t care. And she doesn’t think he minds. She can feel his half-hard erection against her.
She breaks off the kiss and unbuckles his belt and his jeans, pulling them down enough to free his cock.
“Oh, shit,” he pants, as she goes down onto her knees on her kitchen floor.
She wets her lips and blinks up at him and his lips smudged with her festive red lipstick as she takes him into her palm, running her hand up the length of him, brushing her lips over the tip of his cock. He moves his hand to her face, tucking her hair behind her ear and brushing at where a tear had slipped down earlier. “You sure?” he asks.
She licks at the tip, feeling him twitch in her hand, and replies, “Shut up.”
He widens his stance and moves his hands to grip the counter behind him. And she wastes no time lifting his cock and running her tongue all the way from the base to the tip and then takes him into her mouth.
Rio lets out an unsteady breath above her as she takes him deeper, bobbing up and down–surely making an even bigger mess of her lipstick–and working her hand over what she can’t take. “Fuuck,” he groans.
She works herself up and down, humming around him just to hear him grunt. God, she loves sucking his cock, every grunt, and throaty groan and yes, baby and just like that another gold star for getting a reaction out of him, sending heat straight to her cunt. She can feel just how wet she’s getting.
She hollows her cheeks and moves her hand down to massage his balls and he grips his hand into her hair. She blinks up at him with his cock in her mouth and she sucks harder and takes him deeper until he tilts his head back, slurring, “ Fuck, baby…so fuckin’ good.”
And, god, his voice. That’s another thing along with that coat that she’s always liked. That she noticed. And the sound of it purring encouragement to her had haunted her before just as much as the sound of his derision. But to be gifted the honey of his voice and to have heard it just say all these things to her…she thinks that may just haunt her forever.
So she sucks and jerks and moans as if she could continue on forever, but she doesn’t have to because he’s hissing and panting and she feels his hand tighten its grip in her hair, feels him try to pull her off. Hears him warning her in his deep, gravelly voice, “Elizabeth, you gonna make me cum.”
But she keeps going and going until she feels it. Him spilling onto her tongue. Until she hears it. His husky moan overpowering the Christmas hymn. Until she tastes it. The salt of him on her taste buds. Until she’s pulling off of him with a pop and swallowing just as the timer for the cookies goes off.
She pops right up to check on them—Beth Boland doesn’t burn cookies—grabbing her Santa-patterned kitchen towel to pull them out of the oven and plop them on top.
Poking a spit slick finger at one of them, she calls them done, turning off the oven and timer–she’ll wipe everything down later.
She turns back to Rio just as she’s lifting the Santa-patterned towel to her face to clean up the cum and spit and finds him breathing heavily with a slack jaw and lightly slumped against the counter as he tucks himself into his boxers.
“Cookies are done!” she says, all chipper. She walks over to him and helps him redo his pants and belt and leans in to say, “Oh, and don’t ever yell at me again.”
As if she hadn’t loved it. As if she hadn’t just rewarded him for it by getting down on her knees for him.
He grabs her by the back of her neck, kissing her harshly, tasting himself on her, and pulling back to look at her face. He shakes his head in disbelief, “Frankenstein.”
As if to say, you’re a monster.
But he says it with a smile on his face, so she takes it as a compliment.
After their kitchen…discussion and after Rio had returned the favor, spreading her out on the flour-coated countertop to eat her out, things run relatively smoothly.
Well, as smoothly as they can with the two of them.
Rio decides it's time for day drinking, pouring them each a strong spiked eggnog to sip as they decorate her warped cookies, some of which had spread together from improper placement. He brings out his crumpled-up mistletoe a few more times and graces her with festive facts (like that mistletoe is named after bird shit.)
The cookies being sloppy ends up not mattering because, despite Rio’s best efforts to be a showoff, he makes an absolute mess of his cookies.
There’s an icing mishap that leaves him cursing, his hands covered in red frosting and his Santa cookies looking like a massacre. She doesn’t want to think about how that may be fitting for the two of them.
Rio then proceeds to smear some frosting on her cheek and soon they’re covered in red and in need of a shower.
He undresses her with reverence, taking her in, savoring it like a precious gift. Stripping out of their long sleeves and pants until they’re bare before each other. They take their time washing away any remnants of frosting, soaping each other up, kissing and caressing, his touch liquifying her as the sun melts snow until she’s a puddle in his arms.
She hums as he mouths at her breasts, licking and sucking her rosy nipples into peaks. And soon she has her hands on the tiled wall, her ass pushed out for him and he has his cock slowly, slowly sliding all the way inside her, filling her up until they’re notched together. She sighs in contentment as she adjusts, never quite getting accustomed to that feeling of first taking him.
He grunts when she squeezes around him and grips her hips to fuck into her while he rubs his fingers over her clit. She reaches back to grasp onto his hip, digging her fingernails into his wet skin. And the drag of his cock inside her along with the swipes of his fingers get her so close so quickly, and his voice in her ear rasping out encouragement, c’mon, baby and you gonna cum on my cock?, is enough. She’s shaking and gasping out moans and the syllables of his name that echo as she cums around him. Her convulsing on his cock must drag him along with her because soon he’s grunting like he’s been hit and cumming with a hoarse, “Elizabeth.”
She turns around when he slips out of her and he brings her into his arms, holding her close, clinging to her.
And they stay there, wrapped around each other, holding on until the water runs cold.
The winter sky had started to darken while they were in the bathroom, the purples and pinks blending together to create a watercolor sky, the deep orange setting sun shining through the trees, and the french doors of her bedroom as they change into some comfy clothes. It was always getting dark so early now.
Rio insists that he can handle dinner and sets her up on the couch in the den with another drink and the charcuterie board she had pre-assembled in the fridge. So she munches on her cured meats and sharp cheeses and half pays attention to some cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie she threw on while he shuffles around the kitchen, pulling out ingredients and chopping veggies and shaking spices in a tornado.
The warm embrace of the smell of the chicken browning and its skin crisping wafts over to her whenever he opens the oven door. And it all takes her back to Christmases of her youth–and her mother’s tendency to overcook birds.
And it's startling to think about how much her life has changed–her mother long gone and her marriage long failed. She’s without her children the day after Christmas, but she can’t find it in herself to feel lonely.
And it’s startling to think about how much her and Rio have changed, who they were and are, all they've done to each other, and to have somehow ended up here. With Rio standing in her kitchen, cooking “Christmas” dinner for her.
She ends up more so watching him rather than the movie, sinking further and further into the couch, melting with warmth from the liquor, from the comforting scent of the chicken, from the lights shining on the tree. From watching him.
“How’s it going in there?” she asks.
And he turns to her where she’s slumped on the sofa. And he looks at her. And he’s real. He’s really there... taking care of her. And she sees that warmth she’s feeling reflecting back at her. And maybe it's not from the liquor.
“Don’t worry about nothing, just watch your movie,” he volleys back.
And she wants to ask a million questions, say a million things, but she doesn’t. She just settles into the couch, into the warm, and watches him.
They eat their roast chicken dinner side by side sitting on the floor with their plates on the coffee table in front of them. Rio had made the potatoes differently than she would’ve, always pushing for things to be as crispy as possible until they lean towards burnt. He calls it “charred flavor.” But she doesn’t say anything this time. That’s the way he likes them.
The Hallmark movie ends with a shocking twist–the big city girl falls in love despite herself with her small-town childhood best friend–and they both groan at the predictable cheesiness of it all.
And before they know it, they’ve lost track of time, sipping drinks and talking through another saccharine movie curled up on the couch without even bothering to look through the DVDs she’d set out. And then it’s late, the sun having gone to rest hours before, the winter sky coal-black. They pull themselves off the couch and do the dishes in the dim light, working together to wash and dry, luxuriating in the quiet domesticity.
Beth pulls out the hot cocoa bombs that she knows are a gimmicky ripoff. But the look in Rio’s eyes when the stream of hot oat milk melts the thin, chocolate shell and the marshmallows burst out looks so similar to the childlike wonder she sees so often in Marcus’ that she doesn’t care.
And the sound he lets out from the back of his throat when he takes his first sip of his peppermint bark cocoa reminds her of sounds he makes in a much different context. That deep hum of satisfaction. She hopes the heat on her face from the steaming beverage keeps him from noticing any blush.
But he’s too distracted. “Mmm, this shit’s good.”
And it's even better when they “Christmas-ify” it and add splashes of liquor to each of their mugs.
They settle down next to her tree, branches filled to the brim with every school art project ornament from over the years, including a new one Marcus had given her just a few days ago.
Rio pokes around on his phone until the first notes of the song Merry Christmas, Darling by The Carpenters come through the speakers.
“This okay?” he asks, almost shy.
“Yeah. I like their Christmas stuff,” she replies easily.
He nods and glances away while he speaks. “Yeah, my ma always loved ’em. Played some of their songs fuckin’ non-stop at Christmas.”
And she freezes for a second. Because, well, he’s never outright mentioned her. His mother. She’s heard about her from his grandmother. Beth knows she died young. She knows Rio was basically raised by his grandparents after she passed. She knows it's not something he talks about.
“My mother always liked Bing Crosby.” Her voice is subdued against the backdrop of the sweeping melodies.
He nods. It’s not something she talks about.
She’s grateful when he changes the subject, telling her about some trouble Marcus and his cousins had gotten into the night before.
And then they’re hiding behind sips from their cocoas and fidgeting with their hands because they can’t delay it any longer. They’re sitting by the tree, sitting next to the only presents left underneath it. They’re breathing in the cozy scent of cocoa and Karen Carpenter’s smooth alto voice is serenading them. And this is it. The culmination of Beth’s plans for “Christmas.” And it may not have played out perfectly–there was certainly more arguing than she’d planned for and the cookies were an abomination–but they couldn’t skip this part.
She meets Rio’s brown eyes, the illumination of the tree making them sparkle in a way that’s more captivating than any Christmas lights.
“You first,” he murmurs.
And he has a cool smile on his face. No trace of anxiety. Which is just so unfair. She lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding because it weirdly feels like a test of some sort. To see just how well she knows him.
And she does feel like she knows Rio. She's certainly spent enough time with him, especially recently. He’d joked about spending the winter at her place when he was having heater troubles, that she could keep him warm. And while his heater hadn’t exploded and he hadn’t actually had to do that, he might as well have. He’d spent practically every night here. She can’t remember the last time she had to scrape the morning frost off the windows of her car herself.
So, she knows Rio. Not just Crime Boss Rio. Not just Christopher the son and father. But the Rio who treats her home as if it's his own. She knows he likes calling out the answers to Jeopardy! and picking recipes just to show off his knife skills and reading boring biographies (and then recapping them to her). She knows he likes long showers with her and that he sleeps worse without her and that he doesn’t miss a single one of Marcus’ soccer games if he can help it. She knows how much their line of work can get to him, how scared he is of leaving Marcus behind just like he was. Knows he thinks he hides it better than he does.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t still a partially solved puzzle to her. And that doesn’t mean that picking out a “perfect” gift for him didn’t seem like she was searching for the lost Ark of the Covenant.
She grabs his first gift–they’d agreed on one, but seeing that Rio has a few for her, it seems they both ignored that rule.
They start small with the first gift, but she still watches in anticipation as he opens it up and pulls it out by its loop, holding it up between them–a peach-shaped Christmas ornament in all its glory. Her pride and joy. It had been a little while since she had harkened back to the Peach Incident™ wherein Rio was incapable of counting to twelve and brought her only eleven peaches for her cobblers, earning him the nickname “Peaches.”
He shakes his head with a begrudging smile.
“Never, huh?” he asks. Always asking that question when he knows the answer.
“Never, peaches.”
She hands him his next gift, this one larger, and she watches his rings glint in the light as he carefully unties the golden ribbon and tears away the nice green wrapping paper she’d picked out with tiny reindeer on it to reveal a Nespresso machine.
“To use when you’re here,” she explains.
She knows it’s not as fancy as the gaudy one he has at his place that would take up all her countertop space.
But he just kisses her temple and says against her skin, “Thank you.”
His final gift is an envelope with two VIP passes to tour the Detroit Tigers stadium, even though it isn’t baseball season. She’d pulled some strings, greased some palms.
“I thought maybe you and Marcus could go. Over his break,” she explains.
He nods and blinks at her slowly with this look on his face that’s just Too Much for her to handle, too pure for who they are, too warm.
She clears her throat and reaches for her mug, but he sets his hand on her thigh to get her attention. “I love it. Thank you, baby.”
She starts to fidget, restless because now it's her turn. Rio had selected things for her in mind, covered them in his minimalist wrapping paper and now he was gonna watch her open them.
He hands her a small box that just screams jewelry and she feels a flutter in her stomach at the idea of him buying her something precious and extravagant.
“It's real nice,” he hypes it up.
Her hands are slightly shaky as she pulls the lid off the box to reveal what’s certainly jewelry of some kind. They appear to be earrings of some sort that look almost like…bolts? And she wonders if they’re some hip industrial jewelry thing that she wouldn’t get, something that his cool, hipster neighbors in his downtown loft would understand, but she doesn’t.
“Ohhhh they’re so…nice,” she forces out.
“Yeah? You like ‘em?” Rio asks with raised brows.
She nods with a closed-lip smile, falling into her old routine of faking her enjoyment of ill-considered gifts from Dean. And, shit, she’d been so nervous about Rio liking his gifts that she hadn’t even considered what she would do if she didn’t like hers. And there are still two more to get through.
She’s preparing herself to fake her way through this when he laughs, face breaking into a smile.
“You’re full of shit.”
And, what?
“Marcus helped me pick ‘em out on Etsy. He thought you’d like ‘em, you know, considering your name is Frankenstein and all.”
She closes her eyes and smiles, feeling relief that the hideous earrings were a gag gift.
She opens her next gift, registering the way he’s watching her in anticipation, looking forward to seeing her reaction. She slides the lid off this one and breathes in sharply. Because this box actually contains something precious–a beautiful, understated diamond necklace. She runs her fingers over the cool-to-touch gems, mouth slightly parted in wonder.
He’d gotten her jewelry. Honest to goodness tasteful, gorgeous jewelry for her to wear around her neck. Something from him to have around even when he’s not.
She’s not sure what to say, overwhelmed, so she just leans forward to kiss him tenderly on the cheek and he nuzzles into her. She sits back and he asks, “You like it?”
She nods vigorously. “Can you put it on me?”
And she turns around to allow him to brush the hair off her neck, taking a second to caress her skin because he can, and carefully clasp the gold strand around her throat, five small diamonds encircling her neck. She turns back around to show him how it looks and he hums, something satisfied, not unlike the hum when he’d sipped his hot cocoa. He lifts his hand to trace the silhouette of her face down to her chin and then to the necklace where it lays on the soft skin of her chest and clavicles, shivering from his touch.
He looks her in the eye and purrs, “Beautiful.”
And she wants to just kiss him, but then he pulls out one final box. It’s small like the others.
“Got one more for you.”
She shifts around the way she’s sitting so she’s more comfortable and holds the box up to her ear to playfully shake it.
“More jewelry?” she jokes.
“Just open it,” he rasps.
She takes a deep breath to steady herself, afraid of what could possibly top the necklace. Pulling away the last of the paper, she finds a smooth black box and she's thinking maybe he’d really gone all out and it might be matching earrings. But when she opens it, she finds a key, carefully placed on top of a business card. Gingerly, she lifts up the key with a trembling hand, grasping it in her palm. Upon closer inspection of the card, she reads the name of a real estate agent.
And she tenses up. Because, what?
She already has a key to his apartment and she’s not sure what else this could be for. Flashing in her mind are snippets to a conversation they’d had a few months back, tiptoeing around the idea of them possibly maybe at some point moving in together. And for each flashback, for each anxious thought, her grip on the key gets tighter and tighter and digs further and further into the delicate skin of her palm.
They hadn’t agreed to anything. She thinks in horror that he might’ve–
Oh god, what if he had–
He reaches out and grasps her hands. “Relax. I didn’t buy nothing. Haven’t signed any paperwork. It’s just a business card.”
She feels her joints unlock, her heart rate lower, the pit in her stomach dwindle.
“Just a business card,” she confirms.
He nods. “Just a business card.”
He peels open her hand and takes away the key, lest she stab herself with it, and runs his thumb over the red indents it left.
“And this,” he says holding it up with his other hand and shaking it for emphasis, “is for a storage unit. Figured we’ll need some kinda storage if there’s a move. You know, in case my heater blows up.”
She swallows, “Storage is…helpful.”
“That it is…”
She thinks she could disintegrate from stress at even the idea of having to pack up and sell the house she fought so hard to keep for her children. The stress of having to explain to Annie and Ruby and, god, to Dean that she and Rio were buying a house together. Shacking up with their collective children. And she can already hear their concerns and objections and–
But then. Well, Rio may as well live here already. And while maybe she hasn’t exactly told them that, they know. Because how could they not?
And maybe it would all be very messy, but maybe she wouldn’t hate it.
“Okay,” she says, not so much agreeing to anything in particular, but more so expressing that she’s not…opposed.
She sees him try and fail to bite back a smile before saying, “Cool.”
And there’s a beat of stillness–where the only sounds are the Carpenters lamenting to be home for Christmas and the faint whistles of the wind whispering through the windows from the outside world–before Rio is in motion all at once, pulling her into his lap.
She can’t help but laugh as he kisses her, smiling into it himself and the whole thing is opaque once again with joy.
And then things get more reverent as they melt together and he sighs into her mouth. His hand on her jaw, his lips gliding against hers as they hold onto each other once more. And there's a moment there where, despite all the deviations from her perfectly planned “Christmas,” despite all the calamity it took for the two of them to get here–exchanging gifts and kisses of devotion under her Christmas tree.
There’s a moment where the incandescence of the two of them together and that warmth makes it all–well, at least seem near perfect.
And, of course, that moment is broken. They knock over the hot cocoa as he lays them down onto her floor and, soon, they’re bickering about the best way to clean up the spill and the box with the key to their future is forgotten under the tree as they battle once again.
But, well, maybe that’s perfect too.