The Holiday Mixtape, page 16
“Then don’t put your hand in front of your face.”
She nudges my chest with her head. “You’re impossible.”
“I’ve been told.” I blink. I can’t see. Not a frigging thing. Not even her, nestled in my arms. I can feel her. Smell her. Hear the rhythm of her heart beating against my chest, or is it mine? “Listen. I don’t want to move around, because there could be a drop off. So, we’re just going to sit down, right here, and wait. Okay?”
She nods against me. I hold her shoulders. “Let’s sit, together.”
“Okay.”
I turn her as I squat and sit, and she moves with me. “Rest here, against me.” Nothing to rest my back on, so I spread my legs wide, knees bent. I pin her between them. “This way I won’t lose you again.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Damn right you’re not.
Silence. And pitch darkness. An occasional drip… drip… drip… as time creeps by.
No Walter.
I hear her breathing. A louder drip bounces off the cave bottom somewhere near us.
“It’s colder here than out there.”
“Yeah.” I snug her against me. Her hair tickles my neck. Shit.
“We should talk so Walter can follow our voices. Where are you from? Originally?”
“I grew up in Willow Meade. It’s about thirty minutes outside Chicago. You?”
“Right. Here. College?”
“Northwestern. You?”
“University of Tennessee.”
“On a great big basketball scholarship.” She remembered.
Helen’s a blabbermouth.
Silence.
Drip… drip… drip.
“Brothers and sisters?” she asks.
“Both.”
“Do they live here?” The surprise in her voice hits me, as if she feels like she should have met them by now.
“No. They’re in Florida, where my parents moved, when I went to college. Dad relocated. You?”
“Only child.”
“That explains a lot.”
She elbows me.
“Hey, lucky you. My brother and sister were pain in the asses. Lovable pains in the asses.”
Silence.
That last wiggle when she elbowed me stroked my fucking cock. Dammit. What was I thinking nestling her ass in between my legs? Where the hell is Walter?
Exhaling a long breath, I try to relax, but my hand slides down her ribs to her waist only to land on bare skin where her sweater has ridden up from her jeans.
Goose bumps lace above her hip bone as my hand flattens across the bare flesh of her side, and my fingers press into her, against my will. “You should button your coat all the way down around you, to keep you warmer.” There’s a silence insistent on lasting as the palm of my hand stays against her flesh, covering the side of her waist.
We both know there’s nothing warmer than the way we’re sitting right now, and the moment we’re pretending not to be caught in. My dick twitches and fuck if it hasn’t sprung to life. There’s no way she can’t feel how hard I just got. She’s leaning against me.
“Wh—”
“I for—” We both speak at the same time. Our voices anxious to make nervous chatter, but our bodies have not deviated from their position. My head drops down to hers and I slowly turn my lips to her ear. “Why did you come here? Why not home to Willow Meade for Christmas?”
She shivers against me, acknowledging my breath in her ear. I feel her turn toward my face, testing how close we are. “My mother.” She mutters carefully as if she realizes her lips could be close enough to touch any part of my face. They are. I can feel it.
My heart thuds so loud in my chest I know she feels that.
She turns her head back to face away from me.
“It’s just she and I for a while now. She’s got a cruise with her book club she’s been paying out and saving up for. It’s a two-week holiday at sea over Christmas with her good friends, and she’s really been looking forward to it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about work, and that I could come home. I wouldn’t want her to miss it just to have Christmas with me.”
“You’re her only daughter. She would want nothing more.” My voice is low, and a little saddened by her Gift of the Magi sacrifice.
“She came up to Chicago in the beginning. Every Christmas almost, but I think she got bored of just me and Archer. Us working through her visit and all our inside jokes. Couldn’t have been a very nice Christmas for her.”
Archer again. “The friend?”
“He’s my Helen.”
My heart thumps triple at the acknowledgement of Helen. She gets it, our friendship. And maybe I just got confirmation that Archer’s just a friend.
“You and your buddy Archer never…”
“God no. Archer’s a womanizer and not in the redeeming—wait until the right girl changes him kind of way. He’s truly arrogant, superficial and the most shallow person you will ever meet.”
“This is your best friend?”
“Well, yes, but I mean all this more to suggest that Archer and I would never be each other's physical type. He likes models. He dates girls that look like Helen in a pencil skirt.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just curious as to what you think you look like in a pencil skirt.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Regardless, Archer would never look at me like that. And I will forever know he has the emotional attention span of a fruit fly.”
She turns her head, and I feel her smile on my chest.
Fuck. She doesn’t know she’s gorgeous or what she does to men.
She stirs innocently in my lap, as if to dismiss the trance we’ve physically been in. But then her hand falls softly to my forearm that’s holding her. I tense a little at the contact and a spark shoots through me.
You’d think we were fresh out of those, sitting this way in a cold damp cave making idle conversation. She moves her hand away quickly.
She has to know what she does to me. I know she feels it.
My throat clears and I shift a little to relieve the pressure before silence falls on us again and I do something I can’t come back from.
“Hey, maybe you could sing like I mentioned before. It won’t really help to yell with the echo, but if you sing quietly, it will carry, and Walter might hear us.”
She turns her head to face me—I feel it—trying to see me looming over her. She’s trying to look into my eyes, in this abyss. “What do you want me to sing, a ‘fucking’ Christmas song? That’s what you called it earlier.”
“You mean when I was hunting you down in a dark cave silently praying neither one of us stepped down a drop off that led to our deaths?”
“Still. It was uncalled for. All Christmas songs are… well… nice by nature of being a Christmas song. They’re sacred.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
How can my dick get this hard when we could both die?
“What’s your favorite?” she whispers.
“Don’t have one.”
It was her ass rubbing my crotch, but now she’s facing me. Walter better get here fast.
Turning back to face away from me again, she drops her head back, resting it against my pecs. “Everyone has a favorite Christmas song, Kourt.”
“No. I really don’t. I like ’em… all. Actually.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“I know.” That truth stings a bit. “Sing, Erika.”
“And have you chastise me later?”
“Never. I actually like your voice.”
She pauses a moment. Her head laying lethargically back on my chest. And then, out of the dark silence of the cold dripping cave, “O holy night, the stars are brightly shining…”
Her voice is angelic.
I feel criminal holding her so close, my face dropped down smelling the top of her hair. Remnants of the aroma of cinnamon from the cookies. Her shampoo smells like fresh linen and sweet berries. And there’s a hint of a perfume I’ve never been close enough to smell. It’s soft, but spicy. Sweet, like orange blossom, but intense with amber.
The tempo of my heartbeat stutters as I indulge a deep inhale of her.
“Fall on your knees… Oh hear the angel voices… O night divine—”
“Kourt! Erika!” Erika… Erika… Erika
“Over here!” We yell together.
Here…here… here.
The golden glow of a flashlight sweeps in front of us. No walls in sight.
“Here, Walter!” I’m standing, pulling her up with me. “Hold the light still and we can move to it.”
It... It... It...
“How in the Sam Hill did you two end up this far back? I told you not to go inside.”
I can’t blame him for being cranky.
“Some people are hard of hearing,” I say as I usher Erika to him, my hand splayed across her back. I look down. My hand covers her shoulders from arm to arm.
“Oh, Walter. It’s my fault.” She rushes to him like a long-lost father, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Thank you for rescuing us.”
Why does she always accept the blame? For everything?
Walter’s eating it up. Just like he did her Christmas cookies.
She’s killing me. I’ve got to get the fuck out of here.
“I can’t believe neither one of you had a cellphone, to use the light.” Walter will be telling this to anyone who’ll listen.
“We left them in the car.”
“Let’s head down.”
Outside, a breeze is blowing, and the December temperature up on the cliff’s edge has dropped.
I grab Erika’s hand. “Watch your step.”
Walter guides our way down with his flashlight. I hope I’m as spry and sharp as he is when I get that age.
“Thanks, Walter.” I nod behind me as I walk ahead to my truck. Erika’s re-engaged in conversation with him about the ceremony.
Opening my truck door, I see half a dozen missed alerts on my phone and snatch it.
“Shit! There’s a fire on Sixth Street. Walter?” My eyes snap to his and he nods to me from where he and Erika stand.
“I’ll get this girl home. Go on, Kourt.” There’s a flickering moment in my chest or mind—hell, I don’t know. It feels strange to leave her. A beat goes buy as I lean into my truck and I almost stall to look back at her.
“Kourt!” Erika calls after me. She makes me look back. Our gazes catch—Confusion paints her face.
And there it is again. Hurt in her eyes. A half smile hijacks my face to acknowledge her in some way or to give myself permission get in the truck. I can’t do this. I can’t fucking do this.
nineteen
Black Ice
Walter’s truck smells of cigarettes, hard work, and home. He has it nice and toasty, but I feel so cold staring out the passenger window as we ride in silence.
What was that back there?
The cave, the closeness. I practically sat in Kourt’s lap and sang him a song.
Oh, God. And the look on his face when he got the call. He couldn’t wait to get away from me.
“Listen to the wind. It talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows.” Walter says it as sage as he looks.
“I’m sorry, Walter. I shouldn’t have gone in the cave.”
“No, Erika, you shouldn’t have. The ceremony will take place outside of it, so it wasn’t necessary to put yourself in danger. Your heart however, that is a danger you cannot help.”
“Walter, I feel I never truly thanked you for doing this again for Blitzen. I think it will mean a lot to your wife and her memory.”
“The tree lot is not for my wife. The ceremony is. The trees are not for Blitzen as much as Kourt. I was talking about Kourt before.” Walter cuts his eyes from the road for a fleeting moment to scan mine. “You’re good for him, Erika. He needs you.”
“Pardon me?” I turn to look at the old man who must have his wires crossed between Christmas and an age-old native American adage, because that’s as far-fetched as an assessment can get.
“Listen. And follow what you hear inside. Kourt knows the loss I know. It took him one year to breathe steady again, another year to listen, and year three we got him back. Three years after she died, and now you are here.”
I turn in my seat, giving Walter my full attention, shock rocking through me like a tidal wave.
“Died? Oh my God Walter, who? Who died?” I can’t grasp what this man is referring to between his metaphors, and my stomach that just swallowed itself. I currently have no trouble listening to my heart per his suggestion. It’s beating so loud it’s deafening.
“His beloved. Kourt lost his wife as I lost my Sherry.”
“Wait. His wife? Kourt was married?”
“Young. Right out of college. He came back here with his high school sweetheart to start their life together. He and Angie and young Helen grew up here together, you see. Angie’s parents own the hardware store.”
“Bob and Georgia.” I say robotically.
He clears his throat and nods, confirming.
“No. Walter, I don’t see. What on earth happened?”
“Black ice. An unexpected cold evening. The temperature had dropped faster than anyone realized. She left the house for something. Winded down the roads she’s driven her entire life, and she hit a patch. You don’t see black ice. Especially at night. It blends in with the highway.”
I have no idea what else Walter is saying. What could he possibly add to that? I tune out and stare out of the window until I see my familiar surroundings and know the ride will end soon.
The Christmas lights of town square come into view, and I see my car parked where I left it when Kourt picked me up. My stomach sinks again at the thought of Kourt picking me up—who I thought he was versus what I’ve learned of him. And I’m not sure what to think of him or me.
I wave bye to Walter without saying much more and turn the ignition to the VW that started this all.
I forget about Walter, the trees, Christmas in Blitzen.
What an unbelievable fool I’ve been.
The cassette player clicks on, and I wind through the roads back up to Josie’s when I hear ‘Oh Holy Night.’ The very words I sang to Kourt while nestled in his lap in the pitch-black cave. It felt ethereal singing that song, so connected to him.
How can this keep happening? Impossible.
“Ugh! You’ve got to be kidding me!” I scream out loud and with one click of the eject button I silence the tape myself.
I yawn as I reach for the glass of red I slid under the coffee table, where I’ve been twirling the stem of the wine glass on the carpet. Thank God for a buzz and thank God for Archer.
“Wait. Explain better.” Archer requests as I blink at him through my computer’s camera.
“I told you when we met, I learned that he was Kourt with a K the same as I’m Erika with a K. At first, I thought that was a sign.”
“Uh-huh. A sign of what?” Archer lifts his head, tilting both ways, as if examining me.
“You know, sort of kismet, like a new meant-to-be friend in the town I landed in.”
“A friend?”
“But I was way off. Maybe my stars just haven’t been aligned right since the pitch.”
“Yeah, Erika, about that…” Archer rubs his hands over his face and then through his hair.
“You saw me, Arch. You even berated me for it. I waltzed in there like my grand idea would save the account and look at where it got me. Now, I suppose, I’m doing the same thing here in Blitzen. Helen, and my hopes for the holidays, are my enablers. And Kourt is there to remind me I’m out of my league.”
I drain another sip of wine from my glass.
“Kourt?”
“But then that damn mixtape rears its next song at just the right moment, as if it’s taunting me.”
“Wait.” Archer reaches for his scotch. “This local yokel made you a mixtape?”
“God, no. The one I bought at the Christmas flea market. At booth three. It’s broken. Or the tape deck is. It plays randomly and at uncannily significant moments. I almost can’t ignore it. Anyway. Sorry. I’m sure you tuned out twenty minutes ago.”
Archer coaxes one eyebrow higher than the other and glowers at me. The frosted tips of his dark gelled hair pristinely manicured apart from one piece bouncing down to meet his temple and match his five o’clock shadow. “Do I look like I’m not listening? Actually, I need to know, this came up once or twice this week.”
“Yes, Archer. Something about your overall aura generally has anyone participating in conversation with you racing to get their point across before your eyes glaze over and drift down to sift through the latest dating app. So, yeah, before I lose you entirely… what was it you needed to tell me about work?”
A small pit forms in my stomach for the third time today, and I brace myself to hear more about how I embarrassed the team, and I may not, in fact, have a job waiting for me when I return.
Thus, whatever you do, don’t screw up drowning in a small Christmas town, because after upsetting widowers, Great Aunt Josie’s crazy carved-out pathway of life may be all you’ve got left.
Archer watches my face on his screen for a moment. It’s almost uncomfortable.
He tilts his head and narrows his eyes at me. “Actually, I’d like to go back to this holiday Ouija board of a mixtape. I think I’m far more fascinated by your goings on in Blitzen than relaying the latest from our fickle bosses.”
He pours himself another night cap and swirls his peaty scotch in the glass like it’s his favorite part of the day.
“Speaking of big ideas on my part. Did I tell you that I got them to decorate the courthouse, and the entire town showed up to do it?”
“Wow. Sounds like Looney Tunes Josie had some pull with these people.”
“No. Arch. It was me. It was my plan, and it worked.”
“Okay. Calm down, Erika. Relax. Have another drink with me. It worked. Your work there is done and a huge success.” Archer facetiously toasts me through the screen.
“Are you kidding me? I haven’t even started yet, I have a list a thousand miles long, and there are multiple fundraisers going. This entire project is a fundraiser, and not one cent has changed hands yet. I haven’t even begun my work on Blitzen’s Christmas festivities and timing is crucial. I just now found the cave, and I’ve got to get an ice skating rink, a—”
