Holiday Unscripted, page 23
“Stop making trouble, then,” I tease her, and she smirks at me before her face fills with a smile.
“Never,” she tells me as we are pulled away to take pictures. There are pictures of just the groomsmen with Joshua and then the bridesmaids with Macy. My eyes never leave Elizabeth’s as she smiles for the camera. Then they have one with all of us. I stand next to Jack with Elizabeth in front of me, my hand on her hip. She turns the hand that is hanging from beside her over so I can slide my other hand in hers, our fingers intertwined as we smile at the camera.
After what feels like an eternity, we finally are let go of our duties and we head toward the reception area. “We should get a drink.”
“I agree with this,” I tell her as we walk over to one of the empty tables that have been assigned for the bridal party. She puts her bouquet down as we walk to the bar.
I order her a white wine and a whiskey for myself. “Well, well, well.” We look over when a woman with short salt-and-pepper hair is walking toward us, round black glasses perched at the tip of her nose. “If it isn’t little Elizabeth,” she says walking to her.
Elizabeth smiles at her. “Dr. Torres,” she says her name as she kisses her cheek. “I’m so happy to see you,” she adds and then looks at me. “Nate,” she calls my name, “this is Dr. Torres, she is one of the reasons I went into medicine.”
I smile at the woman. “Oh please.” Dr. Torres shakes her head. “Nonsense.”
“She has the best emergency clinic I’ve ever been to.” He smiles at the woman. “A place I used to end up frequently with two older brothers.”
I laugh. “You were very accident prone,” I tease her.
“How is the clinic?” she asks Dr Torres, who smiles sadly.
“I’m shutting it down,” she informs her. “It’s time for me to retire and I never found anyone I trusted enough to take it over.”
“What?” Elizabeth says, her hand coming up to hold on to my arm. “That clinic is…” She shakes her head. “It’s the only clinic that I know of in the area.”
“I’m sure someone will come around and open a new one once I’m gone,” she mentions. “Excuse me, dear, I’m going to go and congratulate Joshua.”
“I can’t believe it,” Elizabeth whispers. “See this scar?” She lifts her bare arm and I see a little V scar. “Joshua threw a plastic chair at me.” I roll my lips, trying not to laugh. “See this?” She puts her head back and points to another small scar. “Four stiches, running up the steps from Joshua because I scratched his DVD of The Fast and the Furious.” My hand comes up to touch her chin gently. “I can’t believe it.”
“If we can get everyone’s attention,” the emcee announces. “We’ll be serving the first course in five minutes, so everyone take their seats.”
I walk side by side with her to the table and Jack comes over with Evie, sitting down with us. “Did you know Dr. Torres is closing down her clinic?” Elizabeth asks Jack, who looks like he’s in shock as well. “I know.” She pffts. “She can’t find someone she trusts to take it over.”
“That’s so sad,” he replies. “I was wrestling with Joshua once when I was sixteen”—Jack turns to Evie—“and I fucked up my elbow. I told Mom and she ignored me. Said something about not roughhousing.”
Elizabeth and I both laugh because she would always say that. “Two days later I went to tell her that I was in pain still. She took one look at it and called me an idiot, but then told me to get in the car. My elbow was fractured. I ended up in a cast and missed my bantam hockey year playoffs.”
“What did that teach you?” Evie asks him.
“To never go to my mother when I was in pain. I would go straight to my father.” We all laugh at him.
Joshua and Macy are introduced to everyone as husband and wife. The two of them doing their first dance to “Come Away with Me.”
Everyone claps when he dips her. “Isn’t that sweet?” Elizabeth says sarcastically when they finish and the food comes out.
The plates are cleared when another song comes on and I see people head to the dance floor. I push away from the table. “Will you dance with me?” I hold out my hand.
“Again?” She smiles up at me as she takes my hand and I almost, almost whisper out always. But instead, I just nod my head.
“If you keep this up”—Jack follows my lead, getting up and holding out his hand for Evie—“people are going to think you like each other.” We look at each other before laughing at Jack and walking away.
I slide my hand around her waist while she puts one of her arms over my shoulder, her fingers sliding into the back of my hair.
“So on a scale of one to ten,” Jack quips from beside us, “how happy are you that in two days you can finally have your room back?” He looks at Elizabeth with a smirk on his face. It’s a look I’ve seen before, many times. A look that says I’m going to fuck with you until you tell me the truth.
“What?” Elizabeth says to him as I look at her, the both of us moving side to side.
“Well, everyone is pretty much leaving tomorrow night, max by the twenty sixth, so your room will be free.”
“Oh,” she replies softly and I feel the tightness form all over my body.
“You can always still stay with me,” I offer. “Baby Cat has gotten used to you anyway.”
“Is that why?” Jack asks and then Evie laughs.
“Would you leave them alone?” she scolds. “He thinks the two of you have been hooking up.”
My stomach lurches. “What?” I say.
“So,” Elizabeth interjects at the same time, “if we were, which I’m not saying we are, what does it matter?”
“If you aren’t,” Jack teases her, “then what does it matter if we know or not?”
I look down at Elizabeth and see her shake her head. “I guess you’ll never know, then.”
“The two of you need to knock it off,” Evie advises, “it’s Christmas Eve and it’s Joshua’s wedding.”
“Please,” Jack scoffs, “he’s so happy she showed up, he couldn’t care less.”
“Well, I care,” Evie states. “Do you want me to be sad?”
“Yeah, Jack, do you want her to be sad?” Elizabeth jumps on his ass. “She has been looking a little bit sadder every day that goes by. You need to stop worrying about who I’m hooking up with and pay attention to your woman and her needs.” I roll my lips. “They are clearly not met.” She sighs. “Get away from us before I yell ‘stranger danger.’”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I intervene, moving her away from him. “You are—”
“The best, I know,” she fills in for me. “You don’t have to say it, I already know. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“For what?” I ask her, and fuck, the need to kiss her is as strong as it is to keep breathing to stay alive.
“For not telling him that we’re hooking up,” she answers. “He would kick your ass.”
I throw my head back and laugh. “He would not kick my ass.” I pull her closer to me. “He would definitely turn around and tell your parents.”
“Can you imagine?”
“Yeah,” I reply, wanting to be able to kiss her when the fuck I want to, “I can.”
“Okay,” the emcee says, “it’s the big moment.”
I let her go a little, turning her in my arms as her back is to me. My arms go around her chest and she leans into me. “It’s time for all the single ladies to come up to the dance floor.”
“Eeww,” she moans out, “absolutely not.” She pushes me back. “Move, move, move.”
She’s about to escape when Denise comes running up to her. “Here is your chance.”
“For what?” Elizabeth asks. “I already have a bouquet of flowers.”
“Shut up and get on that dance floor and catch the fucking bouquet,” she swears and Elizabeth and I just look at each other, trying not to laugh.
“Just move out of the way,” I mumble to her and Denise glares at me.
“You’re next,” she tells me. “He’s throwing the garter and you better fucking catch it.”
“I don’t want it.” I scrunch my nose up and shake my head. “It was on Macy’s leg. That’s gross. I don’t want it. I think it’s even a bad omen if the best man catches the garter that was on the bride’s leg.”
She doesn’t say a word to me, she just pulls Elizabeth to the dance floor while Zoe drags Lexi, who smiles at her mother, but it’s a smile that says she’s not going to catch that thing.
“The best part is she’s dating Jaxon’s best friend,” Jack shares from beside me, motioning with his chin to the guy who is standing at the side, smiling at her. “From what I was told, he helped her get away from her asshole husband,” he says. “Whatever he did, she’s thriving now.”
“Okay, here we go,” the emcee starts, “one, two, three.” Macys throws the bouquet over her head and it lands right on Elizabeth, who folds her arms to her chest in reflex.
“Noooo,” she groans out, “that—” She doesn’t say anything because Denise is jumping up and down as if she just won the Stanley Cup.
“She’s next.” She holds on to Zack’s arm, who just smiles down at her. “Oh my God, she’s next.”
“I’m not next,” Elizabeth retorts, moving off the dance floor.
“Okay, where are my bachelors?” the emcee asks.
“That would be you.” Jack pushes me to the middle of the floor and I’m surrounded now with some of the men and Gavin.
“You should catch this,” I tell him and he smirks.
“I plan on it, since it’s customary for the person who catches the bouquet and the person who catches the garter to dance with each other.” The minute he says the words, I want to throat punch him. He claps his hands together and I just look at him. “Been trying to catch her attention all night.”
I don’t listen to anything else because the emcee is counting down. Gavin beside me moves side to side, as if he’s getting ready to run a play in football. He bounces up and down on his feet, and when the garter flies through the air, I move my hand up and he may be wider than me but I’m taller, so it falls right in my hand.
Joshua turns around and howls with laughter when I hold up the garter hanging on my finger. I walk over to him and tuck it back in the pocket on his tux. “You can keep that. Thank you very much.” I slap his chest, turning and seeing Elizabeth on the side laughing and shaking her head.
“You just had to, didn’t you?” she teases me and I smile at her.
“How else would I get you to dance with me again?” I tease her, pulling her to me and bending my head to her ear. “You can thank me later.”
CHAPTER 31
Elizabeth
THE FIRST NOEL
December 25th
Merry Christmas
I hear sniffing next to my face before I feel Whiskey’s nose in my eyeball. I moan and turn my face to the other side. I don’t know why I expect him to walk away but I do. He doesn’t. Instead, I now hear him sniffing my hair and licking my neck. “No.” I lift my hand and give a little laugh when his nose feels like it’s in my ear. “Whiskey,” I say his name and he immediately jumps on the bed, stepping on my legs to get over to the other side.
“Whiskey,” Nate grumbles in a sleepy voice, “down.” Instead of getting down off the bed, all he does is move excitedly to his side of the bed. “What is wrong with you?” I open my eyes to see Nate on his back with Whiskey on top of him as he pets his head.
“He probably knows it’s Christmas and I got him some special treats under the tree.” I lift my hand up to rub his neck. “Is that why you are all excited?” I turn on my side and Nate’s hand that is under the cover moves to my leg where he rubs it softly. “You want to open your presents?” I ask him and he gets off of Nate and jumps off the bed.
“Great,” Nate complains, “now he’s really awake.”
I laugh as he tosses the covers off him and gets up. His naked body is on full display as he reaches down for the boxers he took off last night after our shower and before sliding into bed after he put out Whiskey one more time. “Come on.” He rubs his hands through his hair and looks at me.
“Merry Christmas, Nate.” I smile at him and he puts one knee in the bed, followed by his hands on the bed before kissing my lips.
“Merry Christmas, beautiful,” he replies softly, giving me one more kiss before moving off and walking out of the door. I hear Whiskey trample down the stairs and toss the covers off myself and stretch. Swinging my legs off the side of the bed, I get up and head to the bathroom. Last night, as soon as we got home, I took off the makeup and took a shower. My hair now looks like a rat’s nest and I have some black smudges under my eyes, even though I took off the makeup and then took a shower. I clean up my face with a wet washcloth, grabbing my pajama bottoms and one of Nate’s shirts before heading downstairs.
The smell of coffee lingers in the air and the bright sun from outside fills the kitchen. “It’s so bright out.”
“It’s almost eleven,” he reports and I gasp.
“No wonder he was all over us,” I say, walking to the back door and looking out at Whiskey jumping into the little snow that is left on the ground before running away and then back again.
“Yeah,” Nate says, “definitely wouldn’t be able to do that if he was a puppy.”
“I’ve never had a puppy,” I admit to him.
“Would you want a puppy?” he asks me and I shrug. “It’s lots of work at the beginning, and not something that should be done if you aren’t home.”
“Yeah.” I go to the door when Whiskey charges over to the door and I open it, the cool air hitting me right away. “Maybe that’s why I never got one. I work long hours and it would be silly to have a puppy and not give it enough attention.” Whiskey runs in and heads straight for his food bowl. I walk toward Nate, who is standing right in front of the coffee machine. My arms wrap around his waist as I kiss his bare back, I close my eyes for a moment. “Are you tired?”
“Not as tired as I should be.” He puts one hand on my hand on his stomach. “Do you want to do presents before or after breakfast?”
“I have to admit something to you. I hate Christmas.”
“I don’t think that’s a secret, baby,” he says softly, his chuckle warming my soul. My stomach flutters from the sound of it.
“I wasn’t finished, Nate.” I let go of him and he turns around, his chest to mine. His hand comes up and he holds my hips, making sure I don’t go anywhere. I put my hands on his chest, my fingers moving back and forth. “What I was going to say is, I hate Christmas, but I love presents.”
He laughs and I can’t help but smile at his laughter. He puts one of his hands on the counter beside him but keeps a hold on me. “So I’m always ready to open presents.”
“But you hate surprises.” I shake my head.
“No one likes surprises, but everyone likes presents.”
“So I could buy you a present but I can’t surprise you?” He smirks.
“Yes,” I agree with him. “If I don’t know about it and it magically appears, I’m okay with it. But if you go on and on about ‘oh, I have a surprise for you,’ then it’s a solid no.”
“Noted,” he says. “So we should do gifts now, then?”
“Yes!” I clap my hands, giddy like a kid in a candy store. “Who is going to go first?” I ask him as he turns to hand me my coffee and then both of us walk toward the Christmas tree.
“As you can see”—I point to the presents under the tree—“I’ve color coded mine.”
“Of course you did.” He sits on the couch. “Because not having them the same color makes it more of a surprise for you.”
I gasp, “I didn’t even think of that.” I put my coffee to the side. “Okay, I’m going to give you one first.” I get up grabbing the medium-size box. “I want you to keep in mind that I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for gifts.”
I walk to him and he opens his legs for me to stand in between them. His hands go to rub up the back of my legs. He looks up at me, his lips in a little smile as I bend my head to kiss him. I hold his cheek with one of my hands while the other grips the box. “Okay.” I push the box at him and he grabs it, opening the Santa Claus wrapping and seeing the white box. I sit next to him, almost bouncing in my seat. He opens the top, and when he pulls out the white mug, he turns it over and laughs. “This is going to be my new mug.” He looks down at the white mug I had made that says Whiskey, Bean, and Baby Cat’s dad, with a picture of them all around the cup. Then in the back it says Best Dog and Cat Dad Ever.
“I might have gotten one for myself also,” I mumble to him, “minus the ‘cat dad’ stuff.”
He looks over at me and it’s a look he’s given me often over the years, but a look I might have locked out of my memory to protect my heart from being more hurt than I was. A look that even now if I wanted to lock it away, I knew I couldn’t. “For you to take back home?”
The minute he says that, my eyes get dry and with each blink it feels like I have sand stuck under my lids, and the lump forms in my throat, knowing in seven days this isn’t going to be my morning anymore. I don’t answer him, instead I just nod my head. He puts the mug to the side and then gets up to grab one of the presents bringing it to me. “I also didn’t have time and I scrambled. It didn’t help that I tried to ask Joshua and he told me to give you a stocking full of coal.”
I laugh as he hands me the thin present, the wrapping paper is filled with Grinch faces, making me laugh. “This is very me.” I hold up the soft gift and then I open it and it’s a calendar. “What is this?” I open it and every single month is a different picture from this past week.
The tears in my eyes make it blurry to see all the images. Once I get to October I laugh when I see Whiskey with a stuffed pumpkin in his mouth. “That is from last year,” he admits, “but the one in December was taken two days ago.” I flip to it and the three of them are together.
The cats have red collars on that have white balls at the end of them and Whiskey has a Santa hat on his head. Lying on the ground, he’s the only one looking at the camera. Bean looks like she’s desperately trying to get the collar off of her, while Baby Cat is glaring at the camera. I can’t help the laughter that comes out. “This one has to be my favorite.” I hold it up, fighting back the tears. “Thank you.” I smile at him. “I’m going to put this up in my locker at work. Might have another one made so I can also have it on my fridge.” The tightness starts to form in my stomach.
