Page 2 of December Wishes
Mik took a small step back. “Uh, why don’t you let me do that? I’m guessing it’s for my grandma.”
“Where’s the pizza?” Abby called from the living room.
Skylar dropped the paper plate onto the counter. “Cool. I really want to take a shower. Maybe go to bed early. Wild Friday night, you know.”
“You okay, Sky?” Mik followed her to the hallway. “You’re a bit… more than usual.”
Although she didn’t say the word she wanted, Skylar knew what it was. “I’m fine. Just tired. Been a long week.”
Hell, it had been a longyear,but Mik didn’t want to hear that rant. She would merely end it with some roundabout “I told you so” that would send Skylar into the stratosphere of frustration. She had enough of that so far that week.
Chapter 2
CARRIE & LEIGH-ANN
The leftover pizza was chilled by the time Carrie pulled into the trailer park on the north side of town. One streetlamp illuminated the entrance, but the fog had settled enough that she drove five miles per hour to ensure she didn’t ram into someone’s home. As luck would have it, the Hardys’ trailer was at the rear of the lot, tucked between a red Dodge Ram and a municipal shed.
Carrie almost discovered how many hoes and rakes were kept in that shed. She only realized at the last minute that she was about to mow it over when a motion-sensor light flashed through the fog.
Totally meant to do that.She thought that when she got out of her car and admired the “perfect” parking job, inadvertently behind Mr. Hardy’s rig. Hisdark bluepickup truck that didn’t stick out in the night fog half as well as the neighbor’s red Dodge Ram.
Carrie knocked on the door, pizza box balanced on her hand.
“The cavalry’s here!” she called, ignoring the chill eating through her thin jacket. She direly needed a real winter coat to get her through winter in the PNW, but her Alabaman sensibilities told her to put up with the cold in her usual jacket. Usually, it wasn’t so bad. She spent her time either inside a building or in her car. It wasn’t until she was stuck on somebody’s steps, knocking and yelling, that she realized how freakin’ cold it was in Oregon. “Girl, I know you got a hankerin’ for some pizza. Open this door and try to tell me my experiment ain’t slap your mama good!”
Finally, the door and the screen opened. Leigh-Ann was dressed in nothing but a bath towel thatbarelycovered her torso.Uh, hi! Hello! How are you, honey?Carrie couldn’t hide the grin that instantly warmed her up better than the pizza in her hands.
“What are you yellin’ for?” Leigh-Ann motioned for her girlfriend to get the hell into the trailer. There wasn’t much heat on, but the coziness of a couch, chairs, and pictures on the wall sure beat standing outside in the freezing dark. “Don’t tell me you were ‘fixin’ to break down my door should I have left you out there.”
Leigh-Ann marched back to her room, hand barely holding up that towel. “No, but I reckon I might yank that towel off if you don’t get a move on to put on your PJs. Where you keep the plates, again?”
She got a tongue stuck out at her, but Leigh-Ann didn’t close her bedroom door as she threw on a fleece PJ set covered in bold, red roses. Carrie helped herself to one gratuitous look of her naked girlfriend before hopping into the kitchen and rummaging for utensils.
“Did’ya eat yet?” she called down the hall.
“Not much! Had some Hot Pockets when I got home from school! I’m starving for some pizza.” Leigh-Ann appeared at the corner of the kitchen, her wet hair left drying on her shoulders. “Was afraid you wouldn’t have enough to bring by. How often are my parents out of townanddon’t mind that you’re coming by to keep me company for the night?”
“I’m telling you, it’s the best part about being gay with acceptin’ parents.” Carrie slung some slices onto plastic plates she found in the back of a cabinet. “Even if they know you’re fooling around with their daughter, they tell themselves it’s not as bad as a boy doing it. Not like I’m gonna knock you right up, you know.”
Leigh-Ann scoffed. “More like my parents think this is a phase I’m having. They think you’re a regular ol’ friend. Don’t think they’d be scandalized to know we’re gonna sleep together tonight, but that ain’t on theirradar.”
They took their pizza to the living room, where Carrie admired the small, fake Christmas tree brought out of storage for the season. She took a generous bite of her half-warm pizza. Leigh-Ann got back up from the couch, took her girlfriend’s plate, and announced she was throwing them in the microwave.
“You guys just now put up your tree?” Carrie asked.
Leigh-Ann stood in front of the microwave. “Since you were last here? I guess so. Seems like it’s been up forever to me.”
“Yeah, my aunt just put up ours. Guess my uncle was mad about it because he says it feels like fake Christmas, but my aunt isn’t hearing it. She wants my stupid cousin to have a ‘normal Christmas’ while he’s still under house arrest.” The best part about having a girlfriend – besides the obvious – was the built-in excuse to not be home outside of work and school. Carrie got along with her aunt and uncle well enough, but her cousin Dillon was the definition ofneeds work.The fact he was under legal house arrest after setting fire to a few barns only made tensions higher in the Musgrave house. “Can you believe it? Little twerp doesn’t deserve a Christmas.”
The microwave dinged. “So you’re definitely not going back to Alabama for Christmas?”
Carrie hadn’t missed the smell of pizza, yet here it came for her once again. “Can’t afford it,” she said. “Looks like I’m spending my first Christmas away from home here. Works for me, though. Means I get to see your face Christmas day when you open your present from me.”
Leigh-Ann hesitated before taking a bite of her pizza. “You got me a present?”
Not yet, but that’s neither here nor there.Carrie totally had time left to figure that out. Totally. “Of course I have! And I’m gonna watch you unwrap that thing on Christmas! Although now is the time to tell me if your family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, I guess.” She glanced at the small tree again. “But, you know…”
“Hm?”
