Page 95 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas
I sat, observing the chaos of Christmas Day. Everyone had eaten breakfast in their own cabins, mostly because all of usadults had been busy packing the biggest sitting room in the main cabin with all the presents.
Playing Santa was never an easy affair, but this was next level because of the sheer number of presents. With a little over two dozen kids and teenagers who were all eager to unwrap their gifts, that presented its own challenge beyond everyone else’s presents.
It had taken a couple of generations, but we’d figured out a process where no one person was expected to get a gift for everyone. Frankly, that would be beyond most of our budgets and require tapping into the pack fund in an unsustainable way, but everyone was expected to get anywhere from ten to thirty presents for different people. Not huge things, like gaming systems and jewelry, but small stuff so everyone knew they were being thought of. Things like art supplies or playdoh for kids, maybe a Barbie or frisbee; candles or crafting supplies for adults; trinkets and doo-dads, and occasionally something for the kitchen.
Lastly, were the gifts meant for immediate family members I’d bought gifts for Addy, Eva, and Max. I wished the gift I’d gotten for Max hadn’t been so last-minute, but I’d done well given the time crunch. At least, I hoped so. It was always tricky getting gifts for another person’s kid, because you didn’t want to overstep or accidentally buy a duplicate, and you definitely didn’t want to set up unrealistic expectations for the next year.
Granted, if things went well, we’d be celebrating again in twelve months.
Holy shit,I mused to myself as I watched kids pace back and forth in front of the gifts, each of them like apex predators trying to catch a glimpse of their prey. It certainly lent credence to all of them being bear shifters. Well, bear shifters, and one amazing human boy.
Never, and I meant never, in a million years did I think our family would be integrating a human woman and her child into our fold, but Jeannie and I didn’t even have a chance to get to our cabins on our hike back before people were congratulating us, some with knowing winks and nudges, some with murmurs, and some even who ignored me and were already trying to set up visits for Jeannie and her son to come to dinner.
We weresupposedto be a secret, magical race, but Southern hospitality was a far greater compulsion for us than protection. Then again, I’d never met a Creole person who didn’t want to feed someone who was hungry.
And I guessed they could sense just as much as I did just how hungry Max and Jeannie were. Not for food—although we had that in spades—but for community. For camaraderie. For people who understood them in a way that was so hard to find. While I was surprised at how easily the two had seamlessly blended into our combined clan, it also filled me with pride. Shifter history was littered with stupid wars about things like territory, alphas, inter-pack marriages—you name it, and shifters would fight about it. But over the past few days, I’d gotten to see all the ways our clan was defying that history. We were healing the trauma that went back millennia.
Zara would have been so proud.
“Merry Christmas, Remington!”
“Merry Christmas, Uncle!” I called back, looking up from my contemplation to see one of the older men in our clan who hadn’t quite reached elder status, but was getting on there in years. “And many more!”
“From yer mouth to God’s ears! But I came over here becausemo l’amourheard about your guests a little late, so she been rushin’ to crochet these for them.” Reaching into the bag at his hip, he passed me a hastily wrapped shoebox. “She just finished in the wee hours this mornin’ and done asked me to deliver ’em.Would’ja mind puttin’ ’em wherever the rest are fer yer family? ’Fraid I left my glasses behind. Still getting used to needin’ them, ya know?”
“I understand.” Although I wasn’t anywhere close to old by shifter standards, I knew what it was like to transition from one phase of life to the next. Life after thirty for a bear was a lot different to that of a human’s but there were still enough changes that I had definitely noticed them. Maybe I hadn’t accepted them yet, but I had noticed them. “Thank you so much for doing this. You didn’t have to.”
“You know how my Lucille gets. Ain’t no hands or neck that’s gonna be cold on her watch, no siree.”
“Give her my thanks, would you?”
“Weh,I’ll make sure to. You enjoy yourself now. Word on the grapevine is that this guest of yours, she’s a bit special?”
I knew what he was asking, but there was no harm in playing a little dumb. “Aye, I’d argue that Jeannie isveryspecial. As is Max.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I felt like a teenager gettinga lookfor being a bit snarky. Not that I wasevera smart aleck, heaven forbid. No, I was alwaysperfectlybehaved.
Heh.
“You know what I mean now.”
I tried and failed to hide the grin spreading across my lips. “Yeah, she’s special to me. But it’s new. We’re seeing where it goes. For now, it’s nice to have each other for the holidays.”
“I getcha, I getcha. Just so you know, this ain’t the first cross-species match I done seen in my life. As long as you put the work in, they’re not much different.”
“Thank you for that advice, Uncle. I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.”
“Ay, but not too much, Remington. You always did like to get in that head of yours. Just keep it in the background, ya dig?”
“Yeah, I dig.”
“A’ight. Well, I’m gon’ get back to my Lucille. Sixty years, and she still ain’t tired of me.”
With that, he walked off, leaving me to ignore exactly what he said and get far too deep within my own thoughts for a holiday celebration. But how could I not? My gaze slid over to where Jeannie was surrounded by a circle of quiet young children, all of them paying rapt attention as she and Max put on a dramatic reading ofA Christmas Carol. I got the feeling that it was a bit above the literacy level of most of the kiddos and they were just enjoying the animated performance, but as long as everyone was having fun, what did it matter?
It was difficult not to feel like I’d stumbled into a wonderful dream as I watched Jeannie tilt her head back and laugh when Eva chimed in during certain scenes to help Max.
Was this what Zara had meant? It was a real shame that I had misunderstood it all these months. She hadn’t been asking me to pretend everything was all right and that I didn’t have an open wound inside me, but she had wanted me to be open to happiness if it happened to knock on my door. I still wasn’t sure if I was ready for a full-fledged relationship, but I did want to date Jeannie Wolfe and not have any regrets about it.
