Page 441 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“It’s pretty true,” I said. “You’re always toeing the line, Tinsel. Don’t get me wrong, it’s admirable. I respect the hell out of your work ethic. But,” I paused, and she leaned forward, “sometimes we need someone to give us permission to let our hair down and have a bit of fun.”
She scoffed. “Is that what you’re trying to do? Give me permission?”
“I’m trying to let you off the hook you hung yourself on ages ago.”
She licked her lips. “I’m aware that I can be a little… uptight. But I’m okay with that. I like my work and my life. I’m sure there’s room to have a bit more fun here and there, but I really wouldn’t want to change anything.”
A little bit of fun here and there.
What about a little bit of fun here and now?
Tinsely rested her head back against the edge of the hot tub and gazed up at the sky—or rather, toward the sky. The snowflakes were too fluffy and dense to see through. She opened her mouth and caught several on her tongue with a soft giggle that sounded prettier to me than the Christmas music playing nearby.
“I used to make snow angels in the front yard of my childhood home,” she said, still gazing up into the snowy night. “I’d lay on my back for ages looking up at the sky like this, wondering where it all came from and why adults never wanted to play in it. You know, I’ve never thought about it until now, but I wonder how old I was the last time I did that.”
“I used to steal my father’s clothes to keep the snowmen I made at the estate warm.”
That comment stole her attention from the sky.
She smiled at me. “The expensive ones, I assume?”
“Exclusively. My snowmen deserved the best, and my mother agreed. When my father first caught me, he was angry, and he took the scarf and his hat and his gloves and brought them back inside, asking my mother to help him dry them. She scolded him. She was good at that. She set him straight and sent him right back outside to put everything back as he found it, telling him we had enough money for me to dress up an army of snowmen if I so pleased. She always had my back. His, too.”
Tinsely shifted closer in the water. “You must really miss her.”
It was my turn to stare up into the night. I thought of my mother and how the house always smelled like cinnamon before she died and how a day never passed where she didn’t run her fingers through my hair and tell me she loved me, even after I’d become a man.
“I think about her every day,” I said. “I owe everything I am to her.”
“I met her at one of our office Christmas parties, you know.”
“You did?”
Tinsely nodded and smiled at the memory. “Yes, I dressed even more conservatively back then, and she thought I was part of the catering staff. She asked me to top off her wine.”
“She didn’t.”
“She did, and she was sweet about it. I brought her a fresh glass and she complimented my shoes. She was just being nice. In hindsight, they were terrible shoes.”
I finished my wine and set it aside. Tinsely’s glass joined mine as I spoke. “When was the last time you saw your folks?”
She hesitated before answering. “Last Christmas, actually.”
“That’s a long time.”
She waved her arms through the water, disturbing the bubbles from the jets. “Sometimes it feels that way. Other times it feels like it hasn’t been long enough.”
“That rough, huh?”
“We just don’t get each other. Every conversation we try to have leads to misunderstanding, which leads to arguments, which leads to them making me feel like I’m going crazy. They’re always telling me how things would be better if I came around more, if I did this, if I did that. I realized a long time ago that it wasn’t my responsibility to make them happy. They have to figure out how to do that on their own while I worry about making myself happy.”
“And are you? Happy?”
She searched my eyes. “I like to think so. Are you?”
“Sometimes.”
She watched me as I slid off my seat and went to my knees in the middle of the hot tub.
