by Sivec, Tara
I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he wanted those things to wrap a present, and not a human, but that was clearly stupid of me.
“You’re a scary little dude, you know that?”
“Why do people keep saying that? Is it the reindeer antlers? It’s the antlers, isn’t it?” Sheldon reaches up and touches the red-and-green antlers perched on top of his bald head before turning and shuffling out into the foyer.
I lean forward on the couch and grab my phone off the carpet by my feet where it landed when Sheldon bent over the back of the couch with his head over my shoulder to give his two cents about my proposal to Tess.
After I set her up with a two-hour massage by a fire, and the rest of the guests left to head over to the other side of the mountain to do some last-minute shopping, I decided to kick back alone in this room filled with a seriously ridiculous number of nutcrackers and call my boys for some advice. They were all hanging out at Wren and Shepherd’s giant mansion for the afternoon while the women went shopping and day-drinking. The guys were only shocked for about ten seconds when I told them that blowjob proposal two months ago wasn’t an accidental slip of the tongue, just because Tess’s tongue was slipping all over my dick at the time and made my heart go pitter-patter.
I mean, it did make my heart go pitter-patter, but my heart does that anytime Tess does anything that involves me, even if it’s just to call me a dickhole for leaving the toilet seat up. But that’s not why I asked her to marry me. I was serious then, and I’m serious now. I thought they could help me come up with some way to get Tess to say yes, but all they’ve done is bombard me with too many ideas. Now my head is spinning worse than the first time I tried edibles and I ate five brownies within a half-hour time span because I thought they weren’t working.
But maybe that’s the point. I’ve been keeping it too simple by just blurting it out when I look at her and feel like I might die if she isn’t with me forever. Even though Tess isn’t your typical woman who likes hearts and flowers, she still deserves a grand, over-the-top proposal she can constantly tell everyone who will listen, just like Birdie. And I’ve just been flinging the question out all willy-nilly like it’s no big deal, and like she doesn’t deserve the absolute best proposal to brag about. A story that doesn’t include my dick in her throat or hippo humping.
“Number eight, have Santa come down—”
“Okay, I think that’s enough ideas for one day,” I cut Shepherd off when I bring the phone back up in front of my face and he’s still reading off Pinterest ideas.
And now Palmer is running and screaming in and out of the frame behind where Shepherd’s holding the phone at his kitchen island, with Murphy screaming and chasing after him.
“You’re really serious about wanting to marry her, aren’t you?” Shepherd asks, bringing the phone closer to his face so I can hear him over the Palmer/Murphy chaos behind him.
“I am, man.” I nod, chuckling when I see Owen pop up from the couch behind Shepherd, and quickly whip two Santa stress balls, nailing Palmer and Murphy both in their faces. Getting serious again and looking back at Shepherd’s handsome mug, I give him a shrug before continuing. “I know it’s old-fashioned, but I still want it. I want to be able to introduce her to people as my wife, I want a joint bank account, I want to send out our Christmas card from The Powells, and—”
“You’re gonna take Tess’s name?” Shepherd chuckles.
“Well, duh. Why should I expect her to change her name? I’m old-fashioned in some ways, but I’m hip with the times in others. Plus, Bodhi Preston Powell has a nice ring to it. And my initials would be BPP,” I inform him, busting a move on the couch as I start singing. “You down with BPP?”
“Yeah, you know me!” Palmer stops smacking away Murphy’s hands long enough to sing back to me, right along with Shepherd.
“Who’s down with BPP?”
“Every last homie!” Palmer and Shepherd sing at the top of their lungs, while Murphy just shakes his head at them.
And this is the second reason why I never want to move away from Tess and Summersweet Island. Where in the world could I ever find bros like these, who are the best damn friends I’ve ever had and will belt out the chorus of a Naughty by Nature song without missing a beat.
“Is that some olden days song I should know? What’s it called? I’ll look it up,” Owen says, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his Nike joggers.
“Well, this should be a fun conversation with his mother when she gets home,” Shepherd chirps brightly, with a tiny bit of fear on his face, before he gives me an encouraging smile. “Just do whatever feels right with Tess. But seriously, I gotta know by at least 1:30 about those sparkly stockings if we want to get them done and to FedEx in time.”
With a laugh and a quick goodbye to everyone, and a promise that we’ll let them know when we get on the road to head back to Summersweet, I try not to feel a little sad that tomorrow will be our last day here. It would have been kind of nice to have a small, quiet Christmas with Tess, since it’s our first one together. But I know she’s been spending the night on Christmas Eve with the Bennetts since the year her grandmother died, and there’s no way she’d want to miss it. At least I get to spend the night with her there and we’ll still be together, even if it will be loud and crazy.
Now, I just need to figure out which one of those ideas that were thrown at me feels right, like Shepherd said.
“Just a few more feet and we’ll be there,” I tell Tess, walking behind her outside in the dark with my hands covering her eyes, so freaking excited I can’t even handle it.
At least it stopped snowing for a little bit and the night sky above us is clear and filled with a billion stars.
“You’re lucky I’m still in a coma from that massage, followed by more napping, followed by eating the best pasta I’ve ever had in my life up in our room while we watched Netflix,” Tess mutters as I continue walking us out through the snow in the backyard of The Redinger House. Our destination is about a hundred yards away from the barn where they show Christmas movies every night. “Two surprises in one day? You’re so lucky I’m in a good mood.”
“I swear it’ll be worth it.”
Stopping right where Jason told me to, I remove my hands from Tess’s eyes and try not to bounce up and down next to her. As soon as I came up with the perfect idea, I knew I couldn’t do it alone, and I hunted down Jason to see if he could help. He was more than eager to assist me, making something I thought would be horribly complicated and impossible into something I’m able to do with just the touch of a button.
I don’t even know why I covered Tess’s eyes to walk her out here. It’s not like she can see everything Jason and I set up earlier in the day when the sun was out and she was napping. We’re far enough away from the house and right at the tree line that it’s almost pitch-black out here, aside from the soft glow of some multicolored Christmas lights lining the big red barn back behind us that let me see just enough while I was guiding Tess through the snow that we didn’t trip and fall.
“I know it’s cold, but I swear we won’t be out here long,” I reassure her, rubbing my hands up and down her black hoodie-covered arms while she rubs her hands together in front of her and bounces her knees a little to keep warm. Sliding one hand in my pocket, I wrap it around the small remote Jason gave me and rest my thumb over the button.
He assured me that everyone would be busy watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation in the barn, as long as we planned this for right around 8:00 p.m., and no one would come out here and see what’s about to happen. I don’t know the first damn thing about electrical wiring or any of that complicated shit, but thankfully Jason does. I took one of Shepherd’s Pinterest ideas and got a little creative with it to make it more Tess, including making sure there isn’t an audience. I think she’ll be much more agreeable without the pressure of a bunch of strangers watching. All we have is Jason, who’s hiding somewhere back behind us by the house, just in case a
nything goes wrong.
I’m going to ask the woman of my dreams to marry me the right way. Absolutely nothing will go wrong, because this was meant to be, and she’s going to fucking love it!
Quickly clearing my throat, I move around Tess to stand in front of her with my back to the long line of luminaries we set up right at the tree line. Each red-and-green bag has its own letter cut out of the front that will spell out Will you marry me, Tess? As soon as I press the button on the remote in my pocket, each bag will light up individually, one-by-one down the line with some sort of electrical charge or some shit Jason set up, which will ignite the small votive candle nestled down in each bag, giving me time to tell Tess everything I love about her before I ask her to marry me. It’s romantic, and it involves a tiny bit of fire, and Tess is going to be so proud of me that I came up with something so grand and over-the-top that she can tell the whole world.
“Tess, I just want to take a minute and say something,” I begin, pausing to take a deep breath, before pressing down on the button in my pocket as I continue. Right now, the luminary with the letter W should be flickering to life with its little candle. I smile down at Tess, wanting to let the rest of the luminary letters slowly ignite behind me before I eventually move out of the way so she can see it all at once. “All I want for the rest of my life is—”
“Fire,” Tess interrupts in more of a bored voice than I would like when I’m professing my undying love and there’s romantic luminaries coming to life behind me.
That she can clearly see now that she’s leaning her body to the side to look around me, dammit!
“No, fire is what you want.” I laugh quietly as I shake my head at her, bolstered by the fact that her eyes are really wide and excited right now as she looks around me and sees my grand romantic gesture. “I actually want to say—”
Tess’s hand comes out and smacks my chest to cut me off this time before pointing behind me.
“No, fire! The woods are on fire!” she repeats as I slowly turn around. “Oooh is this my surprise? Yay!”
When my back is to Tess, I see that there is indeed a fire that is quickly getting out of control. It appears that each and every paper luminary did not gently spark to life with the flick of a button like Jason promised, but burst into a raging paper bag inferno. All of it now engulfing the thirty-foot-long wooden structure Jason insisted on building a couple inches off the ground to set the luminaries on, so the snow wouldn’t get the wiring wet.
“Fuck yeah, we’re burning it all to the ground. This is the best surprise everrr!” Tess shouts, making me laugh at her exuberance as she dances in the snow next to me, even though this is now my third proposal that has gone to shit.
Or maybe not….
“Tess, love of my life, will you marry me?”
She immediately stops dancing in the snow to glare at me, the reflection of the flames in her eyes making her seem a little scarier than normal.
“Fuck off.”
“We wish you’d merry this guy! We wish you’d merry this guy!” I start singing and pointing at myself with my thumbs, willing to try anything at this point.
“Fuck. Off. Now I want s’mores. I’m gonna run to the kitchen before the fun goes out” is her only reply to my singing proposal as she turns to march back into the house, pausing when Jason goes racing by both of us at top speed.
“It’s fine! Everything is fine! Please don’t tell my wife what happened here tonight!” Jason shouts as we watch him run right up to the fire and put it all out within a matter of seconds with the fire extinguisher he came running by with.
“Dammit. Now I don’t get any s’mores,” Tess complains, looking back over her shoulder at me. “But that was still a pretty badass fire. You’re getting an early Christmas blowjob tonight.”
Well, shit. How am I supposed to be sad my plans literally went up in flames now? An early Christmas blowjob sounds like the best kind of blowjob. I always think better after an orgasm anyway.
“Seriously, you guys! Please don’t tell Allie!”
Jason is still shouting back by the smoking embers of my failed marriage proposal as I wrap my arm around Tess’s shoulders, and she wraps her arm around my waist. We trudge back up to the house through the snow, with Tess rattling on and on excitedly about how pretty the fire was, so at least I gave her some kind of fun story to brag to everyone she knows about. I always do like to look on the bright side of things.
After we read our bedtime story and Tess falls asleep, I’ll come up with something even bigger and better that will definitely convince her to say yes.
CHAPTER 8
Tess
“Don’t be elfish.”
“Glad to see I’m not the only one who snorted too much Adderall too close to bedtime.”
My eyes fly up to the doorway of the kitchen when Millie walks in, and I set down the book of matches I’ve been lighting, watching them burn down to my fingers before dropping them into the bowl of water I grabbed when I came in here.
“Uh, no. Just can’t seem to fall asleep.”
“Tess, love of my life, will you marry me?”
Shaking my head to get rid of one of the reasons why I can’t sleep tonight, I see Millie walk the rest of the way into the big farmhouse-style kitchen and take a seat on one of the stools across the island from me.
“One time, I didn’t sleep for six days straight, but I was in a South Korean jail at the time, and it’s impossible to get a good night of rest with all that screaming.”
I just blink a few times at Millie, not sure why I’m even shocked by the things that come out of her mouth. Bodhi has told me plenty of stories about his oldest friend, as well as his own crazy stories from when he was traveling the world. Nothing should surprise me at this point between the two of them, and yet, it still does.
“Why don’t I get us some tea, and you can tell me all about why you’re in here alone at three in the morning huffing sulfur without inviting me.” Millie smiles, making me laugh for the first time since I realized that glorious fire outside earlier was actually supposed to be part of a fucking marriage proposal, and not just for funsies.
A fucking marriage proposal I am really regretting not saying yes to. Oh my God, what is happening to me? For fuck’s sake, Tiny Tim!
“Well, for starters, I’m pretty sure I’m dying of a brain tumor, so that’s been fun.” I shrug, wondering why Bodhi hasn’t pushed me out of a window every time I start humming Chopin’s “Death March” whenever his phone rings.
“I thought I had one of those once.” Millie nods, turning to the side on her stool and crossing her legs. “Turns out it was just a really bad three-day acid trip. But it was super scary there for a little while. We’d like two hot teas with honey, please!”
Slowly glancing back over my shoulder where Millie is currently staring off into space after requesting tea and seeing nothing but the sink area behind me, I turn back around and look at Millie with a tilt of my head. Clearly, she snorted more than Adderall, and now she’s seeing people that aren’t there.
“Millie? What are you doing?” I ask gently in case she’s having some sort of breakdown, which now makes my stupid freak-out seem silly.
“I’m ordering our tea.” She rolls her eyes at me. “I don’t know how it works this late at night when everyone is asleep. I always just ask for things, and people bring them to me. Should I ask louder in case whoever makes the tea can’t hear me?”
It takes thirty seconds and Millie opening her mouth to most likely shout her order this time, before my spinning, sleep-deprived head catches up.
“How about I just make us the tea?”
Turning away from her with a sigh, I walk over to the sink and grab two tea bags out of the basket next to it. Not wanting to dig around in all the cabinets looking for a tea pot, I cheat and use the method I do at SIG when someone wants tea. I run the Keurig machine through two cycles without putting in a pod, and in less than a minute, I have two steaming cups of hot wat
er with tea bags steeping in them. Grabbing the bear-shaped bottle of honey from the counter and two spoons sitting in a jar next to it, I turn and set everything down in the middle of the island between me and Millie.
“Do I tip you, or…?”
“Just drink your tea, Millie,” I tell her as I bring my mug up to my mouth and blow on it, glancing around the kitchen while she squirts half of the honey into hers.
I only got a quick peek at the kitchen when Allie walked me through the house before my massage earlier, and I was too busy playing with fire when I walked in here a half hour ago to pay much attention to my surroundings. Just like the rest of the house that looks like Santa and his elves took a shit all over the place, every inch of the kitchen has been decorated in a pastel pink and green, glittery candy theme that would make Shepherd get down on his knees and weep. There’s a large white Christmas tree in the corner of the room by the kitchen table with sparkly pink-and-green candy ornaments all over it, a Christmas candy village lit up along the tops of all the white kitchen cabinets, white pine garland with pink-and-green lights lining all the cabinets, windows, and the doorway, and sparkly pink-and-green candies hanging down from the ceiling with fishing line, just like the snowflakes I torched at SIG.
But for some reason, I’m not in a torching mood right now, and for the first time in my life, playing with fire didn’t take away any of my problems or make me feel better.
“Tess, love of my life, will you marry me?”
“You look like my mom did that time I told my parents I wasn’t finishing high school because I was going on tour with Jared Leto,” Millie speaks, pulling my eyes away from a glittery, striped sucker hanging above my head to watch her stir her tea, the spoon clanking around the mug. “Want to split a Vicodin and tell me all about it? I’ve been told I’m a very good listener.”