Christmas Catch

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  But I get up and he sits down and pats his lap. I give him a look that means, “No funny business” before I sit down next to/on top of him.

  “Does everyone have everything they need?” One of the minions calls for more whipped cream, so Mom brings that. It’s unlikely that they’ll sit still for this whole movie. It’s also Christmas Eve and they’re all hopped up about Santa.

  “Should I tell them that Santa is an anagram of Satan?” Sawyer whispers in my ear.

  “Sure, if you want to crush their sweet little souls,” I respond. He laughs softly, and it tickles.

  I shift a little, and find the exact right place to lie against Sawyer. I’ve done this enough times to know right where I fit. Another time warp.

  Sawyer waits for me to adjust and then nudges me with his shoulder to sit up so he can put his arm around me. I let him get away with it because protesting won’t get me anywhere. Besides, it’s more comfy this way.

  The wine is making me sleepy and I’m all warm, and it’s like my body is associates Sawyer with being comfortable. I’ve never been as relaxed with another human as I am with him. Not even Allison.

  His hand starts playing with my hair, and I’m not even sure if he’s aware that he’s doing it. When we were kids, he used to tug on my curls, but then it transformed into him playing with them, wrapping them around his fingers, pulling them and watching them spring back. I never knew my hair could be that amusing.

  There are no comments allowed during the viewing of the movie, per my mother. Anyone caught talking or making comments will be given the hairy eyeball and sent to bed without supper. This includes the kids, who are busy stuffing their faces with pumpkin seeds and popcorn.

  Sawyer makes a comment about Jimmy Stewart and I shush him. He knows the rules.

  As the movie rolls on and George Bailey decides that suicide is the best method of getting out of losing a bunch of money, I get more tired and let my eyes close while Sawyer’s hands continue to run through my hair.

  “Merry Christmas, Poison.” A voice says, waking me up. My eyes open and it takes a second to remember where I am. Not on the recliner, that’s for sure.

  “You fell asleep,” Sawyer says in explanation. We’re in my room, and it’s dark and quiet.

  “What time is it?”

  “Just after midnight. Wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas. Look outside.” I sit up and peer out the window and see that there are about two inches of white covering everything and more is falling.

  “Why are you still here?” I’m not trying to be rude.

  “I took Mom home and came back. She was tired, so she went to bed and I didn’t want to sit at home alone. You’ve never complained about me sneaking into your room before.” That is true, and he’s done it more times than I can count.

  I get up and stretch.

  “Stupid wine,” I say.

  “You could never hold your wine. Glad to see that hasn’t changed.”

  Not much has changed. The more time I spend with him, the more I realize that. They say time heals, but time doesn’t make you forget.

  “What did you get me?”

  “Well, that’s another reason I’m here. Your present is something that we’re going to be doing in just a few hours. Do you think you can sneak out and get back before your parents notice? I don’t want to kidnap you from your family celebration.”

  “No, I think we’ll be fine. Drew and Stacy are doing their family thing in the morning and then they’re coming over. The only ones who get up early are the kids, but they aren’t here.” Thank God. I don’t know if I could deal with that.

  “Perfect. Well, I’ll let you get back to sleep.” He goes for the door, but I don’t want him to be all alone.

  “Wait. You can stay.” He turns and I can’t read his expression in the dark.

  “Are you sure?”

  “It makes me sad to think of you being alone.”

  “Yeah.” Sometimes the things you want to say don’t need to be said. They’re just . . . understood.

  Sawyer comes back and takes his jacket off and sets it on the floor. I get up and find my pajamas. He turns his back and I change quickly in the small space. He takes his shirt off over his head, and then hesitates before taking his pants off.

  “I’ve seen it before, Sawyer. It’s not going to shock me.” I pull the blankets back and wait for him to get in. He always slept on the wall side, with me on the outside.

  He gets in and I get in after him, pulling the covers over both of us.

  The last time we slept like this, neither of us was wearing anything.

  My body blazes with awareness of him. He’s kind of impossible to ignore, since the bed is so small, and I’ve been in it with him so many times. His arm goes around me and pulls me into his chest. I shift so I fit in the right place. Sawyer makes a little sound in his throat.

  “Goodnight,” I say, but I don’t close my eyes.

  Sawyer’s arm tightens around me and his breathing starts getting a little harsh. I also feel his pounding heart on my back.

  And something else, a little lower down . . .

  Sawyer tries to shift and move away from me to hide his hard-on, but there’s really no place for him to go. He’s squirming and it’s just getting worse and I have to make a decision. Ignore it, get mad at him, or do something about it.

  I choose the last thing. Reaching behind me, I find the bulge in his boxers and stroke it. His breath stops as I remove my hand and then turn over to face him.

  “That’s not my present, is it?” I whisper as his eyes glow through the darkness.

  “No. It’s not. But you can unwrap it anyway. If you want.”

  “Okay.” It’s only one word, but it breaks the barrier I’ve been putting between the memories and the present. It almost shatters like glass and everything rushes forward and then I’m kissing him. But this time I’m not stopping. My hands are busy too, racing all over his body, touching all the places I remember so well. His are going through my hair and then are tugging at my shirt until it’s off and on the floor. He doesn’t ask me if I’m sure. He doesn’t ask me to slow down. He doesn’t have to. He knows.

  I don’t care that I’m leaving and he’s staying. I don’t care that my parents are not that far away. I don’t care about anything but his body and mine and what they can do together.

  Both of us make little desperate sounds as the rest of our clothes hit the floor. His lips leave my mouth and move down my neck and then down further. He knows exactly what I like and where I like it. Learning had been fun when we were younger, but being sure is something else altogether. His mouth goes first to one nipple and then the other, giving them equal attention as I arch my back. He rolls us so I’m on my back and then kisses his way down my stomach, dipping his tongue into my bellybutton, which makes the ache in my core intensify. He’d discovered that was one of the “buttons” he could push that would send me over the edge.

  I moan and he moves even lower and I regret the fact that I’ve stopped grooming down there because I didn’t see much of a point, but Sawyer doesn’t seem to care as he closes his mouth over my clit. One of the fabulous things about Sawyer is that he isn’t afraid to do anything like that. Allison had told me about her first boyfriend who would thrust a few times, give her a kiss and call it good. Sawyer was always concerned with me enjoying myself as much as he did, and it appears he still is.

  “Oh, Sawyer,” I moan as he sucks on my clit and then plunges one of his fingers into me. I can totally take the credit for teaching him how to do this. He moves just how I want him to, adding a second finger to the first and increasing the pressure on my clit and driving me over the edge, first once and then a second time. My body is complete jelly as he crawls back upward. We’ve barely said anything, almost as if talking will burst the bubble we’re in. I would work on him with my hands and my mouth, but I don’t think there’s time.

  I also don’t think there’s time for protection, and part of me want
s to say, “fuck it,” and take the risk, but my common sense tells me that’s not the best idea.

  Sawyer’s arms are shaking as he holds himself over me. Then I remember that I probably still have some leftover in the drawer of the tiny table beside my bed. From last time. Hopefully they haven’t expired. Not sure how long those suckers last, but I reach behind me and pull one out, holding it up so he can see it.

  “Oh thank God,” he says as I tear it open and hand it to him so he can roll it on. As soon as that sucker is on, he’s positioning himself and then he’s inside me with one hard thrust that pushes me into the mattress.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sawyer says, closing his eyes before he pulls back and thrusts again. He picks up my legs and throws them over his shoulders so he can get deep. I remember the first time we tried this position and I wonder if he does. He picks up the pace and I thrust my hips up to meet him as we both drive each other over the edge again. I’ve got so much pent up that I come again, tightening around him and he comes too, much quicker than we have in the past.

  He exhales and his arms shake as he lowers my legs and then himself on top of me. Both of us are covered in sweat and I have to catch my breath. He moves us so that we’re facing each other. With one hand, he pushes some of my hair back.

  “Merry Christmas,” he says and gives me a soft sweet kiss.

  “Merry . . . Christmas,” I say, punctuating each word with a kiss. Who needs mistletoe?

  Sawyer and I wish each other “Merry Christmas” for the rest of the night, stopping only when we’re absolutely exhausted. We have a lot of time to make up for, it appears.

  God I forgot how much I missed sex. I’d thought about having a fling with a random guy just to get off, but I could never go through with it. He’d do something and I’d realize he wasn’t Sawyer and then I didn’t find him attractive at all. None of them were him.

  “I missed you, but I missed this, too,” he says as the dawn light starts to creep into the room. It’s almost time for us to sneak out for my surprise and we’ve barely gotten any sleep. I don’t mind.

  “I missed you. And your cock.” He groans when I say the last word. I’d learned early on when we’d started having sex that saying that turned him on. I wasn’t fond of the word, but I liked getting him going.

  “You’re asking for it, Poison.”

  “Bring it on, McCallister.” He growls and throws me on my back, but I put my hand to his mouth to shut him up.

  “I heard a noise,” I say, straining to listen. Sawyer freezes and listens as well.

  There’s a sound like a chainsaw being revved and then it stops. Just Dad snoring. Nothing to panic about.

  Sawyer presses his forehead against mine and chuckles.

  “Close.”

  “Very close,” I say, and then we’re getting really close. Again.

  “As much as I would love to stay like this with you all day, your surprise is waiting,” Sawyer says a while later. I don’t think I can move, but he gets up and finds some clothes out of my drawer and tosses them to me. Leggings, my thickest jeans, a tank top, flannel shirt, sweater and two pairs of thick socks. Then he goes to my closet and pulls out my warmest fleece-lined boots.

  What the hell are we doing that I would need to bundle up that much for? I’m wildly curious. But he won’t tell me a word as I get dressed. By the time I’m done, I’m sweating again and I feel like I’m being suffocated.

  “You’ll thank me, I swear.”

  At least I’m warm when we get back in his truck after brushing off the several inches of snow that cover it. Luckily, it was the fluffy kind so we didn’t have to spend forever scraping off the windshield.

  “We have to make one more stop before you get your present.”

  “The suspense is killing me,” I say, tugging at my clothes. It’s like wearing a sauna.

  “Don’t die yet, Poison. Not until your surprise.”

  “If the suspense doesn’t kill me, the heat might.” I fan myself, but it’s no use. I roll down the window and suck some of the cold air into my lungs. Ah. Better.

  Sawyer grumbles at me, but I don’t care. This is my present. He’ll get his later.

  The quick stop we have to make is at his house, for him to bundle up as much as I am and to grab some things that he throws in the back of the truck, after making me close my eyes so I won’t know.

  We drive real slow down to the Lobster Pound. I’ve been here a few times, but not in a very long time. It’s absolutely empty, so he drives through the parking lot and actually onto the dock.

  “What are we doing?” I say as he parks and turns the truck off.

  “Come with me,” he says and we both get out. He goes to the back of the truck and gets out two sets of waders and matching jackets. They’re made of rubber, for fishermen to protect their clothes from getting wet, with boots attached to the waders. I put mine on over my clothes. Sawyer made sure to get ones big enough to fit over my extra layers. Once I have them on, he plunks a matching hat on my head and gets dressed himself. We’re brilliant orange from head to foot, and I’ve never felt like more of a dork.

  “You look adorable,” he says in response to my pout. And then he makes me pose for pictures that he takes with his phone.

  “I want to remember this.”

  Yeah, me too.

  We walk down the dock and he helps me down a ladder and into a dinghy. This can only mean one thing. He starts up the motor and we go just a little ways out and stop right beside a lobster boat called Melyer.

  “It’s for Melanie and Sawyer. This was my Dad’s boat,” he says, pulling me aboard. I’ve never been on a lobster boat before, despite growing up in this town. So many of my classmates worked on them in the summers to earn cash, but there was no way in hell I was going to do that. I would rather have sold my organs.

  But this is different. Sawyer starts the boat up and takes the helm. Is it called the helm on a lobster boat? I have no idea. Apparently, I know nothing about boats.

  But Sawyer does. He’s confident as he steers the boat out of the harbor and into the open ocean, increasing the speed. I stand next to him, watching him as he handles it like he was born to it.

  Very sexy.

  Morning fog hangs over the ocean, but the sun is starting to rise and burn it off. It’s absolutely magical. Sawyer slows the boat and then stops it. All I can see is ocean. The only sound is the waves lapping against the sides of the boat.

  “Wow,” I whisper, not wanting to shatter the calm.

  “This is your present. I wanted you to see what you’ve been missing while you’ve been at Columbia.” He turns and goes to sit on the side of the boat where there’s a bench to stack the traps. I go and sit beside him.

  He’s right, it is cold out here, and I’m glad he made me put on the extra gear so my clothes don’t get wet. Fine way to get hypothermia.

  “After . . . After everything happened with Dad, I came out here almost every day. Mostly during off times when none of the other boats were out. I needed the calm and the solitude. I never told anyone that I was doing it, and no one ever asked or bothered me about it when I would disappear. I could . . . think out here. Like you with your parking spot.” I smile at him and move closer so he can put his arm around me. The cold smell of the ocean can’t cut through his natural Sawyer smell, and he kisses my forehead.

  “I thought about you out here. So many times. I know this is all happening so fast, but . . . I can’t lose you again, Ivy.” He holds my face so I can’t look away from his eyes as he says it.

  “I don’t know how it could work, but I want to try. I want to fight. I was a coward last time, but I’m not anymore. If losing my dad has taught me anything, it’s that you have to hold onto who you care about while you have them, because they could be gone in an instant. I’m not asking for the world. I’m just asking for a second chance.” His words aren’t rehearsed, but I can tell that he’s thought about them hundreds of times before. So have I. His eyes plead with
me to give him an answer.

  “I’ve thought about you too. I think about you, all the time. Everything reminds me of you. I always thought about asking Mom for news, or looking you up online. When I left, the only thing I was really devastated to leave behind was you.” I put my hand up and hold his face. It’s wet from the sea spray, and I bet if kissed him right now, he’d taste of the ocean.

  “This is the best present I’ve gotten, Sawyer. I love it and . . . I love you. I never stopped. Never for a single second. I carried it with me when I left and I brought it back. I tried to get rid of you, but I couldn’t. You’re too much a part of me.” I’ve never said any of this out loud. Not even when we were together. I didn’t have to say it, we both just knew.

  “And you’re a part of me and I love you.”

  Our dual declaration makes us both smile and Sawyer picks me up and kisses me.

  He tastes like the ocean.

  I don’t start panicking about how our relationship is going to work like I thought I would. Instead, I bask in the fact that Sawyer’s hand is in mine and when I go back to my house, he’s coming with me and we will keep holding hands.

  “Is there any mistletoe in your house?” he asks as we park back in my driveway. When we left the house I was sweating, but now I’m freezing. And starving. And I REALLY need coffee. I grumbled at Sawyer about that not being part of his plan, but he said he was so nervous he forgot that part.

  I forgave him.

  “Uh no. But there should be. Not that we need it to kiss. I’m sure Mom is going to cry when we tell her. Like, actual tears. And my mother doesn’t cry in front of people.”

  We hold hands and enter the house. Oops.

  “Well, look who decided to make an appearance,” Mom says, glaring, but when she sees our joined hands, the cup of coffee she’d been holding crashes to the floor.

  “What the hell?” Dad says, staring at the cup. Mom just runs over and envelops Sawyer and me in the huggiest of hugs.