“We do not.”
“Anyway, we’ll get out of your hair,” Lois said, pretending not to have heard him as she pushed him away.
“He does not have hair, Lois, now who is being rude?” Zir complained, taking her hands from his ribs and moving them so her arms were wrapped around him instead.
“I remember them,” Maggie said, leaning into Ro. “They were one of the first mixed couples at DETI. I heard about them before you even arrived. It’s crazy how things change isn’t it? That was barely two years ago.” Her hand found and held his.
He ran his claw along her cheekbone. “Are you getting tired, love?”
She blew out a breath, but smiled. “It’s just a lot, but I’m okay. Better than last year now I’m not stressing over you.” She twisted to bump her hip into his.
She probably expected him to return her smile, but instead the opposite happened, he frowned. “I’m sorry you were stressed about me. You didn’t have to be. I was mad about you.”
“I know, sweetie.” She went onto her toes to kiss him quickly. “It’s just how humans do it. We always overthink the important things.” She stroked his chest, just in case he didn’t understand that he was the important thing in question. He did, and smiled to reassure her. “It’s so much better doing this party with you. It’s like I get to have fun too instead of just making sure everyone else has fun.” She winced. “Is that mean?”
He stroked her hair. “No. You work so hard to organise all of this, you deserve to have fun.” He let his chest swell a little. “And if I’m what you need to do that, I’ll stay by your side all night.”
He bent to kiss her, and when a slow dance started, she led him onto the dancefloor.
It was getting late in the evening now, and the party would probably only last for another hour or so. The only people still dancing were drunk, and they weren’t interested in a slow dance. Apart from them, there were a handful of couples obviously in the process of hooking up, mouths locked together and hands wandering. Khy sat with Anna on his lap at one of the tables, eating from her hand as she passed him squares of cheese and melon. Lois and Zir were stood at the end of the catering table, deep in conversation.
Ro knew that even after everyone else had left, his night would not be over. He would have to help Maggie clear up. He remembered the year before, when she had done it barefoot because her high-heeled shoes hurt, and pulled her closer into his body as if he could relive the moment of their first dance and maybe do things differently, so he never hurt her, so he knew right away what they could be. He would kiss her and tell her how much he adored her and needed her. He would have more confidence in himself, and be honest with her from the start. But if starting over meant he lost a single day, a single moment with her, then he wouldn’t do it. He was too happy with what he had.
He remembered it so vividly. They wore the same clothes. The floor was sticky. And yet everything was so different. He wasn’t shy around her anymore, nor was she around him. They lived together. He had spent days and nights locked between her legs, inside her. She loved him. They loved each other.
It seemed funny to him, that for a human, the height of a relationship was three little words. It didn’t seem like enough, so easy to say. He felt as if he should have to conquer some foe, survive some trial, something with blood. Instead all he could do, all she wanted, was for him to press his cheek to hers and say “I do love you, Maggie. You know that, don’t you?”
She pulled back just enough to see his face and laid her hand against his cheek. “Of course I do. I love you, too.”
Maybe he did understand it a little. He wouldn’t want her to have to do anything dangerous to become his mate, not when he was so eager to give her that. The words were enough for him. It was a vow they made to each other, they didn’t need permission from others.
Everything else faded away. He didn’t see the other couples, the messy tables of spilled food and drink. He didn’t hear the music, and was only barely aware of the decorations as a canopy of twinkling lights serving as a background. They turned together slowly, dancing as she called it, and all he could see was Maggie, his present and his future, his beautiful mate, and the woman who had changed his life.
Was this how she felt when she looked into his eyes? Utterly captivated, entranced, and yet serene. He was as caught by her as by a trap, and there was nowhere he’d rather be.
The slow song ended and Maggie moved to pull away from him, but he tightened his arms around her and she relaxed against him again. Who cared if the dancers around them were dancing to a different beat? If they were making a spectacle of themselves? Everyone knew they were together, and the few people left were drunk. If anyone noticed, Ro doubted they’d have anything to say about it, and if they did, he’d be happy to show them his opinion on the matter.
Eventually though, someone touched Maggie on the shoulder to say their goodbyes, and he had to let her go. She hugged them and thanked them for coming. It seemed the party had reached its end. Other guests were gathering their coats and heading for the door.
“Everyone’s leaving,” Maggie said.
Ro put his arm around her waist and tucked her head under his chin. “It’s late.”
She leaned back against him. “Time to clean up, I guess.”
“You sound sad. Did you not enjoy it?”
“I did, but it’s always a little sad, isn’t it? The end of a party? It’s all over until next year now.”
“You still have actual Christmas to look forward to,” he pointed out.
She smiled, and slid her hand along his where it covered her stomach. “Yeah…” she sighed, looking up at him with half-lidded eyes, suggesting maybe it wasn’t Christmas she was looking forward to so much as Christmas with him.
“Let’s clean up and go home,” he said, breaking away from her, suddenly eager to be alone with her in their basement bedroom where he felt like she was all his.
4
They were both exhausted when he finally unlocked the door and flicked the lights on in their little house. They put the bags of decorations and left over food down in the hall to be unpacked tomorrow. Maggie kicked off her red heels with dull thunks, clinging to his arm for balance. She took the clip out of her hair and shook it out, running her fingers through it with a sigh.
“I need to take this make-up off,” she said, heading for the bathroom.
Ro hummed to let her know he’d heard her, then trudged to the basement, ready to fall into bed. He stopped at his little cupboard bathroom to take his lenses out, then went the rest of the way squinting with one hand over his eyes.
Once he was safely in the dark, he sighed and stripped off his clothes, glad to be rid of them at the end of the day. He pulled on a pair of his shorts, switched on the fairy lights that ringed the stair bannister for Maggie, then lay on the bed to wait for her. He heard the light-switch upstairs click, and then the door to the basement open and close. The light provided by the fairy lights was dim enough that it only hurt Ro’s eyes if he looked straight at them, but it wasn’t bright enough for Maggie to see to do much. It showed her where the stairs were, and while they often suggested other solutions, neither of them had got round to doing anything about it.
He watched as she walked past the end of the bed, stopping to unzip her dress and let it fall to the floor. She unhooked her bra and let that drop too, then collected her pyjamas from her pillow and pulled them on. Ro didn’t complain about how they hid her delectable plump body from him this time.
Maggie’s last stop was to turn off the fairy lights, and then she was feeling her way to the bed.
She giggled. “I can see you watching me.” She’d said it before, but it seemed that his glowing eyes and colours never got old for her. “And I can tell you’re smiling because your moons are bending.”
She used him to orient herself, crawling over his legs to her side of the bed. Once she was under the covers, he reached for her, pulling her against his chest and snuggling
up to her. Her body felt different like this than it did at the party, softer without the structure of her bra and dress. He liked the way her breast rested against his wrist through the flannel.
“Tired?” he murmured.
“Mmm…”
“Do your feet hurt?”
She smiled. “A little, but it’s fine.”
“It was a good party,” he whispered, wanting to compliment her hard work.
“It was, wasn’t it?”
They didn’t have to go to work again until after Christmas, but they would go in for a few hours in the morning to finish putting the conference room back in order. Then they would have nothing to do but go home and enjoy each other’s company. They already had the tree decorated upstairs. Maggie had pinned over-sized red socks to the stairs, as the house lacked a fireplace. She hadn’t hesitated to introduce him to eggnog and warm cider. Maybe they would make sugar cookies and gingerbread. They could stay in their pyjamas all day and watch movies with snow in them. It wouldn’t snow in San Diego, but that was no reason why they couldn’t go for walks in the park and feed the ducks. There was an ice-rink, but Ro’s feet were not suited to it, not when he sometimes found walking on polished marble a challenge. Still, he could wear a scarf and pretend.
“I’m looking forward to Christmas now,” Maggie said, readjusting her head on the pillow. “Are you?”
“Yes.” He used the point of a claw to pull her hair back from her shoulder, baring her neck to him so he could press his lips to it. “Very much so.”
“I’m glad it’s just going to be us.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah… Family can be a lot at the holidays. It’s nice to see them but…” She rolled in his arms to look into his eyes. “I don’t want to share you with them. I want to have you all to myself for Christmas.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, why? Does that surprise you?”
“I just thought… You were being careful. That you don’t want them to see, if I make a mistake and embarrass you.”
“Ro, no! You’d never embarrass me! And my family wouldn’t care either. It’s just that Christmas is for the people you love and I love you the most… My family have got every other Christmas out of me, this one is just for us. I’m being selfish this year, and doing things my way, instead of theirs. If we went to their house, we’d be surrounded, and I want a nice, quiet, private Christmas. It’ll be perfect, as long as it’s just you and me.” She hugged him closer, burrowing into his chest.
He hadn’t thought of it that way. It hadn’t occurred to him that Maggie thought being alone with him was better than being with her family. It was how he felt about her, as if he didn’t need anyone else for the rest of his life, but he didn’t see how he could be enough for her. He knew she loved him, of course, but… He’d just have to keep working on it.
He kissed the top of her head. “That sounds nice. I’m sorry I thought otherwise.”
“It’s alright.”
“I think that sounds perfect too.”
“Good,” she replied with a content hum.
“Are you going to sleep?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“Goodnight, Maggie.”
“Goodnight, Ro. Sleep well.”
“I will,” he promised her, and something in his voice made her laugh, a silent chuckle that shook her in his arms.
****
On Christmas Eve, they sat in the living room with the tree lights on and the curtains open, the world black outside except for lights in windows and yard decorations that flickered and refracted in the glass, mixing with the reflection of their own, like dancing stars.
Ro was sure the sofa was going to carry a permanent dent from his body. He had a bottle of wine on the floor next to him, along with a mug which had held eggnog, and a small plate dusted with sugar and crumbs. Maggie was slumped into his side, warm and soft in her pyjamas and slippers with rabbit ears. They’d been watching TV for hours, a string of melodramatic, formulaically heart-warming Christmas specials of all their shows. Ro had become ridiculously invested in the stories of these humans who just wanted to find love like he had. If there was a blank spot in the scheduling with nothing either of them wanted to watch, Maggie had played him her recordings of what she called ‘period dramas’, stories set hundreds of years ago in human history, when love seemed to be frowned upon, and women weren’t allowed to have jobs of their own. He found them strange at first, but as Maggie explained it to him, he quickly started rooting for the couple who couldn’t speak of their love openly but seemed to feel it all the deeper because of it.
It was getting late, and Maggie wanted to go to bed before midnight so it would still be Christmas Eve, and the first she would know of Christmas would be waking up on the day, as it should be, she said. So at eleven, she heaved herself out of the burrow they had dug into the sofa.
“Close your eyes, Santa is coming,” she said, leaving the room.
“You told me Santa isn’t real,” he replied, feeling an ominous twinge of fear. They didn’t have a chimney, he reminded himself. They were safe.
She stuck her head back in. “On Christmas Eve, we humour the concept of Santa,” she said. She stared at him until he sighed and covered his eyes.
He listened to her hurry away. There was some rustling, which he identified as the stockings in the hall, then she came back into the room and there were some more papery sounds by the tree.
He peeked, peering through a gap in his fingers.
Maggie was on her knees, arranging presents around the few they had got from Kez and Bia. Maggie’s family were bringing their gifts with them. As she turned, he quickly shut his eyes and fingers again.
“There, you can look now.”
He brought his hands down and smiled. “I see Santa has come.”
“Yep, he has. You just missed him.”
Maggie walked back to the sofa as if she would retake her place beside him, but he stood up, stopping her. “I think he’s coming back, one minute.”
He went and retrieved the presents he had bought for Maggie and hidden in his bathroom. It had been a nerve-wracking experience, buying presents for her. He had bought presents for her birthday, but apart from that, it had been things that she had seen when they were out together and pointed out to him, so he could buy them on the spur of the moment. He hadn’t done a Christmas with her before. He hadn’t known how many presents to get, but he reasoned that too many was better than too few. Maggie had explained to him the difference between gifts that go in stockings and gifts that go under the tree when he’d asked, so he put the smaller, cheaper gifts into the big red sock with her name on it.
The rest he carried to the tree, piling them up with the others. There was one gift that confused him, because it was small, but definitely not cheap. He put it under the tree, but he wanted to give it to her himself. He would just have to pay attention and make sure she didn’t open it too soon.
“There. Santa has finished now I think.”
Maggie giggled and stood next to him, putting her arm around his waist. “So he has. Thanks, Santa.” She kissed his cheek. “We should go to bed.”
“Okay.”
She turned off the tree lights and drew the curtains.
Later, when Maggie snuggled up to him under the covers and he opened his arms to her, he was excited for her to open his presents the following morning and, if he was being honest, a little excited to see what she got him. He thought he understood Christmas a bit better now. In many ways, it was just like any other night. They slept in the same bed they always did. Yet there was an air of anticipation. Maybe Christmas was only as big as the humans chose to make it but… He wanted to do Christmas with Maggie. He wanted to see her enjoy it, he wanted to see her excitement. He hoped she would smile at what he had bought for her. Weeks of secrecy had all built up to one morning. There was pressure too, he worried a little that he had done it wrong, but he felt confident enough that he had picked thi
ngs she would like. After more than a year together, he knew her, and he wasn’t as nervous as he used to be.
It was with that thought, and the gentle tremor of anticipation in his chest, that he fell asleep.
For once, he didn’t wake up before Maggie. Maybe it was because Christmas was special. He felt her turning in his arms, and judged that it was hours before he would normally wake up from how hard it was to open his eyes.
“Ro? Are you awake?” Maggie whispered.
He groaned faintly to let her know he was.
“Do you want to open presents?” she said, still whispering.
He cracked an eye open. She was looking at him hopefully, her hands tucked under her chin. She was clearly wide awake and would not be going back to sleep. He sighed and closed his eye again, then pushed his hand up her shirt.
“Is this my present?” he mumbled, his voice rough from sleep.
Maggie giggled, “No,” she said, but she leaned over to kiss him, and after that he felt more like getting up. He felt her fingers trace his colours, then she was climbing over him and leaving the bed. Ro huffed, but he got up to follow, making a detour at the top of the stairs to put his lenses in before joining her in the sitting room.
Maggie was knelt on the floor next to the tree, its lights flashing in primary colours again. She was wearing her Santa hat from the party, and had her lumpy red stocking in her lap. She held his out to him. He obligingly sat cross-legged on the floor opposite her and took it. When he stuck his hand in, he met more fabric and fluff, and his first Christmas present from his mate turned out to be a matching hat.
Maggie grinned so wide her mouth practically reached her ears as she put it on for him. It felt strange against his crest at the back, but otherwise it was… okay. Warm, soft and so light it barely registered against his scales, except when he moved and the puff on the end bounced against his neck. Maggie enjoyed the sight of him in it so much she practically had tears in her eyes, and seeing her happy always made him happy, so he couldn’t help but smile too.
An Office Alien Christmas Collection (Office Aliens Book 5) Page 5