All Wrapped Up

by G. Benson

  All Wrapped Up

  G Benson

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  All the Little Moments

  All Wrapped Up

  by G Benson

  “I lost Toby.”

  Not sure she’d actually heard right, Anna cocked her head at Lane, who was shifting from foot to foot.

  “What?”

  “Anna, I lost him.”

  Finally, it all clicked. Leaning slightly to the left, Anna looked out from the living room where they stood and into the kitchen: Toby happily sat in his highchair, cheeks packed with food and blue eyes sparkling, giggling at his sister. Ella sat with her back to Anna, so she had no idea what Ella was doing to make her brother laugh, but she guessed it had something to do with an open mouth of food. Brows pressed together, Anna turned back to Lane. “Uh, he looks pretty not lost?”

  As Lane shook her head, Anna felt a shiver trickle down her spine. Lane’s trembling lip did not help matters. Anna genuinely had no idea what was going on. Five minutes ago, she’d walked into what seemed like happy kids who’d survived going shopping when suddenly Lane had dragged her away.

  Words tumbled out of her, uncontrolled.

  “We were at the store, like I told you we were going to. I thought I had everything under control—my first time alone with him, and I was feeling kind of smug. I mean, you know, you’d been all unsure when I offered to look after them today, and there I was, all…all over it. I had to pick up some stupid gadget for my stupid dad, and I was standing at the counter, and Toby was right next to my leg. I had my hand on his head, and then I reached into my bag to get out my card. I handed it over in all of ten seconds and dropped my hand back down, and he was gone. Like, just gone.”

  Normally, Lane was calm and relaxed, someone solid to turn to in a crisis. “And I looked around,” she said, “and I couldn’t see him—he’s so damn small. How does he move that quickly? And I felt like I was going to be sick, my heart was beating so fast. When I asked the lady if she saw where he went, she just blinked at me uselessly, and I couldn’t see him. I called out like four times, and then he giggled, Anna!”

  Lane looked so indignant, Anna almost chuckled but then thought better of it. “He giggled like he hadn’t just scared the freaking hell out of me. I turned around, and there he was, standing behind a rack of blow dryers. I almost lost him, Anna, and you only just got them back a few months ago. I almost lost—”

  There was only one thing she could think to do, and Anna wasn’t sure if it was going to get her hit. She kissed Lane, hard, and didn’t let go of her mouth until she felt Lane relax slightly.

  “You didn’t lose him. He was right there.” She looked Lane straight in the eye.

  “Yeah, but what if—”

  “But nothing happened. He was right there.”

  “Anna—”

  “Lane. He did that to me a few weeks ago. He hid in a rack of coats, and it was only the damn giggle that let me find him.”

  Visibly, Lane let out a breath. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And his sister’s no better: When Ella was two, the shopping centre guards had to go find her, because she’d pulled a Houdini on Sally; she was missing ten minutes.”

  “But, what if he…what if—”

  This time, Anna simply pulled Lane against her and wrapped her in a hug. They stayed that way, Anna’s head buried into the softness of Lane’s neck, until Lane’s body relaxed, tension seeming to fade from her muscles.

  “Kids are hard work.”

  In spite of herself, Anna chuckled. “Yeah. They are. They have the ability to scare the crap out of you and make everything really good, all in the same minute.”

  Lane nodded.

  “Lane, you don’t have to take them again like today, I really appreciate it, but—”

  “No. No, I had fun. After the horror feeling that Toby was gone, we had fun. It was hard, and I hadn’t realised how much entertaining they need. Did you know Ella hates picking up her stuff?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “We had a ten-minute discussion about why it was her job.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been working on that one.” She tried to put on her best expression of gravitas, pretty sure that showing amusement right now was not the best option here.

  “I almost lost Toby.”

  Slowly, Anna kissed her again, softly. This time, Lane returned it. It was easy to fall into this feeling, to not stop until Lane let go first. When she did, Anna rested their foreheads together. “Lane, you didn’t lose him,” she said. “You found him.”

  “Well, I did lose him. Then I found him.”

  “Which is all that matters.” Still, trying to be reassuring was getting difficult. Laughter threatened to spill out of Anna.

  “What?” Lane’s eyes narrowed at her, and Anna knew she was busted.

  “What, what? You’re laughing!” The whiny tone made Anna smile even harder.

  “I’m sorry—you’re just adorable when you freak out.”

  “Am not.” Lane’s bottom lip was practically sticking out.

  “Are too. Normally it’s me freaking out.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Aunty Na!”

  Both of them jumped at Ella’s shout from the kitchen.

  “Aunty Na! Toby just threw the last of his potato at me—oh! That means we’re both finished. Can we have ice cream now?”

  They waited, looking at each other.

  “Please?”

  “There it is.” Anna shook her head in mock weariness, then raised her voice. “Only if you’ve actually finished everything!”

  Silence was her answer.

  “Lane—thanks for taking them today; I really did appreciate it.”

  “It was okay—in the end, anyway. Did you get everything for the party?”

  “Uh…”

  All Lane had to do was cross her arms and raise an eyebrow for Anna to feel sheepish.

  “I got called in! I couldn’t.” But even Anna knew her protests were falling on deaf ears. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “You better. Don’t want you panicking the night before.”

  “I’m not the type to do that, Lane.”

  The bark of laughter was sufficient to show Lane’s thoughts on that.

  * * *

  “What if—”

  “Stop it, Anna.”

  “But he could—”

  “Stop it.”

  “But Kym—”

  “Anna! It’s fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Embracing her inner child, Anna humphed and leaned back on the couch. Sitting to either side of Anna, Kym and Lane exchanged a glance over their wine glasses and made a poor show of trying not to laugh.

  Anna opened her mouth, and Kym clapped her hand over it. Unable to speak, Anna tried to convey her displeasure at the motion by tugging at the offending hand, then glaring at Kym. Finally managing to pry it away, she wrinkled her nose.

  “Why does your hand smell like ice cream?”

  Looking everywhere but at Anna, Kym gave an overly exaggerated shrug. “It doesn’t.”

  “Uh, yeah it does.” In full detective mode, Anna raised her eyebrows. “Did you feed them ice cream?”

  “Uh, no. I had some after they went to bed.”

  “You’re my best friend, Kym, but you’re a terrible liar. They’d already had some before you got here, and I told you that. You let their big cute eyes wear you down.”
>
  Squaring her shoulders, Kym sipped her wine. “What Ella, Toby, and I do when you’re not here is between us.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Really.”

  “The three of you are a combination that terrifies me.”

  “You love it.”

  “I wouldn’t say as much, but thank you for taking them tonight, you saved me. I had no time.”

  “You know I don’t mind, goober.”

  Clearing her throat to attract Kym and Anna’s attention, Lane put her glass onto the coffee table and stared Anna down. “Weren’t you going to sort everything on Tuesday?”

  “Uh, yes, but then I had that emergency, remember? I even had to have Mum pick up Toby, and I was stuck at the hospital until nine.”

  “And Wednesday?”

  “You were going to take them for me, but you got called in, even though it was your day off.”

  “Right—but I thought your mum was helping yesterday?”

  “She had to take Dad to an appointment. So that left the last minute.”

  With a laugh, Kym nudged her. “You’re so type A. Tonight wasn’t the last minute; tomorrow morning would be.”

  Anna raised her eyebrows. “I am type A, so, therefore, yes, it was last minute.”

  A pointed sigh was all Lane had on offer. “I can’t believe I went through being traumatised by Toby the other day for nothing. You didn’t even get anything done.”

  “It still helped—”

  “Wait.” Kym sat forward. “Traumatised by Toby? The chubster with angelic blue eyes?”

  The glare Lane pointed at Kym made Anna snicker.

  “I was traumatised,” Lane said. “Those angelic eyes are more demonic sometimes.”

  “What did he do? Smile you to death?”

  “He…nothing.”

  Looking from Anna to Lane, Kym poked Anna in the leg. “What happened?”

  “All right, all right.” Lane broke in before Anna could answer. “I lost Toby in the shopping centre. Happy now?”

  Anna spoke up quickly. “Toby lost himself in the shopping centre.”

  Kym grinned. “You must’ve been freaking, Lane.”

  “Yes, I’m glad you find it so amusing. And I wasn’t, I didn’t—I didn’t freak.”

  Taking a quick sip of her wine, Anna shrugged. “You, uh—you freaked a little.”

  “Anna!”

  Laughing loudly, Kym flopped back against the sofa. “I knew it.”

  “He hid from me. What’s up with him doing that at the moment?”

  “He likes your reaction.”

  The smirk playing at Kym’s lips prompted a pout from Lane.

  “Great. What a special thing to share with Toby. Anyway—did you get everything you need?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But what?”

  “What if I forgot something?”

  Kym rolled her eyes. “You made a list and checked it three times.”

  “But, we still have to—”

  “Anna!” Lane and Kym said in unison, and Anna gave in. “Yes, okay, we’ll sort the rest tonight, and it will be fine.”

  Kym raised her glass. “Atta girl.”

  Even still, Anna sat chewing her lip as Lane sighed dramatically. “Anna, it’s a two-year-old’s birthday party. He won’t even remember it.”

  “Okay, he may not remember it in detail, but these experiences shape kids! We still have to make the pass-the-parcel and goodie bags, the fairy bread, and the cake! Shouldn’t I be making the cake? We could always cancel the order, and I could make—”

  “No!” Lane and Kym both smirked in unison again.

  Making a cake could not be that hard. Anna huffed and leaned back into the couch again, pushing Lane’s hand off her knee, pointedly crossing her arms over her chest. “My cooking is not that bad.”

  Kym choked on her wine, and Lane looked the other way.

  Anna gave them both the glare of death, even though they were studiously avoiding her attention. “You both suck.”

  Putting her wine glass on the table, Lane turned to look at her. “You have got to calm down.” Lane gestured widely to the bags and bags of things Anna had returned with. “We are going to make the goody bags and games tonight while polishing off this wine. And we have already assembled his damn present. We have blisters to prove it.”

  “This is a big deal. He’s turning two.”

  Kym rolled her eyes. “And he’s going to have an amazing day at the park and play games and eat sugar and have lots of attention and presents. He barely knows what a birthday is. He is going to have a great time. You need to have another glass of wine and calm the hell down and tell me if I should have said ‘no’ to a date tomorrow night.”

  Anna felt her mouth dropping open of its own volition. She looked over at Lane, who was simply staring at Kym, her face a mirror of what Anna imagined her own to be.

  Plastering a determined smile on her face, Anna got her act together first. “You—you said ‘yes’ to a date?”

  For months, Anna had been tempted to nudge Kym to get out there but had restrained herself, thinking it probably wasn’t the best idea. Pushing her wouldn’t help anyone. She would start that process when she was ready and not a minute before.

  Disappearing behind her glass, Kym took a long sip of wine.

  Across from her, Lane was doing a terrible job of hiding her delight. “Kym…that’s awesome.”

  Kym finally detached from her glass. “Is it, though?”

  “It is such a good thing.” Anna leant over and squeezed her knee.

  “I was going to cancel.”

  “No.” As always, Lane’s voice was soft, reassuring. “Don’t cancel. Just—just think of it as dinner; dinner with a manly shaped friend.”

  Grateful that Lane was there and knew what to say, Anna nodded. “Exactly. Don’t put pressure on it.” Kym looked from one to the other like she wanted them to keep talking. “And if you feel like shit, come over here afterwards and have a Toby cuddle, and we’ll consume our body weight in wine and watch Friends.”

  Kym let out a slow breath. “Okay.”

  “What are you going to wear?” Lane was almost bouncing in her seat. As she visibly paled, Kym’s eyes widened again, and Lane quickly backpedalled. “Nope, never mind, that’s pressure.”

  “What do I wear!”

  This time, Lane looked desperately to Anna.

  “You wear your black dress pants and killer black heels with your dark green shirt. Leave the top two buttons undone, and wear it tucked in with that thin black belt.”

  Lane and Kym blinked at her.

  “What? You look good in that outfit.”

  “Okay,” Kym said again.

  “Do we get to know who he is?” Lane asked.

  “I met him at the supermarket. He took the last tub of ice cream I was going for but then insisted I take it.”

  “Aw!” Anna nudged Lane in the ribs none too subtly. Clearing her throat, Lane pursed her lips. Anna suspected she was holding back an excited grin. “I mean, continue.”

  “Anyway, I ran into him there a few times, and he eventually asked me. I meant to say ‘no’, but ‘yes’ fell out, and then he had my number, and now I’m going out tomorrow night.”

  “Do you need distracting?” Anna could see in Kym’s wide eyes that she was near panic, even as Anna had to bite down her excitement.

  “Yes, please.”

  Standing up, Anna started gathering bags. “Right. Lane, you’re putting the toys in the goody bags. Kym, you’re putting in the lollies.”

  With a soft thump, Lane slid off the edge of the couch to sit on the floor and pulled more bags towards her. “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to make the pass-the-parcel.”

  Already sorting non-choking-hazard toys into a pile, Kym grumbled under her breath. “Why do you get the fun one?”

  “Don’t challenge that,” Lane said. “She’s planned every layer of that thing.”


  Across from them on the floor, Anna sat with one leg out front of her and the other bent, foot pressing against her opposite thigh. She grabbed the scissors. “Don’t support her idea that I’m being too pedantic about all this, Lane.”

  Kym shook her head. “Anna. It’s a two-year-old’s birthday.”

  “It needs to be perfect.”

  “Why? It’s a birthday. You told me you hate birthdays.”

  “Because.” Anna started tearing opening packets of lollies and various fillers with vigorous intent. “Toby is a kid. He should love his birthday. And Sally always made a really big deal of it all. She’d invite her entire mother’s group and half of Ella’s school, and she’d bake for three days.” Her voice lowered slightly, fingers fiddling with a chocolate. “At Ella’s party, a few weeks before Jake and Sally died in the accident, all the cupcakes were little frogs, and her cake was made to look like an art box. Their parties are—were—always like the ones you see in movies.”

  Anna started cutting wrapping paper to various sizes, jaw clenching. “And, well, now Toby just has me. I can’t bake, I’m the professor of hating birthdays, and I’ve never thrown a child’s party before.” She blew some hair out of her eyes. “I want him to have what he would have had if his mum and dad were here.”

  There was silence except for the sound of Anna’s scissors cutting through paper. She could feel their stares on her. Gently, Lane’s fingers wrapped around Anna’s foot, giving it an affectionate squeeze when Anna looked up with burning cheeks.

  “Toby’s birthday will be amazing. And he is incredibly lucky to have you. Your brother would be so happy to see what a great job you’re doing with his kids.”

  Throat tight, Anna managed a small smile.

  Kym poked her in the leg. “And Toby’s getting a Thomas cake; you just didn’t make it. Let’s not joke, Anna: that’s a good thing.”

  A plastic whistle flew past Kym’s ear.

  “Hey! Don’t throw your party supplies. It’s not like you bought enough to supply four schools or anything.”

  “Kym, I’ll put you on games duty tomorrow.”

  That shut her up.

  Her chin thrust out in victory, Anna went back to her paper. “That’s what I thought.”