by Krista Wolf
I paused, trying not to let my voice crack. I took one last shuddering breath.
“Or two… you already had something going on with her,” I continued, “and for some twisted reason you still brought me to that particular lot to pick out our Christmas tree.”
More silence. The other end of the phone was so dark and cold it was pure oblivion.
“So which is it?” I prodded him. “It’s over anyway. You owe me that much.”
For an uncomfortably long time, he didn’t have an answer. Until finally…
“It’s the second one.”
My heart sank as my body went limp. My head dropped into my own hands.
God, I’m so stupid!
But hey, at least he wasn’t insulting my intelligence.
“Thanks for that at least,” I grunted miserably. “You can pick your stuff up anytime.”
Slowly I tore the photo in half, straight down the center. I felt nothing.
“Sloane, I—”
“From the front lawn,” I added satisfactorily, and hung up.
Two
SLOANE
The next morning was miserable, mostly because it took forever to get ready. Ice cubes and cucumbers brought the swelling down around my eyes, and Visine took care of the whites.
Drake had wisely stayed away, although the stuff out on the lawn was gone by now. I’d heard the unmistakable diesel engine of his friend Jay’s truck sometime just after dark, right about the same time I was uncorking my second bottle of wine. There was no knock at the door though. No text-message or phone call, either.
And all of that was fine by me.
Glancing at the clock I could see I’d be late for work, but not by much. Having taken the rest of yesterday off for what I was calling a family emergency, I was confident my boss would understand. As busy as the foundry was this time of year, the kind old man who’d started the company “on a jar full of mercury dimes” loved me like the daughter he never had, or so he was so fond of telling me, anyway. His partner was a little more strict and by the book, but I also knew he appreciated my work ethic.
I had my keys in hand and was in the process of pulling the door shut behind me when I looked back one last time. The apartment was all mine now. It seemed empty and alone with all Drake’s things gone, but at least I’d done the hard part. Every last trace of our life together had been—
Oh… hell no.
My stomach flip-flopped as I scanned our beautiful Christmas tree from top to bottom. We’d picked out a tall one, Drake and I. The cathedral ceilings in our loft apartment could handle it.
Correction: Drake and his slutbag blonde girlfriend and I.
My mouth curled into a bitter frown. The tree — as beautiful as it was — was the last thing left that would remind me of him. And even worse, it would remind me of the bubbly little blonde girl who sold it to me, who also happened to be screwing my boyfriend behind my back.
FUCK. THAT.
I dropped my bag and went immediately to work, knocking the tree on its ass. Water spilled from the tree-stand. Glass ornaments hit the hardwood flooring beneath the falling pine tree’s branches, exploding out of sight with dull ‘pops.’
It took every ounce of strength to drag the tree out of there, stand and all. Pine needles flew everywhere as I pulled it through the threshold of our apartment doorway. I kept the momentum going, dragging it down the steps, past the other units on the second and ground floors, and straight out through the double doors at the end of the building’s foyer. Eventually I reached the curb, where I kicked it into the street. It stared back at me shocked and wounded, still covered with lights, garland, ornaments and all.
“There we go.”
I wiped my sap-covered hands on my thighs, then stomped off. Halfway to the door I realized something, turned around, and went back to pluck the glittery, shimmering star — my grandmother’s star — from the top of the tree.
“Not this though,” I growled at the tree. “Nice try.”
The star was old. Vintage. My mother had gifted it to me when my grandmother died; it had sat on the top of her Christmas tree for most of her life. We didn’t have many traditions in our family, and my grandmother hadn’t left very many things behind. This was important, though. I would’ve been gutted had I forgotten about it.
Back upstairs I went, passing one of the tenants on the second floor. She was one of two sisters who’d never married, and who’d lived together for most of their lives. Right now she was staring at me like I was crazy, throwing away a fully-decorated tree a few weeks before Christmas.
“Yeah, I know,” I snapped, trying my hardest not to. “I’m having a weird day.”
Three
SLOANE
Working at a foundry wasn’t your typical job, in that it required many different skill sets. Investment casting required an artisan’s touch, and a lot of finesse. Even the tiniest mistake could be expounded in the molding process, creating giant gaps or cracks in the finished piece and tons of extra work on the back end. Make the wrong decisions and you could destroy a piece before the pouring even began. You could even ruin the mold, causing the client to have to start all over.
As meticulous and attention-to-detail driven the work was, you also needed to be fast. When swinging a 1200-degree crucible of molten bronze in your direction, there wasn’t much time to stop and consider things. You had to think on your feet. You had to prep everything beforehand, and then double-check your prep work. It was the only way to survive — and succeed.
Luckily, I was good at my job. I immersed myself in the work, whether it be something I personally enjoyed, like casting statues and museum pieces, or something more tedious like the prototyping of high-end steel or aluminum parts. That side of the job was more monotonous, but it paid the bills. It also left me with wiggle room when asking to use the machinery after hours, something my kind-hearted boss had always allowed… until now.
“Sloane I’m very sorry,” Mr. Drumm told me in his office, just after my shift ended. “But things are just too crazy right now. I’d let you if I could, obviously. But you know how it is around the holidays.”
The old man swept an arm around his spacious office, which was covered in blinking lights and Christmas decorations. It was also covered in photo after photo of his beloved grandchildren. He had six kids of his own, and they’d produced almost twenty grandchildren so far. I knew most of their names, from our many conversations together. It was just one of the ways he was blessed.
“I’ll come after hours,” I told him quickly. “You know that.”
“Yes, but the hours have been extende—”
“I’ll come after midnight.”
He’d been letting me use the foundry for nearly two years now, to cast the bigger pieces that my home operation wouldn’t allow. Back in the loft, I had a lost-wax casting setup that rivaled any non-commercial operation. But when it came to bigger sculptures… my home kiln just wasn’t wide or deep enough.
Mr. Drumm was slack-shouldered and red-faced, obviously upset from having to turn me down. I pressed further.
“I promise…” I pleaded. “I’ll be done with everything way before sunup. Cleanup, too. It’ll be like I was never there.”
“You’d have to put everything back,” he said hesitantly. “Reset every single piece of—”
“Yes,” I jumped in. “I will!”
“And you’d use your own materials?” he asked, although he didn’t have to.
“Of course.”
“And you’ll have someone with you on the pours?” he eyed me shrewdly.
I shrugged. “Probably. But if not, I can always handle them myse—”
“No!” he shook his head. “No deal, then. It’s too dangerous.”
“But—”
“You do every one of your pours with an assistant,” he wagged a finger at me. “Or the whole thing’s off.”
I tried counting the number of times Drake came with me to cast something for my collect
ion. I think it was three. None of those times did he help me do anything, however. If anything at all, he just got in the way.
“Alright,” I lied through my teeth. I felt bad about it, but times were desperate. “I’ll have an assistant. Every pour.”
“Okayyy,” Mr. Drumm replied skeptically. “In that case—”
Just then the door to the office opened, after a swift triple-knock. I recognized the knock immediately because I’d heard it hundreds of times on the door to my own office.
“Hey! How’s things?”
Mark sauntered in, wiping his mouth with the back of one hairy forearm. Since the door to the office had been open the whole time, I wondered how long he’d been lingering out there.
“Things are good,” replied Mr. Drumm. “Say, would you be willing to help Sloane out with some late night—”
“No need,” I jumped in quickly. “I got it.”
“Because she—”
“It’s fine,” I said, spreading my hands slowly to indicate I had everything under control. My eyes found Mr. Drumm’s again, holding him in my gaze. “Trust me, I’ve got it all covered.”
“Not sure what the two of you are talking about,” said Mark, taking another bite of his candy bar. “But hey, you know me — always ready to help.”
“I don’t need help.”
He shrugged. “Really, I don’t mind.”
“You have his number?” Mr. Drumm asked.
I looked at Mark, and a shiver of displeasure ran through me. There were many reasons I didn’t like him. I kept them all to myself, however.
“Of course,” I said. “I do, and I’ll use it if I need to.” I let my gaze wander to Mark, while putting on my best false smile. “And I appreciate the offer, too.”
I waved goodbye to my boss and left, wondering how much of our conversation Mark already knew about. He was a shop steward just as I was, only he’d been there a good two years longer than me. I’d taken on more responsibilities than him, however. And it was something that ticked him off.
“But I have seniority,” I’d overheard him saying once, as I passed one of the windows that led to the break room. “And you keep giving her the best jobs.”
“She gets a lot of the more important jobs, yes,” Mr. Burgen — the foundry’s other partner — had replied without apology. “And that’s because she moves fast and her work is clean.”
Mark had frowned, and I’d gotten the hell out of there before one or both of them saw me through the glass. From that point on, Mark had only been false-friendly around me. He’d smiled and acted cooperative whenever the bosses were around, but the rest of the time we worked together he was passive aggressive and somewhat condescending.
I left the building, vowing to forget about Mark and focus on the good news: I still had permission to use the foundry after hours. I could get caught up with all the personal work I’d been putting off this past week, while trying to get my head straight after Drake. I had a show to do. I had work to finish.
And dammit, it was the holiday season! For that reason alone, I needed to smile and be merry.
Four
SLOANE
“You a little bit lost?” the man called down from the bucket loader. He smiled handsomely through a layer of dark stubble. “Or do you just like big trucks?”
I emerged from behind the fir tree, where I’d been watching him shovel pea-gravel into a concrete holding pen for the past thirty seconds. He killed the engine and jumped down.
“Sorry,” I said, turning six different shades of red. “I was watching to see which direction you came from.”
“You wandered off the path, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Kinda.”
“Well there aren’t any trees down this way,” he smiled. “This is the edge of the masonry yard.”
The man was big, at least six-foot four and built like every lumberjack I’d ever seen in a movie, TV show, or on a roll of paper towels. He was much better looking, however than the guy with the handlebar mustache that dominated the toiletries aisle.
“What you wanna do is head back that way,” he pointed with one great arm. “Stick to the fence, and when it ends turn left. The line of Christmas trees begins there, and you can backtrack…”
He stopped mid-sentence, eyeing me over. His grin widened as he nodded toward the bucket loader. “Hell, just jump in and I’ll drive you down there. Wouldn’t want something this pretty getting run over.”
With a wink he gestured toward the series of black corrugated steps that led into the loader’s cage. Thanking him, I hopped up and slid across the seat.
“You are looking for a Christmas tree, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I admitted. “A tall one.”
He started the machine up again with the push of a big button, then grunted over the noise it made. “Good. We’ve got plenty of those.”
Our thighs touched as the machine bumped its way over the frozen mud, heading back in the direction I’d come. I was here because the apartment was feeling especially empty, and I suddenly wanted a tree of my own. I’d gotten angry that my last tree — as beautiful as it had been — was now a compacted, splintered mess rotting away in some landfill.
And my anger was all directed at Drake.
Fuck Drake.
It had been my mantra for a whole week. Did Drake have a Christmas tree right now? No doubt he did. So why the hell couldn’t I have one?
Seeing the once-decorated corner of my loft so empty and devoid of decoration had made me furious last night. So much so that it was affecting my art.
So get a tree, bitch.
The answer had been so obvious I nearly bit off my own inner tongue.
What the hell are you waiting for?
And so here I was, wandering the biggest Christmas tree lot I’d ever seen in my life. Looking for a tree that would be even bigger, better, and more badass than the one I’d dragged in anger to the curb.
Oh yes, and sitting next to a mountain of a man. One who was so ruggedly handsome yet uncannily gentle, he could’ve been plucked from any of the last ten rom-coms I’d immersed myself in.
“I’m Kade, by the way,” the man said, extending a naked hand.
“Sloane,” I smiled. I pulled my glove off and shook with him, noticing how warm and perfect his calloused palm felt. “Nice to meet you.”
The machine rumbled on, rolling slowly along the fence. The lines of Christmas trees came into view again — hundreds of them, laid out in neat rows and columns. Immediately I could see where I’d made my wrong turn.
“Sloane, I’m going to put you on the biggest trees we have,” said Kade. “In fact… hang on.”
He killed the engine again, then put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. It was that loud, crazy whistle I’d always admired people could do. I’d tried it in the past, but could never do it.
Two men came over, both wearing the same sherpa-lined work jackets Kade had on. The Carhartt logo on the pocket was unmistakable.
“This is Sloane,” Kade said. “She needs a tree.”
“A big tree,” I added.
My side of the loader happened to be pressed up against the fence. Kade reached out and took me by the hand, helping me to climb over his body and slide past him on the seat.
Halfway through, my ass brushed his crotch.
Oh my God…
I felt a flash of instant embarrassment, but also a flush of prickly heat. Was that a knot I felt in his jeans? Or was it just the way his zipper happened to be arranged?
“Go on,” Kade urged, nodding toward the ground below. “They’ll take care of you.”
Still pleasantly rattled, I hopped down the first of the corrugated steps. Suddenly another pair of strong hands were gripping my waist. A mocha-skinned worker with cocoa-brown eyes lifted me easily away from the big truck, then swung me a few feet to the left.
Oh!
He deposited me effortlessly in front of what looked to be a blond-haired, blue-eyed viking
god.
“Hi Sloane,” the viking smiled. “I’m Brock. And that’s Valerio.”
His voice was warm and inviting, spoken from the depths of a broad, beautiful chest. He had an immaculately-trimmed beard, and a smile that forced my next few heartbeats to go off rhythm.
“Come,” he said, extending one big hand. “Let’s get you set up with a nice tree.”
Five
BROCK
She was absolutely gorgeous, top to bottom. Sloane had silky brown hair — long, just the way I liked it — that danced teasingly around a perfect, angelic face. On top of that she was curvaceous and pretty, with caramel brown eyes and lips that were naturally plump and beautiful.
And Kade had brought her to us like he was delivering a pizza.
“You said you wanted to go big, right?”
I turned for her reaction, and saw her smile widen into a smirk. She wasn’t offended. She was playing the game.
“Well bigger is better,” she acknowledged.
“Uh huh,” I grinned back. “As long as you’ve got the, you know, room for it.”
“Oh, I do.”
She was still holding my hand, and that was something. It felt wonderful in my palm, beneath her woven cotton gloves.
“How big are we talking?” I asked.
“Well the first tree I had this year was fourteen feet.”
Valerio whistled low, just behind us. “Fourteen. Wow!”
Sloane paused to look his way, arching a well-manicured eyebrow at him. “You boys got anything that big?”
My eyes went wide at the double-entendre. Whoever she was, she was definitely a fun one.
“Actually yes,” said Valerio. “But he’s taking you the wrong way.”
He reached out and snatched her other hand, pulling her in a different direction. Caught between us for a moment, both arms outstretched, she giggled.
“Easy… you’re going to pull me apart.”