Happy late Christmas and New Years! I was busy all day and hadn't really thought of this until now. This is way more for Zevie month (even when it's late) than my other story and I really hope you like it :)

Zander

"This is your entire fault." A finger jabbed at my chest, a glare following.

I shrugged her off. "Okay, mind telling me what?"

Her scowl didn't lighten as Stevie picked through a box of sparkly ball ornaments. For claiming to be such a happy spirit around the holidays, she sure became a Grinch awfully fast.

"You know, I could be prepping myself for tackle charades with my brothers," Stevie continued, "But no, you just had to drag me here."

"Why tackle charades?" I asked.

She spun a green and sliver striped ball from its hook, stretching on tip toes put it on the tree. "A reward for the boys for being so well tamed for all of Mom's Christmas parties," Stevie explained casually. She slapped her hands together to get rid of the sparkles coming off the decorations.

Oddly enough, that kind of made sense.

Stevie kept grabbing hooks and poking them through the ornaments to hang, and I started to unravel the tinsel. "And why cheese?" she asked frowning at the ornaments.

"A regular party? Please, that's so overdone."

"How would you know, egg-roll eating Jew?"

I had no idea why she was mad at me. This was Kevin's party, not mine; I was just the person who wouldn't let her back out because of some lame, made up excuse. (Well, now I know it wasn't a made up excuse.) But the party was a little last minute and the poor guy needed all the help he could get.

It was a little surprising that his parents knew about the party, let alone him having one at all. The only parties I've ever heard of Kevin throwing were when it's his turn to host the band sleepovers. And for the party to have a theme—a very cheesy theme, nonetheless.

Really, I wasn't kidding.

The theme was cheese—every type of cheese under the moon. I didn't know what inspired that idea and don't think I ever want to.

"Man, this place reeks!" Kacey cried from somewhere upstairs. Kevin had recruited Nelson and Kacey up there a while ago, and we downstairs workers hadn't heard anything until then. "Couldn't you have picked a much more flattering theme light diamonds or something?"

Kevin might've said something back, but I couldn't hear. If anything, I was just happy that he didn't have me on cheese hanging duty like originally planned. I wouldn't have survived hours of hanging cheese that would go bad in only an hour's notice.

"It could be worse," Stevie said from behind the tree. "There are things way worse than cheese—like, liver for instance. Or grease."

She did have a point.

I chuckled and stared down at the silvery knot in my hands. Sighing in defeat, I gave up and threw it back into the box and started to pull at a wad of Christmas lights. Good thing they weren't white lights, or I would've had to kill him.

"What do you have against white lights?" Stevie asked, sounding offended. She peered down at me from the step stool she stood on. Even then she couldn't reach the top to place the star in its rightful place. "And even yet, better question: why are you helping when you don't even celebrate it? No Christmas for you?"

"No Christmas for me," I agreed. "But that doesn't deprive me of being a good friend, Steviekins."

No matter how good a friend I was, if any of that spray cheese snow on the window got in my hair, I would kill Kevin.

"Need some help, baby?" I teased from down below.

Stevie continued to scowl at the top of my head from on top of her step stool. "Fine," she caved, admitting defeat. "I'm tired of getting sparkly cheese all over me anyway."

I gently guided her off the stool and took the box from her hands to climb up in her place and put the star in its place. "And that is how it's done."

"Show off."

I stuck my tongue out and continued to hang ornaments, taking over tree duty. Stevie stomped her foot from below and grabbed the box I had originally been taking decorations from.

"I need more cheese," Nelson hollered from above. I knew without even glancing up that he was swinging his head over the railing from above, staring down at one of us because he wasn't going to get it.

"And I need more Swiss!" Kacey yelled, sounding fainter than Nelson. She was probably in a room down the hall, watching as Kevin did her job for her because he'll do anything to make sure the princess felt like a princess.

Stevie emitted a groan, whacking my calf with a huge wad of tinsel. "Why does he even keep it all in a shed anyway?" she grumbled, grabbing my waistband and promptly pulling me off my stool and to the sliding doors that led to the backyard. For not being much of a sports family, the Reeds sure did have a huge backyard. A huge backyard that included a shed as big as their kitchen full of old hornet nests and rusty garden tools. And, just for the holidays, pounds of cheese and other things. How Kevin found a way to keep it all from being spoiled, I'll never know.

"God, this place reeks," Stevie muttered as she opened the door with a loud bang.

"Did anything make you smile today, Scrooge?"

"No. I had to wake too early for a Saturday for an extremely early Christmas family meeting and didn't get my proper 15 hours of sleep for the weekends."

Well that explained that.

"And," Stevie continued, "All this cheese stinking up the place isn't helping anything."

"I for one am happy Kevin is having a party."

"Says the Jew."

"Are you ever not going bring that up?"

"Nope."

I sighed, reaching for a couple packs of Pepper-Jack and Swiss. "You really know how to brighten up the holidays, don't you Steviekins?"

"You better believe it." Stevie stood from crouching to dig through a cool, three packs of Mozzarella, American, and another I couldn't make out in her hands. "I think this should be enough, shouldn't it?"

I shrugged, figuring if it wasn't we could always come back and get more.

I was too pretty for all this cheese business anyway.

"What room are they in?" Stevie asked, hip bumping the door open with her arms being full.

I was about to reply when something slimy and cold dripped onto me—into my hair. I gasped, dropping the stuff I was carrying to grab at my hair, pulling my hands back down to see melted cheese on my hands.

What the heck?

I looked up like Stevie to see something that could've been two leafs tied together with ribbon then coated with different cheeses.

So…

"Hey, look," I joked, nudging her gently with my elbow, "Mistletoe."

Stevie up again and then back at me, laughing as she said, "You can't be serious?"

"Can't break Christmas tradition, baby." I winked.

We stepped closer, Stevie still laughing when I pulled her to me by the front of her plaid (more like my) shirt.

We kissed. Not even a second later, we both had cold cheese dripping onto our heads and very loud squealing bruising our eardrums.

"I told you it would work!" Kacey shouted from above us, probably leaning over the railing with Nelson and Kevin, swatting both of them and looking down at us. "And you said it was a stupid idea."

But I was too happy to care.

This has a really crappy ending, but I'm finishing this at 2 am in the morning and feeling pretty tired.

But on the bright side, this is my first story of 2013!

Happy New Years, you guys :D