Home for the Holidays
The holiday cheer was inescapable and it was driving him insane. He was normally one of those extra happy people around Christmas, but this year he was feeling nothing but bitterness over the entire stupid holiday. His shitty boss had refused to give him the time off required to spend the holidays with his family across the country. So instead, here he was on Christmas Eve with an extra-large pizza and a case of beer to keep him company.
Cal walked down the packed city streets with a scowl etched onto his face. He climbed the four flights of stairs to his shitty apartment because the asshole super was too cheap to have the elevator fixed. He made it to his hall and saw his neighbour jiggling a key into her locked door. Another perk of living in such a seedy building – security was shit and half the time it took multiple attempts to access your own apartment.
He placed his pizza and beer on the ground as he fished his own keys out his pocket, sliding it smoothly into the lock on the first try. He felt the woman's eyes on him and forced a polite smile onto his face despite the crabby mood he was in. Despite living next door to each other, they had only crossed paths a handful of times in the near month she had been living there.
"Merry Christmas," he said as he pushed his door open and collected his food from the floor again.
"Yeah whatever," he heard her mumble in a distinctly British accent as she finally kicked her own door open.
So apparently he wasn't the only one not quite feeling the holiday cheer. He shrugged off the woman's rudeness, it was in fact the first time they had actually exchanged words in the last month so he wasn't expecting much from her to begin with.
Cal took a moment to survey his lousy bachelor apartment as he dropped his food on the coffee table. He tried to figure out his plans for the rest of the night and came up pretty damn blank. TV was out seeing as the programming would just be littered with depressing Christmas specials, Darknet would be dead because everyone else would no doubt be off celebrating the holidays, and any other options would require more than just his pathetic self.
He weighed his dismal options briefly and decided on the best one quickly. Without a second thought, he was back out his door and knocking on his neighbour's. The leather clad woman opened her door only moments later and glared harshly at his presence.
"What?"
"Hey, I uh noticed that it doesn't look like you've got any plans tonight," he began with a friendly smile.
"What's it to ya?"
"I'm kind of in the same boat so I was thinking you might wanna come over to my place and we can keep each other company."
The woman snorted at his suggestion. "Yeah, no thanks," she declined and began to slam the door in his face.
Cal quickly held his hand out to stop the motion and looked sheepishly at her. "Sorry, that came out wrong. I meant we can just hang out, no one should be alone on Christmas Eve. Plus I've got pizza and beer."
Her brows raised in intrigue when he mentioned the food. Cal watched her shrug to herself and open the door wider to allow her to exit into the hallway. She was dressed in the same argyle sweater and leather pants combo he had noticed only minutes earlier, only now having discarded her beat up leather jacket.
"I'm Cal, by the way," he introduced himself. "I meant to introduce myself when you moved in but we never seemed to be home at the same time."
"Sarah," she responded gruffly and followed Cal back into his apartment.
He smiled at her response and nodded. He pointed over to the couch where he left their meal and watched the woman flop onto the furniture like she had been there millions of times before. Cal opted to take his seat on the floor nearby and cracked open beers for both of them quickly.
"Dig in," he said as he took a slice of pizza from the box. Sarah wasted no time after that and grabbed her own slice.
The pair ate in relatively comfortable silence. Neither had realized just how hungry they were until they began the meal and could now only focus on the task at hand. It was definitely serving to take away the awkwardness of eating dinner alone with the neighbour you've just met. Cal swallowed the last bite of his third slice and lounged back on his hands.
"So what's your story for spending the holiday alone?" he asked conversationally.
Sarah took a long swig of her beer and shrugged indifferently. "No story."
Cal chuckled disbelievingly and raised an eyebrow at her. "So you just decided it'd be more fun to spend the night alone in this shitty apartment building?"
"So what if I did?" she challenged and continued to drink.
He threw is hands up in surrender. "Then there's nothing wrong with that! I just personally find it hard to believe anyone would willingly spend more time than they have to in this place."
"Yeah? Then why are you here still?" Sarah cocked her head with slight curiosity.
"Boss is an asshole and wouldn't give me the holidays off," he replied bitterly. "The rest of my family lives out west so I'm stuck spending the holidays here by myself."
"Shitty," she tried to empathize despite having no idea what it felt like to be upset about missing out on a family gathering. Ever since she could remember she had been avoiding any sort of sentimental bullshit with her family. They weren't exactly the touchy feely type to begin with and Sarah always made sure to keep her foster mother and brother at a relative distance.
"You can say that again," he grumbled and downed the last drops of his beer. He cracked another immediately and did the same for his new companion.
He pulled open a small drawer on the coffee table and pulled out a small tin. Sarah recognized his intentions immediately and grinned. "Oh now we're talking."
Cal returned the smile in amusement and pulled a couple joints out of the tin. "You smoke?"
The question was more rhetorical since her reaction had been enough to tell Cal that she was a supporter of the prospect of drugs. He lit the first one like a pro and generously passed it to Sarah. She gladly took it and inhaled deeply on it. The smoke came out moments later in a smooth exhale and Cal knew she was definitely a seasoned weed smoker. He knew he invited her over for a reason. Smoking joints in an apartment alone was a little too pathetic for even him.
He lit his own joint and revelled in the smoothness of the smoke entering his lungs. Booze was great and all but he had always been more a weed guy. The almost immediate relaxation he could experience from simply inhaling the smoke was one of his favourite things.
"Now this is the way to celebrate the holidays," Sarah claimed as she switched back and forth between another slice of pizza and the joint. She was the picture of carefree. Cal took the time to admire the sight of her. They had only seen each other a handful of times but every time she managed to look tense and pissed off as all hell.
"Glad you're enjoying yourself," he smiled up at her.
She nodded and stood abruptly, joint hanging between her lips easily. "S' better than getting shit on by mummy dearest," she grumbled out.
She walked across the room, having spotted his old guitar in the corner and picked it up, examining it. She strummed it a few times – perfectly in tune. Sarah returned to the couch with the instrument and let it lay lazily in her lap.
"Oh so that's why you're here tonight, huh?" Cal concluded and when he saw her furrowed brow he elaborated. "You're avoiding the typical family holiday drama?"
"Something like that," she laughed bitterly and began playing the guitar to the best of her ability. She was obligated to be at Siobhan's to spend Christmas day with her and Felix, and would no doubt be lectured all day about the seedy lifestyle she had chosen for herself. Christmas eve would only be more of the same shite so Sarah decided against putting herself through it. She'd have to be seriously masochistic to put herself in S's line of fire more than she had to be.
It was clear to Cal that she had played before as he watched Sarah focus intently on the guitar, but not very much given that she was absolutely horrible. She looked angry again at the mention of her family and was taking those emotions out on his precious guitar. He began to laugh at her complete lack of ability and stood shaking his head, practically begging her to stop.
"Give it here," he held out his hands for the instrument patiently, discarding his joint in the tabletop ashtray. "You realize you can't just strum random strings and make it sound good, right?"
"Piss off," she glared at him but surrendered it to him anyway. She helped herself to another joint and leaned her head back lazily against the couch as she continued to smoke.
Cal started up playing a soft tune like a pro. He had spent countless hours teaching himself how to play the guitar and it was safe to say that he had finally nearly perfected his craft. Sarah listened to the soothing music with her eyes closed and basked in the simplicity of the moment. It was rare for her to experience content in such a calm setting and without hard drugs or liquor coursing through her veins.
"Hey Cal?"
"Hm?"
"Thanks for inviting me over tonight, you didn't have to do that," she spoke with her head still back and eyes closed. The smoke was wafting around her gently as she continued to inhale on the joint.
"Yeah, well you're not as hardcore asshole as you've tried to make yourself out to be the last month. It was my neighbourly duty to make sure the nice girl next door didn't spend the night by herself in this shit hole."
Sarah smiled despite herself and looked down at him still on the floor, strumming the guitar much more lazily now. "Yeah? Because when you first offered it sounded more like you wanted to sleep with me."
He scratched the back of his head guiltily. "Yeah I didn't exactly word that well did I?"
Sarah laughed at his obvious embarrassment and raised a flirtatious brow at him. "So you don't wanna sleep with me then?"
"No!" he blurted out immediately, his face tinging a light shade of pink at her question.
"Ya sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself, Cal."
"Shit, that's not what I meant. Of course I'd like to uh – shit. I just meant that I didn't invite you here with the intention of sleeping with you," he cringed as he tried to stumble out an explanation.
Sarah's laughing had him finally bringing his eyes up to meet hers again, the embarrassment clearly shining through. "Relax man, I was just fuckin with you."
Cal blew out a harsh sigh and glared at Sarah in annoyance. "That was mean."
"Yeah, but it was so funny seeing you get all flustered," she countered still smiling widely. At least now she knew for sure that he definitely would sleep with her if presented with the opportunity. The suspicion had been there over the past month but given that they had never actually interacted, she couldn't ever confirm it. "You don't gotta be embarrassed, Cal. We're both adults here, yeah?"
"We are," he agreed. "But I'm too much of a nice guy to take advantage of you when you're crunk."
"How gentlemanly," she commented as she continued to ingest the drugs and alcohol that were the cause of her growing intoxication. "Just so you know though Calvin, I'm not even close to being crunk."
Cal chuckled but nodded along with her. He believed her to an extent but they both knew she wasn't exactly sober anymore either. "That's not even my name, you know."
"No? Then what is it?"
He smiled wryly. "This friendship isn't there yet."
"Oh," she grinned excitedly. "It's bloody embarrassing ain't it?"
"Yes. Which is I why I'll never tell you."
"Fine," she glared at him but didn't bother to continue the fight. She knew she'd find out his secret eventually. She was a con artist after all, getting to know everything about people and how they tick was part of her job description.
Sarah leaned forward and drank the remaining contents of her beer. She set the empty bottle back on the coffee table and offered a polite smile to Cal. "I should probably get out of here. Got an early morning tomorrow and if I'm late my foster mum'll be on my ass all day."
"Yeah, sure," he nodded in acceptance and stood to see her out. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and cocked his head. "We should hang out more often, you know. This was actually kind of fun."
She leaned her back against the door and smiled up at him. "Yeah, it was fun. Thanks for being a decent guy, Cal."
Before he could respond with some sort of self-deprecating remark, Sarah was leaning forward and had their lips pressed together gently. She only lingered there for a few seconds before she was pulling away again and grinning at him. "Merry Christmas, Cal."
She disappeared out the door moments later and he stood listening to her door swing open and shut. His Christmas Eve had without a doubt turned out much better than he would've thought. He was nearly grateful that his boss was an asshole because without that, he wouldn't have gotten to spend the evening with such a cool girl. Sarah had made his holidays shape up and now he could just hope that their paths would cross on a much more regular basis.