On the Second Day of Christmas
Tim worked hard to keep his good mood to himself the next day, after all
he had a reputation to protect and he didn't want Raylan or Rachel asking questions. Besides, from the moment he'd bumped into Laylah, he'd known she was too good for him so there was no use even thinking about starting something.
He wasn't sure where this twelve days of Christmas would take them, but he'd work hard to keep their relationship on the platonic side of the line. He had several friends that were women, Rachel included, so he'd just add Laylah to that list. Otherwise, the only other list that he had to add her too was the mistakes list, and she wasn't the kind of girl to end up on that list.
Besides, he had his own work and half of Raylan's to do so there was plenty to keep him busy. He only allowed himself half a smile when his phone vibrated and he saw Laylah's text.
Meet me at the shop at 4 pm tomorrow.
"What?" Rachel asked as he put his phone away. Raylan was away from the office so she had a clear view of him across the cowboy's desk.
"What do you mean?" Tim asked. He had been leaning back in his chair but now he pulled himself forward and focused on his computer screen.
"Don't play dumb with me," one side of Rachel's mouth lifted in a half smile. "I saw that." She leaned toward him. "Who is she?"
"A friend," Tim played it off. He didn't think Rachel was convinced. He wasn't sure he was either.
Marshals didn't always keep banker's hours, but they were lucky enough to take weekends off as long as they weren't on a hot case that took every waking moment of their lives. Tim's idea of sleeping in was usually six-thirty four in the morning and Saturday, December 3rd was no different. He went for a run before a quick breakfast of peanut butter toast and coffee, more of the latter than the former, then took a shower.
If he wasn't on a case, he usually took several hours on Saturdays to clean his house from top to bottom even though he spot cleaned and picked up after himself throughout the week so he spent a good portion of the rest of the morning cleaning each room in his house. There were only five rooms so he was done before noon.
Tim ended up going in to work for a few hours just to kill time, and headed over to the shop so that he arrived promptly at four in the afternoon. The shop was still open and there were several customers, but Laylah waved him toward the counter with a smile. He weaved his way through the store to her. Her friend Ronnie was behind the counter too.
"Hi," Laylah said when he reached her. "It's really crazy today so I told Ronnie I'd stay and help, but we can go ahead and get started too."
"On what?" Tim asked suspiciously.
"Your ornaments," Laylah swept her arm above the work station behind the counter. It was covered in every kind of paper, scissors, glue, glitter, popsicle stick, and Christmas bulb a person could think of. "Come on!" Laylah motioned for him to head around to the other side of the counter.
"Hello, ma'am," he said to Ronnie as he passed her.
"Hi…" she began, then stopped. "I'm sorry, I don't know if I'm supposed to call you officer, marshal, or deputy Gutterson."
"Tim's fine," he said, "but it would be deputy."
"I always wondered," Ronnie said before returning her attention to the store, almost blatantly ignoring them.
"How are you today?" Laylah asked. Today she was wearing a red sweater that made her olive skin tone glow in the most delightful way. Her cheeks were rosy but they managed to not be splotchy.
"I was fine," Tim took a good look at the workstation, "but I don't know what you expect me to do with all this."
Laylah laughed. "I'll help you," she said. "Once you get started I think you'll find it to be easier than it looks."
"Somehow I doubt that," Tim said.
"Well, then let's start with something easy," Laylah said, "What do you like?"
There was too much on the table for Tim to even begin to know what to do, so he finally resorted to picking up a red bulb. "Let's start with this."
Laylah smiled. "Okay," she said. "What would you like to do with it?"
"Um," Tim studied the bulb. "What can I do with it?"
"Well, you can paint it, you can glitter it, you can put beads on it, you can glue cut-outs on it, whatever you want," Laylah picked up a green bulb. "I'll do this one."
"Okay," Tim looked at the paint. "What color should I use?" he asked.
"That depends on whether you want your design to stand out or be subtle," Laylah said. "If you want it to stand out, use a contrasting color or a gold or silver. If you want it to be subtle, use a darker red."
Tim dipped a thin paintbrush in the crimson paint and hesitated putting the paint to the bulb but Laylah wasted no time in using the glue to begin a pattern on the green bulb. Tim watched her for a moment as she created a swirl on the bulb and then covered it with a mountain of bright green glitter. She turned it over and tapped the bulb to get rid of the extra glitter and then grabbed the glue again. Tim sighed and focused on his own ornament.
In between customers, Ronnie began gluing popsicle sticks together, creating the most complicated snowflake Tim had ever seen. When he thought of popsicle sticks, he thought of kindergarten. Ronnie's creation looked like the ornaments people pay really good money for.
"Done," Tim said. He'd finished his before Laylah, but he'd only painted one thing on it.
"A gun?" she asked. "Really?"
"At least you can tell what it is," Tim said. Painting a gun on a small round object had been harder than he'd thought, especially when adding the black accents to really make it look like a gun.
Laylah rolled her eyes. "What now?" she motioned to the supplies.
"Well," Tim picked up a gold bulb. "I definitely want three or four like this one," he said before dipping a fresh paintbrush in the green paint.
"How long have you been a Marshal?" Laylah asked, her ornament becoming classier by the moment.
"Almost two years," Tim answered as he concentrated on the barrel of a rifle. "How long have you had the store?"
"A little over a year," Laylah answered. "I would've guessed you'd been in law enforcement longer than that. What'd you do before that?"
"I was in the army," Tim answered.
"Ah," Laylah nodded.
"What?" Tim asked.
"Nothing," Laylah continued applying enough glitter to cover all of Lexington on one bulb.
"No," Tim turned to her. "You said 'ah,' like you meant something. What was it?"
"Well, it just explains the 'yes, ma'am,' and 'no, ma'am," she said. "That's all." She smiled. "My sister has been in the national guard for almost twelve years now, full-time for nine, and before she came home from basic she didn't address people like that."
"And after basic she did," Tim finished for her. Laylah nodded. "Has she been deployed?" he asked.
Laylah nodded. "She and her husband both," she said. "She was in Afghanistan two years ago and he's been to Afghanistan and Iraq." She arranged the extra glitter into a pile to use again. "Were you deployed?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Afghanistan."
She didn't pry and he was grateful. She didn't thank him for his service either, which always made him uncomfortable. "Well, I'm glad you're back," she said simply.
"Me too," he answered truthfully. Then he chuckled to himself.
"What?" Laylah glanced sideways at him.
"Nothing," Tim shook his head.
"No, no, no," Laylah shook a finger at him. "You wouldn't let mine go. Spill it."
He smiled. "I just can't picture any sister of yours in the army," he said.
Laylah laughed. "She's a whole lot tougher than me," she said. "Sure, she likes to shop for shoes and go get her nails done sometimes, but she rappels out of helicopters for fun. If we didn't look almost exactly alike, I'd suspect that at least one of us was adopted."
"Because you do this for fun," Tim held up the ornament he was still working on.
"Exactly," Laylah smiled. "Wanna know something that makes it all even funnier?"
"Sure," Tim continued painting.
"My brother is teaching astrophysics at Alabama University," she said.
"Really?" Tim arched an eyebrow.
"Mhmm," Laylah said. "She's the tough one and he's the smart one," she said.
"And you're the creative one," Tim finished. When he turned to look at Laylah, she was smiling. "What?" he asked.
"I've never thought of it like that," Laylah admitted. "Thank you."
Tim desperately wanted to ask how she usually thought of it, but he felt that the answer might pull him a little too close to the romantic side of the relationship line so he just nodded and held out his ornament. "What do you think?"
"I think you're a little too familiar with guns if you can put that much detail into one on an ornament," Laylah said. "But it looks good."
Tim grinned and picked up a green bulb to start again. Laylah finished her bulb and hung it up on a wire strung over the table to dry before picking up some paper. She started cutting with quick, sure snips and before Tim knew it, a 3D snowflake was hanging next to the finished ornaments. Several more joined it. Tim thought about trying to make a popsicle stick Glock but he had visions of the outcome looking like a third grader had made it so he dismissed the idea. He started making complicated paper airplanes with the Christmas themed paper instead. He'd figure out how to get hooks in them.
Laylah and Ronnie made a couple more glittered bulbs before the store closed at seven and Tim realized they'd managed to make almost two dozen ornaments in all. "Wow," he said as he looked over their handy-work. "Now what?"
"Now we go get some dinner before we get some lights and decorate the tree," Laylah turned to Ronnie. "You and Brandon wanna join us?"
"We'd love to," Ronnie said, "but Brandon's mom is in town already and we promised her a fun-filled evening of Scrabble." She smiled. "You two have fun."
So they packed up the ornaments and headed outside. "Are you starving now?" Tim asked.
"I could eat, but I'm not going to faint or anything," Laylah said. "Why?"
"I was just thinking that we could go ahead and go shopping and then just have pizza at my place," Tim answered. "Save more time for decorating."
"Sounds good," Laylah said with a smile. "You wanna drive or you want me to?" she asked. "We can come back for the other vehicle before we go to your house."
"I'll drive," Tim led the way.
They spent an hour at Target picking out lights, candy canes, and a few other odds and ends. It wasn't until he was paying for all of his new treasures that he thought about how much the ornaments they'd made had cost Laylah. They used a lot of supplies just to decorate his tree and he didn't feel right about not paying her for them. He wasn't sure how to go about it so he thought about it on the way home.
They unloaded the ornaments, then Laylah brought in an air popcorn popper and a can of spray silicone.
Tim groaned. "Are we stringin' popcorn?"
Laylah laughed. "While we watch Miracle on Thirty-fourth street," she said, waving the DVD in his face. Tim rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, don't be like that, it'll be fun."
Tim had to admit that it was more fun than he'd thought it would be but he thought maybe it had something to do with the company, not the activity. It didn't take Laylah very long to pop two enormous bowls of popcorn before she had him help her string a strand of thread around the tree to determine how long it needed to be. She threaded a needle at each end of the string while Tim popped in the movie.
They got the entire strand covered in popcorn, ate almost an entire pizza, and put all of the ornaments and candy canes on the tree. They finished the movie before they were done, but The Rock was on TV and Laylah didn't complain about it playing in the background and with it on, Tim felt his man card return to his wallet.
Once they were done, they stepped back to observe their handy work. "Okay," Tim said. "I admit it, it looks good."
"It's unique," Laylah said, pointing to the gun ornaments and the airplanes. "But I like it."
"And it really does brighten up the place," Tim admitted as well. "Thank you." He didn't usually try to sugarcoat things so he decided to just be direct about the ornaments. "I didn't expect you to do all this," he said. "How much do I owe you for the supplies?"
"Honestly, the supplies are next to nothing because we buy in bulk," Laylah answered. "Consider it a gift."
"But I know that Ronnie could have gotten thirty bucks out of that one alone," he pointed to the popsicle snowflake, "if she hadn't given it to me."
"We make almost every gift we give," Laylah told him. "Don't worry about it," she said as she shrugged into her burgundy coat. He was sure she'd made the navy scarf and gloves. "Merry Christmas," she said warmly before she was gone.
Suddenly, the house felt empty, tree or no tree, and it took three glasses of bourbon and a shower to make him feel even remotely better.