A/N: Thanks for all the feedback, enjoy the chapter and review, please! :)
December 25, 2012
"Hey, it's really great to meet you."
"You too," Erica said. Dolph stepped forward and gave her a hug, which Erica returned lightly. "Thanks for inviting us, it's kind of nice to be able to have a family thing, even if it's not our own."
"AJ's already part of the family," Dolph pulled away and smiled over at her. She rolled her eyes and blushed a little bit at the comment, and he was glad for it. "I feel like you're part of the family too, AJ's told me a lot about you."
"Really?" Erica asked, raising an eyebrow towards her sister. "I'm not sure I really want to know what my sister's said about me, it might not all be good. I don't trust her at all."
"Don't worry, it was all good, I think she was just trying to make you look good since you'll be staying at my parent's house. She didn't want me to think there was some kind of troublemaker coming into their house," he joked, and AJ punched him in the side. "I like when she does that because she thinks it hurts."
"Nick," she told him, punching him again, harder this time.
"I don't know how I put with her," Dolph said, picking up Erica's bag without her even asking. Erica looked over at AJ in surprise, not expecting Dolph to pick up her bag. AJ just shook her head because she knew this was a fruitless argument. She'd only been around Dolph for a few weeks, but she'd known him long enough to know that he wasn't going to allow either of them to get their bags.
"Nick, let's at least get a cart," AJ insisted when she saw him shouldering Erica's bag and his own while pulling AJ's bag. "I'm not going to let you get all those bags all the way through the airport."
"It's not a big deal," Dolph told her, "I can handle it."
"Would you please just get a cart, I'll pay for it," she said, going over to where there were a line of carts ready to be picked up. Dolph walked over to her, pushing his hand against her arm before it could put the money into the machine.
"I've got it."
"No, you don't, you're going to drop something, and I'm telling you, we can just get a cart, it's not even that expensive."
"It's the principle of the thing," he told her, trying to push her wallet back into her pocket, but she was resisting. There was a bit of a light-hearted struggle, but it ended in a stalemate when she refused to put her wallet away.
"I think we both get it, you like to carry women's bags, but we're capable of carrying our own," now AJ was trying to wrest away her rolling bag from Dolph's grip. "Give me my bag back now!"
"I've got it!" he told her, and they continued to jostle the bag around until Erica stepped in between the two of them.
"Nick, we appreciate it, believe me, and Apes, Nick is just trying to be nice, which is rare nowadays, but for the sake of our time, and the fact that it is actually Christmas day, maybe, just maybe we should get out of the airport…"
"You're right," Dolph said, "I'm sorry."
AJ looked properly chagrined as well, "I'm sorry too."
Dolph let her take her bag back, and he handed Erica her bag. The three of them walked out of the airport, and waited for Dolph's father to come pick them up. He showed up around ten minutes after they got out there after being texted by Dolph. They climbed into the car, and after introductions, they settled into a friendly conversation wherein Dolph's father asked a lot of questions about AJ and Erica.
"Thank you again for letting us come," AJ told his father. "I hate to think we're barging in or anything."
"That's bullshit to think that," Don said in no uncertain terms. "We love having people over, especially people who mean something to our sons."
Dolph nearly wanted to kill his father. He had no idea what he was talking about, well, he sort of did, when he told his mother that AJ and Erica were coming, he mentioned that he cared about AJ, and he didn't want her or her sister to spend the holiday alone. It wasn't that he didn't think they could have a good time, but Christmas just felt like it should be a time for family.
He did care about AJ though, but he didn't want her to get the wrong idea or anything. What if she got the wrong idea? It wasn't like he told his mother that he was in love with her or something. He wasn't in love with her, he liked her, and she was fun to be around, but she could think that he was secretly pining away for her, but he wasn't doing that, was he? No, no way, he totally wasn't doing that.
Dolph snuck a glance at AJ in the backseat, and she smiled at him, her eyes lighting up just a little. She raised her eyebrows in unison, acknowledging his look. "I'm glad that I mean something to someone," she told him.
Dolph didn't have anything to say to that, and he feared that if he tried, it would come across as love-sick or trite or something of that nature, so instead, he just bared his teeth in a grin for a moment before turning back front. He didn't want to seem too into her right now. He tried to remain aloof, but every once in a while, when she something especially funny or clever, he had to give her another look, and he always found her looking back at him.
Getting to his house, it was pure chaos. Extended family made sure there wasn't one part of the house that was empty. The noise levels varied from loud to louder, and there were kids running around and adults laughing and drinking wine. Because Dolph couldn't arrive until Christmas day, it had been agreed upon that the adults would exchange presents on Christmas night while the kids were already playing with their spoils, trucks being pushed from room to room, and Dolph's cousin's infant chewing on her new toy.
AJ and Erica were accepted right into the fold, everyone coming over to introduce themselves, and making them feel welcome. As AJ was getting another glass of warm cider before dinner, she saw Erica talking animatedly with Dolph's youngest brother, Donny, the two of them laughing every once in while. Dolph came up behind her and touched her elbow.
"Hey, you doing okay?" he asked, knowing that she wasn't very good at social situations. She always had this awkward tic of playing with her hair, and although she wasn't doing it now while sipping her drink, he noticed her doing it earlier when she seemed a little lost.
"Yeah, I'm okay," but he knew better. She was feeling overwhelmed, and he couldn't blame her, there were probably around 45 people in the house, and that was a lot of people milling about.
"Come here," he said, leading her upstairs by the hand, grabbing their jackets out of the closet on the way. They went to his old bedroom, and he walked to the window, opening it up and handing her, her coat. She put it on as he put on his and climbed out onto the roof. He leaned back in and offered his hand.
"Um, is this safe?" she asked.
"Not in the slightest," he told her, and she grabbed his hand before she could over-think it. He sat down on the roof, which was slightly damp from the evening. Luckily for them, there was no snow, but it was still very cold, and AJ had to sit close to him. He chanced it and put his arm around her. "Sorry, I didn't know how cold it would be up here."
"It's okay, I'm okay," she told him, "I brought a super warm coat."
"I just thought you might want to get away from all the noise and people in there."
"I did, thanks," she told him, staring out into the darkness. This part of the house looked out over the backyards of several other houses around them, and they could see dots of lights from other Christmas celebrations. "As you can see, I'm the one that hides in the corner, and Erica is the one that just throws herself into things."
"I could kind of tell," he said, "but are you having fun?"
"Yeah, I am," she said, "it's nice, all these people, having this big celebration. I don't know, even when I get to spend time with my family, it's not like this. It's just me, my parents, my sister, and my brother and his family. So it's nothing crazy like this."
"That's probably better than this madhouse sometimes."
"Still, it beats what we were going to do, which was probably order Chinese food or something, and watch movies. Nothing special, this is better, I get to spend it with my sister and someone who I care about."
"Oh, yeah, okay," he laughed.
"I remembered, and it's nice to have that, you know, like, I care about you too," she told him, and he didn't feel the cold any longer. The warmth of that statement was enough to keep him cozy until summertime. "Your parents are amazingly nice, I can see where you get it from now."
"Get what from?"
"This capacity you have to just…be this nice guy. Like, I can't even explain it, but beneath the dirty jokes and this façade of always being the coolest guy in the room, you're really just kind, and I think your parents are the reason for that."
"Or I was just born with it."
"There's the cocky guy I know and mildly tolerate," she quieted down after that before laughing a few minutes later. He didn't know what was meant by that so he let it go for a few moments until she covered her face and almost looked like she was wiping at her eyes. He wanted to know what could be so funny as to make her cry from laughter.
"What's so funny?" he asked her, turning to look at her. She looked ethereal in that moment, the scant light from the distant streetlight making her glow in an angelic way. It was causing him to double take. Sometimes, her beauty actually took his breath away. What was so beautiful about her was that she wasn't gorgeous. She was beautiful in this way that not many people could see, but all he could see was how her face became her.
"Several months ago, the thought of being here with you, spending Christmas with you, sitting alone with you, it was just something that wasn't even…it was never something I imagined. You were just this…coworker guy, and I thought you were kind of a jerk, and here we are, and it's so funny how life can change, and how you can just meet someone you click with."
"We click?"
"Isn't it weird how well we click actually," she told him, "I don't know, you're just one of a kind, Nemeth, and I'm glad we were paired together. I think of all the guys they could have stuck me with, and I'm just really glad it's you."
They lapsed back into silence because there was nothing he really needed to say to her that he couldn't say with a pull closer to him. She leaned into his body and he wrapped his arm tighter around her. There were no fireworks, no kisses, no confessions, but it was still the nicest moment he'd had with a woman in a long time. It felt genuine, and that, above all else, felt exceptional.
He was really glad it was him too.
