Chapter 1: Christmas Eve
She traced her fingertips lightly over his bare chest, feeling the softness and warmth of his skin. Her fingers wandered up his neck, over the tendon, which stood out a little since he had his head bent to the side, facing her. They went further up, over his cheek up to his forehead and back down his nose to his lips, tracing their outline. His hot breath tickled on the top of her hand and her arm that rested on his chest rose and fell with every breath he did take.
Her dark eyes wandered over his features again, resting on his closed eyes for a moment and she tried to count his thick dark lashes, but failed. Her gaze went up to his dark messy bunch of curls, that were now standing in every possible direction and she twirled on of the soft curls around her index finger, loving the feel of it. Eyes darted lower again, resting on his nose and cheekbones this time, admiring the tiny freckles that no one but her knew they were there, until they finally came to a stop on his lips again, which were this time just slightly open.
The feelings that swirled through her body were overwhelming and she felt hot tears well up in her eyes, but this time due to very different reasons than just two hours ago.
He stirred in his sleep and smiled, fixing those adorable dimples that she had fallen for all this time ago and she couldn´t but kiss it. Her lips went to his, whispering a low and meaningful 'I love you' and breathed a tender kiss against them before she got out of the bed to take a shower.
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Sandy looked at Kirsten questioningly before he brought his eyes back to his mom.
There she sat, Sophie Ann Cohen, 65 years old, on the huge sofa in his den next to the gigantic Christmas tree, wearing a black pants suit and make up for the first time since she had been 30, with her dark curls falling down onto her shoulders, looking younger and happier than he had ever seen her before in his life.
"So, you´re living in New York again?", Kirsten asked all of the sudden, her exited sounding voice forced and faked to cover the obvious shock.
"Yeah, you know, after the boy´s visit last spring and the whole disaster with Bobby, I realized that I´m a little too young to live in a retirement home, although everything was really nice…", she smiled at Sandy, patting his knee thankfully and reproachfully at the same time, while he and Kirsten just continued to nod, obviously dumbfounded , "…so I took a trip to the Big Apple…and I had a really great time and I realized that I really missed all this. So when I met my old friend Sally-…Sandy, you know Sally Parker from the social services!...and she offered me a job, I couldn´t but take the chance." She looked at her son and daughter-in-law full of excitement, clasping her hands together, while they still looked at her as if an UFO had landed in their backyard.
"You- you´re working again?", Sandy asked unbelievingly, processing what he had just heard.
"Yes! Isn´t that great!", she chirped, smiling widely at the two shocked faces in front of her.
"If you´d excuse me know…I´m pretty tired; long flight." And with that she got off the couch and made her way up the stairs, her new Malono´s clicking on the marble floor, while Kirsten and Sandy looked after her, her patting his shoulder reassuringly.
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Ryan hurried through the kitchen and the den to get to the front door, where someone´s ringing had increased to impatient; and nothing could be more unnerving than the sound of the bell, ringing 5 times per second, when you´re just about to write your girlfriend a meaningful Christmas card.
Where were the Cohen´s when you needed them?
He opened the door and was taken aback by the mini-version of Marissa storming past him into the house, walking around the den and looking in every corner with the most tiny steps he had ever seen a woman/girl take and her butt standing out, making her look almost like Daisy or any usual Newport socialite for that matter, before she came to a halt in front of him and Julie and Marissa, who were still standing outside and looked just as confused as him but also annoyed, and said: "Nice!"
Ryan shot his head in Marissa´s direction, his mouth agape, but she just shrugged and came in with Julie at her heels.
But before anyone could get just one word out, her shrill voice spoke up again…
"So,…you´re Ryan! I remember you! You were the kid from Chino, the one, who burned down the Model Home and who´s mother got drunk at the Gamble Party…Right!"
Marissa and Julie shot daggers at her, but Ryan was still shocked. Never had he seen such a spoiled, arrogant and bitchy brat in his life before, and that meant a lot since he lived in Newport for over two years now.
"And YOU got my sister…", she spitted out the 'you' in obvious disgust. "…Well, I always preferred Luke…but I´m not the one, who has to sleep with you…So I really don´t care."
All three pairs of eyes widened in shock…
"Where are the others?", Caitlin asked, although obviously not interested in the least.
Just this moment the door to the basement swung open and Kirsten and Sandy appeared, both holding another box of Christmas decoration.
"Bar!", was the only thing Julie said and then followed an obviously confused looking Sandy out of the room.
Kirsten watched them disappear before she put the box down to greet Caitlin and Marissa.
"Hi, Caitlin…I don´t know if you remember me, but I´m K-…"
"Yeah, I know!", she interrupted, shaking Kirsten´s hand lazily. "Nice to see you…again…uhmm, is it okay if I watch TV?"
"Sure. In the living room, sweetie…suit yourself at home."
The young Cooper stormed out of the room and seconds later 50 Cent blasted through the house...followed by Julie´s unnerved yelling as she told Caitlin to shut it off.
Kirsten looked at Marissa and Ryan, who just shrugged.
This was going to be interesting.
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Neil Roberts stood in the doorway to his only daughter´s room, undiscovered, watching her how she applied make up on her beautiful face.
He hadn´t seen her since they had talked that morning, when she had cried a lot, mostly due to the memory of her real Mom leaving, and he had prepared himself for the first time ever not to celebrate Christmas, a holiday that meant most to him and Summer. But then Seth Cohen had showed up and she had come down to him in his office, smiling widely, and told him they´d celebrate Christmas, or Christmukkah like Seth called it, at the Cohen´s.
Until that moment he hadn´t really seen the importance that this boy had in Summer´s life, maybe he didn´t want to see it, but it had become undeniable, even for him. And so he couldn´t but stand there, watching her like he had done when she had been little, playing with her Barbies, and realized that maybe things had worked out pretty well.
Summer still hadn´t recognized her dad, standing at the door, as Seth walked into the room from her adjoined bathroom, arms half way in his black shirt and high above his head, which was completely buried in the black fabric.
"A little help, please.", he whined from underneath it and she couldn´t but smile at him.
Fumbling with the material, she finally got the shirt right and his now flushed face appeared, smiling at her like she was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen, fixing those amazing dimples in the progress.
A sudden flashback of earlier that afternoon and the feel of his warm and soft hands on her waist, combined wit the way he looked at her right now through those brown orbs, made her melt, and not for the first time made her body ache with all the emotions she felt but coudn´t sort out nor let completely show.
He pulled her closer, inhaling the cocos-aroma of her shampoo, combined with the vanilla perfume and the undeniable scent of her body. Seth closed his eyes, letting himself be dizzied by the feelings that aroused in him as she buried her face deeper in his chest and put her hand on his back, drawing him even closer to her.
Feeling her hot breath on his neck, his heart almost skipped a beat as she whispered those three meaningful words into his ear…
"I love you, Seth."
"I love you, too, Sum.", he whispered back ever so tenderly, burying his face in the crook of her neck.
They weren´t one of those couples, who were attached at the hip and couldn´t live one second without the other´s presence. And not at all were they the kind of a couple that would get all mushy at each other all the time.
They had fun, they fought and had hot make up sex, they had their serious moments and of course their issues that every now and then broke out onto the front and both were happy and content with what they had, cause it was just amazingly and honestly real and overwhelming.
But sometimes they just needed to be exactly like this, mushy and cheesy, when they couldn´t be without the feeling of the other one´s body, even if it was just holding hands, and they would whisper aww-worthy things in each other´s ears.
And maybe just because these moments were so rare, they were so special and meant so much to both of them…
So as Seth pressed her body so hard against him that it almost hurt, neither of them wanted it any other way.
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Julie had just drowned her 4th drink that afternoon, and it was just 5:00 PM, as she made her way to the pool house, where she knew Ryan would be alone.
"Knock knock.", she said, standing in the doorway to that boy´s own pool house, that was bigger than her whole new home.
Ryan looked up from the mess of wrapping paper on the floor and at her.
"Hey."
"Look!...I was wondering if we could…like…kinda talk, she asked sheepishly.
"Umm…yeah…uh, sure." He was obviously startled that she wanted to talk to him and she sensed that he was getting nervous a little bit, but she couldn´t really take offence by that – Julie knew, that she wasn´t really known as a nice person.
Ryan gestured to her to sit down in one of the armchairs as he sat at the edge of his bed.
"Okay, so…I guess Marissa told you about our current situation?" Ryan just nodded. "See..I don´t know if you know this, but I´m from Riverside. I grew up with just my father and two older sisters, living in a trailer park and…The point is, it was awful. I hated my life and the only thing I ever wanted was to get out of there, to live a better life without worries and problems but acceptation from others for a change. And somehow I got what I wanted, although I had to take more than one rocky path. I never…never wanted my daughters to have to experience anything like that…that was and still is most important to me and I fought for it. But now -…", Julie wiped away the tears that had started to show up at the corners of her eyes, looking completely desperate and sad.
"Um…shouldn´t you better talk to Kirsten? I mean, she´s your be-…", Ryan replied, rolling his eyes at her 'typical Julie' behavior and self-absorption, but was cut off by her…
"NO! She…she can´t understand. She never had to live in a part of the town where it´s dangerous to walk across the street past 7:00 PM, in a house where you have to share one tiny room without a window with your siblings and the walls are so thin that you can hear every word of your neighbors…but you did, Ryan. And you know Marissa. Probably better than me….And with everything that has happened the last two years I just wanted to know if…if she´s gonna be able to make it through this?" Julie´s voice had such a sincerity in it and she was looking at him through such teary pleading eyes, that Ryan couldn´t but think that maybe this time she really was concerned about someone else but herself.
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Neil Roberts followed Summer and Seth down the stairs, ready to leave for the Cohen´s as a shrill and obviously drunk voice yelled something intelligibly after them. He saw Summer grabbing Seth hand out of the corner of his eye, before he told them to wait at the car.
Walking into the direction of the living room the drunken slurring of a singing voice and the unmistakably clinging of ice cubes in an empty glass got more and more clearer with every step.
Carrie Roberts was laying on the couch in the living room, her black satiny blouse half way open, giving a clear view on her red bra. Her white skirt had rose up and was now laying in a creased mess around her waist, while she swung her empty scotch glass in her hand, summing 'Last Christmas'.
"Where are you going?", she yelled at him, not changing her position.
"Summer and I are going to the Cohen´s for dinner.", Neil replied, his voice full of disgust for the woman he once had loved.
"Oh, yeah…Kirsten Cohen…the most perfect woman in whole Newport Beach."
"I´m not going to have this conversation with you, Carrie. I´m off."
"Yeah, yeah…run away, just like you always do.", she spitted at him, swinging her glass so that half of the ice cubes landed on the marble floor with a crash.
"You´re drunk."
"Yes! Yes, you´re right, Neil…I am drunk. But if I were you I wouldn´t judge….Did you know that Kirsten Cohen was in rehab all summer?", Carrie smiled at him triumphantly and tried to take another sip of her drink, looking completely confused and dumbfounded as she recognized she was already out.
"Yes, I knew that! Summer told me. So when? It´s not that big deal. At least half of Newport were in rehab at least once….And at least she got help, before her drug addiction could ruin her family!", Neil replied, getting caught in that odd conversation.
"Summer, Summer, Summer, Summer, Summer, Summer,…", she mumbled through his last few sentences, not paying attention in the least. "You know that you´re little darling fucks that Cohen geek? I heard them….uhhhhhhh….", she singsonged the last part, making waving motions with her arms.
"Okay, that´s it! I´m out of here!...Merry Christmas!"
And with this he stormed out of the room, slamming the front door shut behind him, before her slurred 'Merry Christmas to you, too' could reach his ears.
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It was 09:00 PM on Christmas eve and everyone sat around the huge plasma TV in the Cohen´s living room, watching 'The Christmas Carol'.
Dinner had went more than great and Kirsten had outdone herself with the meal, leaving Sophie Cohen speechless for a moment, something that hadn´t happened in a long time.
Everyone had had a great time ; Summer had recovered from her little breakdown before, much to the relief of Seth and her Dad, although Seth still had no clue of what had happened. Neil and Julie had discovered some common interests, leaving the Nana almost disgusted and with a rage blackout, which she had let out on the non-stop complaining Caitlin and told her to shut up, what she had done, much to the satisfaction of all the others.
Right now Kirsten and Sandy sat next to each other on one of the huge sofas, Caitlin, Neil and Julie on the other and the Nana in the gigantic armchair, that usually stood in Sandy´s office.
Ryan and Marissa sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa, holding hands, while Seth sat beside them with Summer sitting in between his legs, leaning against his chest.
"Hey, you okay?", Seth whispered tenderly in Summer´s ear, tightening his arms around her waist just a little bit.
She leaned closer into him and nodded slightly, tracing her fingertips over his hand up to the crook of his arm and back down to his hands again.
"I´m worried about you."
His hot breath on her ear and neck caused her to shiver and she took his hands that rested intertwined on her stomach, and crossed his arms over her, making him hold her tighter.
"I know.", she whispered so quietly that he almost missed it, never once taking her intense gaze off of the TV.
"Tell me what happened, Sum. Please!"
It wasn´t the curiosity that spoke out of him but the pure concern. He had never seen her like that afternoon before and it hurt and scared him to see her like this and it hurt that he didn´t seem able to help her, or at least that she didn´t thought he could. And he wanted to help her so badly.
Seth knew that she had issues ; he had seen a few of them, they had worked out some, but he knew that there were still some things that he hadn´t yet seen, that he didn´t know about and that she didn´t want to show…at least not yet.
"Not now! Okay?", she whispered softly after a while and this time it was him who nodded before he kissed her on the cheek and focused back on the movie, not realizing that they had been watched the whole time; and this time not only by one parent.
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Sophie Cohen sat in the huge comfy armchair in the guestroom, looking out onto the patio, that was just lighten up a little bit by the pool lights, giving the whole area a romantic but also scary look.
"Yeah?", a deep men´s voice answered the phone at the other end of the line.
"Hey, it´s me."
"Sophie…Thank God! I was worried about you…You wanted to call two hours ago."
"Yeah, I know….I´m sorry. How are you? Is everything okay?"
"Everything´s fine…Did you tell him yet?"
"Moses!", she sighed. "I can´t just throw that bomb at him! I need a little time…He-he needs to get used to this…slowly."
"He needs to get used to this? I´m his-…Okay, you´re right! What about the others, though?"
"I want to tell Sandy first, he´s the oldest. And Sarah and her family are still in Europe until February…so!"
"Okay. I´m just so exited and nervous and…"
"I know, honey. But it´ll be okay. I´m pretty tired though…I´ll call you tomorrow."
"Alright. Good night….Love you."
"Love you, too. Good night."
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"Hmmm…that was a pretty great Christmas Eve, don´t you think?", Kirsten asked as she snuggled into Sandy´s side.
"Mmmmm…"
"But the poor Summer…I´m really sorry for her. She looked so sad the whole evening…just like Neil. I´m wondering what´s going on with them…"
"Mmmmm…"
"But Seth was so mature and cute with how he handled the whole thing and how he is there for her….Especially since Marissa has her own problems now. It´s so sad that they´ve lost everything…And Julie, I really don´t know how she handles all this…with the money problems and the house…and Caitlin. God, this kid is awful….Sandy?...Sandy?...Are you even listening to me?"
Kirsten sat up in bed and just looked at her husband, who remained looking into space.
"Sandy!"
"Huh? What?", he asked confused, looking at her startled.
"You didn´t even listen…"
"Sorry, I just…something´s wrong with my mom…She was so…"
"…different? Kinda nice?", Kirsten finished his sentence questioningly as she laid back down on the bed.
"Yeah…The last time I saw her like this she had cancer. And the whole 'I´m to old for Miami and working again' thing really creeps me out!...What if…?"
"Everything´s gonna be fine, honey. She´ll tell you sooner or later.", she said, stroking his arm reassuringly.
"I just don´t know if I want to hear it, you know!"
"I know! But you can´t change it! You have to wait until she comes around and then you have to live with whatever it is."
"Yeah…"
"Go to sleep now."
"Mmmm…G´night."
"Good night, Sandy."
He gave her a quick peck on the lips before he switched off the light, staring into the darkness.
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Julie laid in the huge bed in the pool house, hearing Caitlin, who after a huge fight slept on the air mattress on the floor at the feet of the bed, softly snoring. And she knew that she was probably killing her in her dreams. The unnerving ticking of the clock made it impossible for her to find any sleep and all the thoughts and fears, that she had blocked out of her mind over the day, came floating back….And in the dark of the 'holy' Christmas night, she cried….
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Neil Roberts opened the huge and heavy door to his house, which was dark and cold and somehow always seemed desolate.
He took his jacket off on his way to the living room, throwing it on the couch that was currently not occupied by his pasted out wife, who still laid where he had left her a few hours ago, an empty bottle of vodka resting on the floor next to the sofa, still clung in her hand.
Pouring himself a drink, he let himself fall back into the cushions, closing his eyes…
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Some of the electric lights in the Christmas tree were on, bathing the area around it in a soft golden glow, while everything around them was dark.
From her position Summer could see the light up pool that reflected in the huge windows, making the patio look like a romantic movie set.
The four teenagers had decided to sleep in the den by the Christmas tree, since Caitlin and Julie had claimed ownership of the pool house for the night and the Nana slept in the only not stuffed guestroom.
They had made a huge comfy lawn of pillows, covers and blankets on the floor in front of the tree, that was already surrounded by tons of presents in all different sizes and forms, wrapped in gold, red and green paper with huge golden bows on it, and while Marissa and Ryan were already fast asleep with him spooning her from behind, Seth and Summer were still wide awake, facing each other in the dark, arms and legs entangled underneath the comforter, just enjoying each other´s company.
"I´m sorry about earlier…", Summer´s sleepy voice suddenly broke the silence.
"It´s okay…but I´m really worried about you. I know something has happened and you´re upset, but you somehow just don´t want to talk about it and I-…"
"I want to tell you…and I will. Just not now, okay!"
He looked her deep in the eyes, almost as if he was searching in her soul for his answers, before he kissed her nose tenderly, showing her it was okay.
"What did my Dad told you as he left?", she asked, suppressing a huge yawn.
"Oh, just that I should take care of you.", Seth replied chuckling at the memory of Neil Roberts´ words.
"Mhmmm…", she sighed as she snuggled closer to him, burying her face in his chest.
"Sleepy now?", he asked smiling down at her and tightening his arms around her just a little bit.
"Hmm…Merry Chrismukkah, Cohen."
"Merry Chrismukkah, Sum."
Seth kissed her forehead one last time before they both fell into a deep and content slumber.
Thx for reading and hope you like it!
R&R
Ciao
Sarah
> alex aka babyf: This story will go further than just the whole Chrismukkah thingy...until their graduation actually. ;-)