A/N So here is Christmas Eve. Only one more chapter to go after this, but I have loads more ideas for these characters so it will not be the last you hear from them! Thanks again for the reviews!
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I might put them on my Christmas list.
SPOV
Christmas Eve was always going to be a busy day, and unfortunately for Eric, that meant he didn't get a sleep-in. "Hey" I said, nudging him. No response. Amelia, Felicia and I had been up for a while, and Eric had been missing out on all the excitement that was Amelia yelling "No! Felicia's touching my stuff!", while trying to shove Felicia away with her hand, and me yelling at Amelia for bouncing a ball in the house and knocking over Bob's water bowl, followed by her shout of "You're not being nice!" and a few tears. Emotions were running high and at one point both kids had been crying. I'd been tempted to join in. Eric was either a really good actor or actually able to sleep through all of this.
"Eric!" I tried again. No response. I was kneeling on the bed by his head and I bounced a few times to make the bed move. "Get up!" I said. "I have stuff I need you to do!"
Eric opened his eyes. "Is the bouncing an indication of what it is you need me to do?" he asked.
"No, the bouncing is more a means to get you to actually wake up and move. Come on! The kids are going ballistic and I have stuff to do and I need you to get up, get in the shower and then go to Nosh to pick up the ham."
He rolled onto his back. "You lost me at 'wake up and move'" he said. "Because, you know, I'm really quite comfortable where I am."
I was getting seriously pissed off with him. "Eric Northman, if you do not get your arse out of this bed RIGHT NOW, then so help me God I will set fire to it. I mean it."
Eric looked at me for a moment, while I struggled to maintain what I hoped was my 'do what I say because I mean business!' expression. "Fine!" he said, sitting up. "Fine, I will get up and get in the shower, but don't I even get a good morning kiss?"
"Oh, all right then. If it will make you move a bit quicker then you can have a kiss." I leaned over and he put his hand behind my head, pulling me towards him. It did calm me down a bit. "Feeling better?" he asked.
"Bit" I muttered. "But you still have to get out of bed."
"Yeah, I'd got that message." He looked at the clock. "What happened while I was asleep to get you this worked up?"
"Christmas."
"Shit! How long did you let me sleep for that I missed Christmas?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah. As if that would happen. Now get up."
"OK, but…" Eric said, as he started to get out of bed "…I'll make you a deal. If you can hold off on exploding with stress for half an hour I will take one of the kids with me when I go out, OK?"
"Oh, OK. Yeah, that would be good."
"Which one do you want me to take?"
"Um, the big, bossy one." As if on cue Amelia yelled "MUM! Felicia's done POOS! You need to change her bum!"
"OK, well I'll be ready soon, unless…"
"What?"
"You could hide in the shower with me?" Yeah, it was a nice thought, but it wouldn't help my stress levels. Well, not for very long.
"Wish I could, but no. If you and Amelia could just get the ham for me, that would be enough. Thank you." I went over and hugged him and muttered "SorryIwasgrumpy" into his chest.
"That's OK" he said as I stepped back and he started walking to the bathroom. "I'm just glad I could help, after all, no one wants a grumpy wife on Christmas."
"The word you're looking for is…fiancée". Yeah, he'd gone through the door before I got that out, damn him. It would be nice to get the last word in. Why wouldn't he just stay put so I could?
I went off to deal with Felicia and tried to just calm down. There was nothing to be stressed about really. Christmas was only the four of us. It wasn't going to be like the first time I put on a big Christmas dinner and Bill spent the whole time bitching that Portia had brought her Chinese homestay with her without warning us, and then the family had spent the day shouting at the poor confused kid as if he was deaf. Of course they managed to ignore Nanny Marija, Lorena's mother, who was actually deaf and had made off with most of the white meat from the turkey because she was first for the buffet, which set off another round of muttering from Bill. Judith had been dropped off by her boyfriend at the time, but not until after they'd had a screaming match in our driveway. Not to mention we'd had Jason that year who arrived late and with the thoughtful contribution of some asparagus that was about to go off in the fridge of the flat that he shared with two other blokes. Still, that was more than either Portia or Sarah brought with them.
Yeah. Those were the days.
So really, I thought to myself, I shouldn't be stressed. Except that it was Eric's first Christmas here and I wanted it to be special for him. And there was also the small matter of the fact that we were now getting married. That may have been contributing to my stress levels just a bit.
So maybe, I thought, I'd just worry about that whole…thing after Christmas. Yep, later sounded good.
I went back to the kitchen with a much nicer to know Felicia and Eric was already there eating cereal. I had lit a fire under him obviously.
"I'm just waiting on the coffee" he said, gesturing to the machine.
"No time. It'll be busy. They sell coffee there." Eric sighed, but put his dishes in the dishwasher and yelled out "Amelia? Are you ready?"
Amelia appeared wearing a plastic tiara and carrying a pink handbag. "Yep" she said. "Mummy, I'm going in Eric's car. We're going somewhere nice. I think it's the park. Is it the park, Eric?"
"No." Eric said, grabbing his keys.
"Oh. Will there be ice cream?"
"No."
"Oh. But you said it was nice?"
"Well it is nice. You'll see." He turned to kiss me "Bye" he said.
"Yeah, bye. Be good Amelia!"
"Yeah. I'm always good. Bye Mum!" As they headed out the door I could Amelia asking "So, where are we going, Eric?" Then the door shut and the house was quiet again. Well it was until Felicia started banging the plastic container she'd pulled out of a drawer on the floor. I poured myself some coffee and thought about what I needed to do for Christmas, and not about the other thing.
By the time they got back I was feeling slightly more sorted. I'd hung out some washing, while Felicia had tried to get close enough to Bob so she could squeeze him like she did her soft toys. Bob had done this before, and managed to stay tantalisingly just out of reach the whole time, by only ever moving about three steps in any direction whenever Felicia got close. It was like his personal mission, to see how close he could let her get without running away. He'd hate it when she learned to walk.
And I'd organised what we needed to take to Tara's this morning as we were having morning tea there to exchange Christmas presents and so I could hand over Tara's birthday present because she had the totally stink birthday on Boxing Day. So that present couldn't be wrapped in Christmas paper or she wouldn't let me in the house. Maybe it might be different now we're adults, but there'd been a nasty incident when we were 15 and I wasn't going to risk a repeat of that today. Tara took her birthday seriously.
So when Eric and Amelia got back the muffins I was making were just about ready and I'd laid out Amelia's clothes on her bed. Eric I'd leave to fend for himself in that regard.
"No problem getting the ham?" I asked.
"Nope. Other than the fact it was a bit busy." Eric was carrying stuff into the kitchen and seemed to have bought a lot more than the ham.
"What's all this?" I asked.
"Just some other stuff. I thought I might make breakfast tomorrow" he said taking out a couple of bottles of champagne.
"Oh. Well nothing too big I hope, or else we won't eat lunch." That statement was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Shut up, I thought; just let the man be nice to you for once.
"No. No nothing too big" he said putting more things in the fridge.
Amelia came over, her mouth covered in chocolate. "I had a fluffy, in one of the paper cups, like Eric had. And we didn't sit down to drink it." I kind of wished I'd seen the pair of them wandering around with their drinks in their hands, looking as sophisticated as you can when one of you is three and wearing a tiara.
"Well that sounds nice, I hope you said thank you."
"Yeah! Course I did."
"Right, well come here so I can wipe your face." She stepped over reluctantly so I could clean her up. "Now can you go and get changed, please? I've put some clothes on your bed."
"Is it a dress?"
"Top and leggings."
"I want a dress!"
"But it's not practical if you're going to run around Aunty Tara's garden."
"I don't CARE!" This was the point at which I always failed. I yelled back, because I just wanted her to do what I told her. That wasn't too much to ask, I thought. I was her mother. It was supposed to work that way.
But before I could say anything, Eric stepped over. "Amelia" he said warningly, "Remember what we talked about in the car?"
"No" Amelia said, still clinging to a bit of defiance.
"What did I say about Santa?" Eric continued.
"That he won't come if I'm not a good girl."
"So, you have to be nice to Mommy, and do what she says, OK?"
"OK" Amelia mumbled.
"Good girl, Ames" Eric said, patting her on the head. I was a bit dumbstruck. Ames? They'd started some kind of club and I hadn't been invited. Had Felicia?
Amelia went off to her room and Eric was looking pleased with himself, like he was the first person to ever think of using Santa as a way to get kids to do what you want. Yeah, I thought, I might let him have that one.
"Thank you" I said. "She's a handful sometimes."
"She's not so bad. You just have to know what to threaten her with."
"Yeah, that's a…interesting way of putting it. But it's probably the way it works with a three year old."
Eric hugged me but the timer on the oven went off at that point and I had to go and rescue the muffins.
EPOV
Christmas was stressing Sookie out. A lot. More than I had expected. At least I had hoped it was Christmas that was stressing her, because Christmas would be over soon. If it was anything else I was in trouble.
I knew that as soon as Sookie got stressed she and Amelia tended to butt heads, so I took her with me when I went to Nosh. I could have fucking done without her wearing a tiara of course, but no one seemed to notice, well apart from a few women who told Amelia how cute she was.
Sookie seemed a bit better when we got back, although she was suspicious of the other things I'd bought and my plan to make breakfast on Christmas day. I figured it was the least I could do given the circumstances.
Apparently this morning's plan was to go to Tara's and hand over gifts. On the drive over Amelia was chattering excitedly, Felicia was yelling random noises and Sookie was very, very quiet. I hoped like fuck she was OK.
She seemed better when we got there and she was chatting to Tara and unpacking the gifts we'd brought with us, and some blueberry muffins. It looked as though Tara had been baking for days there was so much other food there. I was kind of getting the hang of morning tea.
The kids all ripped into their presents pretty quickly, except for Felicia who was just happy to have something shiny to hold and was actually kind of annoyed when Charlotte took the paper off it for her. The adults were more restrained and Tara and JB liked their gift and had bought Sookie what looked like a basket of fancy food items. "I went through Nosh and bought a whole lot of stuff that looked good" Tara said.
"Oh well then, I'll give this to Eric, it's his favourite store" Sookie said passing the basket to me.
"Oh, what? No, I'm not taking your gift off you" I said, holding it.
"It's OK. It's got your name on it too." I had a look, it did. It was actually quite nice to be included.
I was a bit confused when Tara switched off the Christmas tree lights, but apparently that was the signal that we were moving on to celebrate her birthday. So she opened the gift that Sookie had bought her the other day, which had carefully been wrapped in plain paper, and we all sang happy birthday. Then the kids, apart from Felicia who was on a mission to shred the discarded paper, disappeared outside and I finally got to try one of the muffins. They were pretty fucking awesome.
After spending the morning watching Sookie being alternately stressed and quiet it was nice to see her chatting to Tara. There seemed to be a lot of giggling going on in the kitchen where the two of them were standing.
I went outside to Amelia's shouts of "Eric! I'm stuck!" so I could get her down from where she insisted on getting herself to on the climbing frame. How she could get up there and not get down I don't know. I stood guard as she had another go at climbing up and JB came over to talk to me.
"So, are you guys all set for tomorrow?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah. I guess. Hey, how hard are those to put together?" I asked, nodding at the trampoline. Amelia was now on the swing set with Lachlan and thankfully out of earshot.
"Oh, not so bad. My father-in-law helped, although his idea of help is mainly standing around drinking beer." JB laughed.
"Oh, right" I said.
"He's not so bad. Most of the time. When he's not drinking. He tends to go on these benders and get utterly smashed at totally inappropriate times. Has Sookie told you about the cricket?"
"Um. No."
"Yeah. I don't know what he was thinking getting those two as thirteen year olds to smuggle his beer in to Eden Park stuffed in the cushions they were carrying. I guess he figured no one would search young girls."
"Oh, yeah." There wasn't much I could say to that, even my dad hadn't used me to smuggle alcohol for him.
"Yeah, 'course he's slowed down a bit these days. Cirrhosis of the liver. That works wonders."
"Mmm" I wondered how good my dad's liver was. Fuck. I supposed I'd have to call him for Christmas. And tell him I was living in New Zealand. And I was getting married.
The mood was a bit sombre now so I decided to try for something happier. "So, um, Sookie and I are getting married" I said, which was the first thing that came into my head, and then I remembered that it was just supposed to be between us. Fuck. Still, she was close to Tara. Maybe she'd told Tara?
"Oh, wow. That's great, Eric. Congratulations." JB tried to sound enthusiastic, but I got the impression that he was a little bit worried about Sookie. I guess he had known her a hell of lot longer than he'd known me. Maybe Sookie was right and we should just keep this quiet. Well, there was no going back now.
"Yeah, it's really great. Or it would be, if Sookie seemed…happier about it."
"They're funny about weddings, women. Tara gave me an ultimatum to propose or she was leaving me, and then spent the next year planning the most over the top 'low-key' wedding I've ever seen. And I think when Sookie married Bill she got so stressed out by her mother in law she practically stopped eating for two months…" JB stopped talking at that point, realising what he'd said, and just looked at the ground. It made me think though. Maybe she was stressed out by the thought of the actual wedding?
Amelia was being bossed around by Charlotte, which was actually an interesting phenomenon to observe, so I went back inside followed by JB. "So have you guys been celebrating?" he asked, going over to pick up another muffin.
"Yeah, although I've decided I'm going to stay 34 for another year" Tara said.
"No, Sookie's news. That she and Eric are getting married" JB said, through a mouthful of food.
Tara's eyes widened. "Why didn't you tell me this?" she demanded.
"Oh, um. Oh, well, we weren't telling anyone, I thought…" Sookie said, before turning to glare at me. Yeah, I'd fucked up big time.
"Well I'm not anyone! I'm your oldest friend. I was matron of honour at your last wedding, sorry Eric, so I think I deserve to know first!"
"It only happened yesterday" Sookie mumbled, looking like a little girl being scolded by her mom.
"Well, I'll let you off then. But don't do it again!" Her expression softened. "Congrats though you guys!" she leaned over and kissed Sookie on the cheek, before coming to do the same to me. Sookie just looked like she wanted the kitchen floor to open up and swallow her.
"It's nice to see a guy who doesn't have to be gently persuaded to actually ask the question."
JB snorted. "Gentle persuasion! I seem to remember you telling me that if I didn't ask you, you were leaving me."
"Quite right too. I wasn't wasting my youth on you if it wasn't going anywhere."
"Yeah, but we didn't have to race to get married."
"We did if you wanted children. I seem to remember you being really keen on that bit, and I definitely wanted to be married first."
"Yeah, well you got your wedding in the end."
"And you got your children so everyone was happy."
During this exchange I'd edged closer to Sookie and put a hand on her back. I took it as good sign she didn't try to shrug it off or move away. It was probably the only good sign I was going to get.
Sookie was quiet for the rest of the visit. Well, she talked to Tara, and she told Amelia off when Amelia was trying to boss Lachlan around, but she didn't really talk to me. And she was silent all the way home. Completely silent.
After helping Sookie get everything and everyone out of the car I went to sit on the deck on the pretext of…well I didn't have a pretext, but probably Sookie wasn't talking to me so I guess she wasn't asking me what I was doing. I had fucked up royally. This Christmas was supposed to be special; it was supposed to be a start for us. And now, I'd fucked up and I probably wasn't even getting married. And I wanted a drink. And I was a fuck-up. And I had to build a trampoline.
I was so busy going through the list of everything that I'd fucked up, or was about to fuck up, that I didn't hear Sookie come up behind me. She handed me a cup of coffee and a Christmas mince pie and sat down next to me with her own cup. "I can't keep secrets either, especially not from Tara" she said, staring straight ahead.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah. The only thing that stopped me telling her we were getting married today was the fact that Tara was too busy telling me she'd cut JB off from sex until he agreed to get a vasectomy, because she does not want any more kids. So she probably would have found out anyway if she'd shut up for five minutes."
"Oh. I am supposed to know about the vasectomy thing?"
She shrugged. "I said I can't keep secrets. She tells JB everything anyway. Every time I got pregnant I always said that I'd wait until the first 12 weeks were up to tell her, and every time I told her about two days after I'd taken the test because I was desperate for some sympathy for my morning sickness. I'm totally useless at secrets. And then of course Tara would tell JB and when he congratulated us, I'd get it in the ear from Bill because he was being really circumspect and not telling anyone in his family. So it's probably just as well you can't keep a secret either. It makes us evenly matched."
"Well I can keep secrets, when I have to. I just…I just wanted to tell someone. So it felt more real or something."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Well it does. Feel real. Doesn't it?" She turned to look at me.
"Yeah, it does. So we're good?"
"Yep. We're good. Now eat your mince pie because you'll need your energy for tonight. Is Calvin coming over?"
"Yeah, he texted me to say he'd be here about 7.30pm. So Amelia should be asleep by then?"
"Hopefully. Although she's getting pretty excited about the whole thing. I'm just glad Charlotte didn't let on who Santa really is, because I know she knows the truth and she was rolling her eyes every time Amelia mentioned Santa. I guess maybe she's the only one who can keep a secret."
"Yeah. Fuck. That would have been sad if Amelia had found out today about Santa."
"What about Santa?" asked Amelia, coming to join us. Fuck that was close.
"Um, that Santa is coming to New Zealand first because it's Christmas Eve here first" Sookie said.
"Oh" said Amelia "Is that all?
"Yeah" I said "That's all."
"OK. Mum, can I have another muffin?"
"How many muffins have you had?" Sookie asked.
"Eric's had loads!" Amelia said indignantly.
"Yeah, OK then. Why not? It's Christmas after all."
SPOV
I was a bit annoyed at first with Eric for spilling the beans about us getting married. Admittedly I'd been working up the courage to tell Tara about it while she'd been chatting away about how she wasn't letting JB anywhere near Felicia because she'd spend the next two weeks having to tell him that no, he wasn't getting a third baby out of her. I wanted to see her reaction. Which is dumb, because it's really my reaction that matters, but all the same. I thought it might be a good sanity check.
And then Eric tells JB and she gets to hear it from them and I'll never know whether she was just being polite or not. Although, I guess if she really thought I was being stupid she would have hauled me off to tell me. We'd known each too long for it to just come down to politeness.
And if she did think I was being stupid then I guess it gave her something to talk about with JB, while they weren't having sex. Euw, you don't really want to think about what your best friend does with her husband. Or not, as the case may be.
So I left Eric on the deck with Amelia and Felicia who'd come out to see what was happening and I'd brought the washing in off the line. All of sudden there was a shout from Eric "Sookie! Get here now!" and I thought something awful was happening.
"What?" I asked when I got there.
"Felicia pulled herself up on the seat on the edge of the deck." Felicia was currently sitting on her bum by the seat so I'd have to take his word for it. "Hang around and see if she does it again" he said.
So I sat down and we waited for a bit, and Amelia demonstrated how she could walk along the seat and I tried to suppress the mothering instincts that made me want to stop her. But Felicia looked bored and came over to where I was sitting instead.
After a few minutes Eric said "Let's try this" and he took off his sunglasses and put them on the seat and waited. Sure enough Felicia worked out something contraband was there and slowly crawled over to it, obviously going for stealth mode, then hauled herself up, grabbed the sunglasses and promptly hurled them off the deck.
"Shit" said Eric as he went to retrieve them. Luckily they'd survived the fall onto the grass. "She's good at throwing though, have you noticed that?" he said as he came back up.
"Um, no I hadn't."
"Yeah, she is."
Felicia was back sitting by the seat looking really annoyed that Eric hadn't given her back her treasure. I went and got a ball and put that on the seat and after a bit of persuasion she stood up and got it and threw that as well. She repeated the trick several times for us while Amelia stomped off to her room because no one was paying attention to her.
"That's really cool" Eric said.
"Yeah. I wonder when we can teach her to bowl?" I asked.
"Bowl? Like bowling?"
"No, bowl in cricket. See, she's pretty good at keeping her arm straight already."
"OK…I'll take your word for it."
"Well wait for Boxing Day, there's a 20/20 match on. I'll teach you all I know about cricket, which will probably take me about five minutes but you'll catch on."
"Sounds great."
"Yeah, I like cricket. Tara's dad used to take us to the games at Eden Park. It was a great way to spend a day, we'd sit there and get a tan and try to get ourselves on TV. Good times." I went quiet remembering how much fun it was. "Of course Tara's dad used to get sloshed, and we had to smuggle in his beer for him because they only sold DB and he only drank Lion Red, but, you know, we coped."
"Yeah, I'd heard something about that from JB earlier."
"In retrospect perhaps it wasn't the best lesson to be teaching teenage girls."
"No."
"Yeah. There you go, that was my rebellious youth. Smuggling beer into Eden Park."
"Wow. You were really out there." I looked over at Eric and he was grinning.
"Shut up. You know I was a good girl. Far too scared of authority to get in trouble. God I hope my two take after me in that regards, and not my brother."
"I hate to break it to you, but I'm not sure Amelia is really that impressed with authority."
"Yeah. I like that she stands up for herself, but sometimes…" I trailed off, thinking about how badly wrong it could go for her. "She doesn't mind your authority though."
"No, not so much."
"Well, I'll just have to keep you around then. At least until she's a teenager. Otherwise I'd be stuffed."
"I'm glad you're keeping me around for something."
"Oh, you have your uses. Right I'm off to finish folding laundry. An underpants fairy's work is never done."
About 5.30 I went and found Eric again, he was watching some terrible Christmas cartoon on TV with Amelia asking him constant questions about what was going on, and Felicia trying to get near the presents under the tree, which we'd blocked into the corner with furniture. "So" I said "I'm not cooking tonight."
"Right" said Eric, trying to listen to me over Amelia.
"So we can order pizza if you like."
Eric got off the couch and came over to me. "OK" he said, "from where?"
"Hell."
"Hell?"
"Yeah, Hell Pizza. Have you not seen them? They're all over the place. Anyway I'll get the menu."
I pulled a menu out for Eric to look at and he studied it for a while before deciding. I was happy with anything I wasn't cooking at this stage of the day and I hoped Amelia would eat it. I fed Felicia her dinner while Eric rang up and had to negotiate them missing some words with his accent. Possibly having me mouthing "Yeah, you talk funny!" at him wasn't helping him concentrate either.
Amelia was fascinated with the idea that someone was going to bring food to the door and spent about twenty minutes watching out the window to see when it would arrive. I guess it took her mind off Santa for a while.
She did like her pizza. I guess because it was pretty obvious I had nothing to do with its creation. She dragged out eating though, and didn't want to get in the bath. I was conscious that it was getting close to 7.30pm and I needed her in bed and asleep. Eventually we got her there, just as Calvin arrived.
"Hey, how's it going?" I asked him as he stepped inside.
"Oh, it's mad at our house. Judith is in a complete meltdown. I keep saying to her that it's only her mum and Portia coming, but apparently Lorena is insisting they all drive out to Nanny Marija's grave in the morning, and Portia won't be finished with Church until nearly midday and now the timings are all out apparently and I'm just glad to be here tonight. Where it's calm. Oh, hey Eric!"
Eric had appeared behind me and the pair of them went off to watch the instructional video on the website. Calvin seemed a lot more confident than Eric about the whole enterprise so that was something. I left them to it and just had the occasional glance out the window. When I first looked there were an awful lot of pieces just laid out on the lawn. When I looked a second time it was taking shape as they had most of the rods that this tramp had instead of springs in place. When I looked the third time Andy had obviously got wind that something was happening in our backyard, as he'd jumped the fence to help, or maybe just escape Halleigh. Either way, I could see where Riley got it from.
By about 9 o'clock it was done and they were all standing around congratulating each other so I took them out some beer and Christmas mince pies. Andy went home not long after that, and Calvin finally left about quarter to ten. If our place was that much nicer than his, I wasn't sure how he was going to cope with Judith in full-on bride mode in a couple of months.
"Well, you did it!" I said to Eric. "Well done you."
"Yeah. Fuck, I wouldn't have wanted to do it alone despite what they tell you in that video. No way is that a one person job. I should send them an email."
I shrugged. "Yeah, well. It's done now."
"Yeah. So what happens next?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, with Christmas?"
"Oh, right, well we put out the stuff from Santa I guess. It's all under the bed."
So we hauled out the presents I'd stashed away and put them in two piles, each with a named pillowcase that had a few pressies in it. "Well, that's Santa's work done now. So I guess its bedtime."
"Um, do you want to open one of your gifts?"
"What? Now?"
"Yeah, why not? Here…" he said, reaching over and grabbing something out from under the tree, "Open this one."
"Oh, OK. Well in that case you open this one." I handed him one of the presents I'd got him.
"You go first" Eric said, watching me. I tore into the paper and pulled out, a nightie. Only it wasn't an old-lady nightie like I'd bought Lorena. This was satiny and had red flowers on a white background. "Oh, it's lovely" I said.
"Yeah, I thought it would be less scratchy than the bra. I liked the fabric." I tried to visualise at what point Eric had been wandering around looking at women's nightwear and testing the feel of all the stock, and got stuck at the point in my daydream where about six shop assistants all fought over who was going to serve him or possibly model his choices for him.
"Thank you" I said. "Now it's your turn." Although what I'd bought Eric wasn't nearly as exciting as a nightie.
He opened the paper and pulled it out and looked at it. "A coat?" he said.
"Yeah, rain jacket. You'll need it, because when it's, like, late winter here it rains every single day so, you know, I didn't want you to get wet…" I trailed off. Yeah it was a stink present. "Sorry" I said. "I know it's not as good as what you got me."
"No. No, it's great" he said, smiling at me.
"Really?"
"Really. No one's ever cared enough about whether I got wet before to buy me a coat."
"OK, that makes it sound a bit dumb."
"No, it's not. It's a lovely gift. Thank you."
He leaned over and kissed me, and then we kissed some more. "So" he said "are you going to try your present on for me?"
"Yeah, come on then. Let's give it a go."
"Good. Oh, and Sookie?"
"Yeah?"
"I didn't get the matching panties. Maybe for your birthday. If you're good." He raised his eyebrows at me.
"I'll keep that in mind, and try to be really, really good then Eric."
"Maybe not that good. Maybe just a little bit bad?"
"For you, Eric, I can try to be a little bit bad."
"Excellent. Let's go practice that then."
Thanks for reading!
Oh, and I meant to say before. When I mentioned the Toblerone cocktail a couple of chapters back some of you said how yummy they sounded. So I looked up the Molten website and these are the ingredients (although of course they don't give you quantities): Butterscotch liqueur, kahlua, baileys, frangelico & hokey pokey dust (hokey pokey is honeycomb if you're a non-Kiwi). So you can see how it would be both tempting and rather easy to get drunk on!