Page 10 of A Dye Hard Holiday
“Things are getting out of control. I saw Halloween candy on shelves at the end of July!” I told them.
“Leave it to you guys to be practical in your theories. I’m going with the alien theory,” Mere said with a smirk. She loved her sci-fi movies and television shows, so her choice wasn’t a surprise.
“Gabe discovered last night that Trenton is doing a rotation at our pediatrician’s office,” I told my friends.
“How’d that go over?” Chaz asked.
“I’m thinking about as well as a lead balloon,” Mere added.
“Pretty much,” I conceded. “He wasn’t happy that I didn’t tell him and was suspicious why I chose to keep that tidbit to myself.” I smiled at the memory of the way he imprinted upon me that I belonged to him and no one else. I tugged on the sleeves at my wrist to make sure the slight marks his handcuffs left behind remained hidden. Gabe was horrified that he’d gotten carried away, but not me. I caught myself running my fingers over the abraded skin and thinking back to the way Gabe captured my ecstatic cries in his mouth so that I didn’t wake our parents.
“Let me guess,” Chaz said, “he wants you to find a new pediatrician.”
I nodded my head. “He did say something about that, but I assured him that Trent would get tired of small-town life soon enough and be on his way. I made a bet with Gabe that he’d move on before the babies’ next checkup appointment in January.”
Chaz and Mere looked at one another, sharing a grimace.
“What?” I asked
“I hope you didn’t make a big wager because I’m pretty sure I saw Kyle’s real estate agent showing Trent a house in our neighborhood,” Mere said. “He looks to me like he’s digging in, not bugging out.”
“Fuck,” I said under my breath so that my children didn’t hear me.
“What will you lose if he stays?” Chaz asked.
“My sanity.”
“You bet your sanity that Trent would move on?” Chaz shook his head in disbelief. “I know you got more creative than that. Naughty sexual favors?”
“Oh, stop! He’d lose that bet on purpose,” Mere told Chaz.
“Okay, technically it wasn’t a bet. It was more like a cocky statement that I know Gabe won’t let me back down from.”
After my friends left, I sprawled on the rug and let my babies crawl all over me while they giggled. Buddy joined me and lay patiently while the twins cuddled up next to him where they eventually fell asleep on his chest. They looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to disturb them, but I knew Buddy couldn’t be comfortable, so I risked ruining naptime by moving them to their beds.
When we first brought Dylan and Destiny home, they got fussy when we put them in separate cribs. They were used to sharing a tight space and both appeared to feel lost without their sibling near. They quieted and became peaceful the second we put them in the same crib, and we decided that they’d let us know when they wanted their own individual space. Ten months later, Destiny still reached for her big brother as she drifted to sleep beside him. It was quiet moments like those, little snapshots in time, that were so beautiful that my chest hurt from the tight hold my angels had on my heart. I wished that I could slow down time because they were growing up so damn fast. Before I knew it, they’d be starting preschool. That was more than I could handle, so I went back downstairs and grabbed a sketch pad and began planning my surprise for Gabe.
“Wait until you see what we bought,” my mom said when they returned a few hours later. She and Martina proudly held up their shopping bags and my suspicions from earlier returned. “Josh, knock that off,” she said after I groaned. “Ugly Christmas sweaters? Pilgrim costumes? What have you done, Mother?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, waving her free hand at me before she reached inside the bag and pulled out a pair of red and black flannel pajama pants and a red Henley style pajama top with a snowman embroidered on it. “Matching pajamas for Christmas Eve for the entire family. We’ll have our pictures taken by the big fireplace in the formal living room.”
“A new family tradition,” Martina added, grinning broadly. I could see where Gabe got his love for the holidays. “I’m worried that Gabriel is going to hate this, so I’m counting on your help, Josh.”
I was pretty certain that Gabe would happily go along with our mothers’ plan without complaint, but I never passed up an opportunity to earn brownie points with my mother in-law. “You can count on me, Mom.” The brilliant smile I earned made me dance happily on the inside.
“You ladies have been gone all day. What else did you buy?”
“Um,” my mom said hesitatingly. “We did some window shopping too.”
I tipped my head to the side and studied her. While I was blessed with a poker face, my mother was not. The fact that she broke eye contact and began looking in her purse for something was a tell that she was hiding something from me. I really got suspicious when I saw Martina start to fidget too. I was about to press them, but the dads returned home and greeted their wives like they had just came home from war.
“I’m making dinner tonight,” Martina announced to us.
“Yes!” I said, punching the air. “Can I help? I want you to teach me how to make authentic Latin food for Gabe. I’m sure he’d appreciate taco Tuesday if they were more like the kind you make and not the watered-down store version.”
“I’d be honored.”
When Gabe came home from work, he found me in the kitchen with Martina making tortillas from scratch.