Page 33 of A Little Christmas! 4: Song
This time, when he released it, it didn’t ricochet off anything; it rolled only slightly off kilter, smacking into the pins and taking out eight of them.
“Nice!” Gage praised, as Zachy and Song cheered and clapped.
On his second throw, Cooper took out one more, the closest he’d come to knocking down all ten pins, which gothim swarmed and hugged by their boys, who enthusiastically squished him with happy hugs.
Gage caught sight of someone just on the edge of his peripheral vision and turned to see an older couple watching with twin looks of approval. The men looked to be in their sixties, both gray and grinning as they held hands and nodded at Gage before heading to a nearby lane. Adding to the squishy hugs, Gage squeezed the three of them tight, hoping to still be celebrating moments like this well into the future.
Chapter 13
(Zachy)
“Ohh whoa,” Song breathed, squeezing Zachy’s hand as Papa Cooper guided the SUV down a street teeming with cars. “Look how high all the buildings are.”
“Scary big,” Zachy replied, holding on tight. “Coming here is always terrifying.”
The blocks were the longest Zachy had ever seen anywhere. Though he’d been to New York City a handful of times in the past, it had always been with the cast of the show he worked on, and because of the clause that hadn’t allowed him to spend time with the other performers due to his former role, he’d never been brave enough to go out exploring, since he’d have had to do it alone.
He suddenly found himself gripped by a very real fear, knowing that there were places they intended to visit during their weeklong stint there.
“Daddy,” Zachy said solemnly, “There are so many people everywhere. Please don’t let go of me. I don’t know what to do if I get lost. How would I ever find you again?”
“I have no intention of letting go of you at any point while we’re out and about,” Daddy said. “But if something happens and we do get separated in a crowd, I want you to stop immediately and stand against the nearest building, pull your phone out, call one of us, and describe everything you see. You aren’t to move from that spot. That goes for both of you. You aren’t to try and find us; we will use the landmarks you give and the things you see to backtrack and find you. We will never cross a street without having you by our sides, which means we will always be on the same block, so I need you not to panic if a surge of people does manage to push in between us, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy, but what happens if we’re at the zoo or the aquarium or a museum?” Zachy asked.
“Then the same rule applies,” Daddy said. “You stop immediately, move off to the side, and get your phone out if it isn’t already. I can’t see a scenario where one of us isn’t holding one of your hands unless you’ve got your phone in it to take pictures, so the moment that connection is lost we’ll already be turning around to see what happened. I know it’s a big, scary place, so we’ll just be careful and stick together, okay?”
“Okay,” Song and Zachy replied.
Song’s eyes were bright and wide as he tried to take everything in and just looked stunned as they rounded a corner and encountered more cars and people. The streets were damp and slushy in places, but there wasn’t nearly as much snow as there was back home. Some of the windows they passed sparkled with frost around the edges, making them shimmer where the sun hit them. Digging in his backpack, Zachy found his notebook and a pen and started jotting down ideas for Christmas dioramas to resemble some of the storefront windows they drove past.
The fear of getting lost in this towering city was still bright in his mind, along with what Daddy had said about taking pictures. If he wanted to take a photo of something, he was going to tell his Daddy or his Papa first and not just stop and pull his phone out; that way they’d know and not let go of him while he did it.
That would be so much safer than being impulsive.
“Since it’s such a beautiful day and we have no idea what the rest of the week has in store for us, is it okay if we hook up with Decon and check out the sculpture garden once we all get checked in?” Song asked, twisting in his seat to try and peer behind them. “They’re just a few cars behind us.”
“I think that would be a very wise idea,” Papa said. “He can hop in with us. There will be plenty of room once we get the bags out of the back.”
“I’ll text him and let him know,” Song replied, pulling his phone from his pocket.
Zachy couldn’t wait to see the sculpture garden. Earlier in the week, when he and Daddy had taken a trip to the arts and crafts store, he’d found the coolest rectangular box with little windows cut into the tops and sides. He’d purchased it with the intent of making another of the dioramas he loved to create. While he hadn’t decided what scene he wanted to encapsulate inside of it, he was certain that this trip to the city would be filled with plenty of inspiration.
Parking in the hotel’s multi-story garage was like being on an amusement park ride with all the winding around and driving up they had to do before they found a spot. Going down was going to be like a roller coaster ride.
In no time at all, they’d gotten checked into the suite that Papa Cooper had booked for them, dropped off their things, hooked up with Decon, who was even taller than Daddy Gage and just as fierce-looking, and were off on their first New York City adventure.
“Man, I’m glad we came up early,” Decon declared as they stepped out into a cold, crisp New York morning. “And I’m doubly glad for the nap I took on the ride up. This place is seriously fuckin’ huge!”
Zachy nodded in solemn agreement at the sight of the Museum of Modern Art.
“No way am I moving one step away from you guys in this place,” Decon declared as they walked towards the building.
Hearing the much bigger man say that made Zachy feel so much better about his own fears, even as he slipped his hand into his daddy’s and clung.
“I think we will be much better off sticking together as a group, taking our time, and keeping an eye on each other so we don’t get separated,” Papa said as Song slipped two fingers through his belt loop. “This is hands down the biggest place I’ve ever been in my life.”
“You can say that again,” Decon said as he walked beside Papa. “I’m super excited though. I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else since we started planning this trip.”