Unwrapping Holly

Uh oh.

I glanced excitedly out through my tinted window. The city sped by in silence, looking beautiful in the tiny flakes of swirling snow.

“So where are we going?” Lincoln asked.

“Where aren’t we going,” I grinned back.

Fourteen

HOLLY

The whole ordeal was beautiful and breathtaking, exhausting and chaotic. All great things as far as shopping trips went, or at least they were in my book.

Lincoln was a trooper throughout. He kept pace with me as we sawed through the crowds, holding bags and pushing carts and never once uttering a single word of complaint. Money was never an object with him, and he paid handsomely for everything. Especially when it came to his nieces and nephews, where he was generous to a fault.

It was adorable, how much he loved them. He was constantly treating them as his own children, giving them the Christmas he always remembered. Or maybe, I realized as the day wore on, the Christmas he always wished he’d had.

We paid for delivery where possible, sending everything to his uptown office. Where it wasn’t possible, we carried them out. Hour by hour, the car was filled with bags and boxes. Gifts wrapped in colorful red and green paper, presents topped with shimmering gold ribbon.

We started at the Shops at Columbus Circle, the two of us wandering the beautiful, glass-enclosed mall with a child-like sense of wonder. From there we dove into the sea of people jamming the Manhattan Mall, laughing that we were somehow able to come out the other side unscathed.

The City was alive with shoppers, with tourists, with all manner of people buzzing excitedly through its glowing streets. Between each stop we caught our breath in the back of the car, red-faced and rosy-cheeked. Our heads leaned close together as we examined Lincoln’s list, checking off family and friends one by one like we were on some top-secret, highly-expensive scavenger hunt.

We hit the gleaming white cathedrals of the Westfield World Trade Center, then shot uptown to Macy’s to ogle the magic of their Christmas window display. We crossed off a few more names here as well, but for the most part I just wanted to witness the amazing show they put on each year.

“Nothing like this in Texas, huh?” Lincoln asked, after we’d fought our way to the front of the crowd.

“Not i

n my town no,” I said. “But I’ve been known to shoot up to San Antonio or even Houston for the holiday. They do some good stuff there. But of course…” I held my hands up toward the sky. “No snow.”

Lincoln’s brown eyes shimmered with the reflection of a thousand twinkling lights. He looked awestruck staring through the picture window, and for a second I could see the excited little boy he must’ve been on Christmas mornings.

“Overwhelmed yet?” I asked.

“No,” he said quickly. “Maybe. Okay, a little.”

“That’s because you’re never out this much,” I chided him. “Every time I talk to you you’re always working. Always in your office.”

He shrugged. “Someone’s gotta pay the bills.”

I bumped him playfully with my hip. “And with these bills we’ve been racking up today?” I teased. “You’re not getting out of that office again until next year.”

Five minutes later we were back in the car, warming up again. Our driver — Ulrich — smiled over his shoulder before whisking us off to one last destination.

“You don’t sound like you’re from Texas, you know,” Lincoln said. “Very little use of the word Y’all, which I understand is a staple.”

I nodded. “I dropped that pretty fast when I first came up here. Also popular is the plural, Y’alls. And the ever-important plural possessive, All Y’alls’.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “It can get complicated.”

I glanced up, and Lincoln was grinning back at me through his perfectly-manicured goatee. In all the fun, we’d both gotten a little messy. He had an adorable cowlick going on, and without thinking I reached up and smoothed it back for him.

The gesture was small, but intimate. Maybe because we were looking at each other. Also maybe, because we’d inexplicably found ourselves holding hands throughout most of the day.

“Why’d you leave Texas anyway?” he asked. “You never told me.”