Fast & Wet (The Fast 2)

Cole

“It’s technically Christmas morning.”

“It’s 12:01 am, Cole.”

“Exactly, Christmas morning.”

Emily’s back is pressed up against my chest, sitting in between my legs on the couch. An oversized wool throw over us keeps her barely clad body warm. Her fingers lazily trace up and down my thigh.

Just outside the windows, the city lights twinkle. Fat, heavy snowflakes have been coming down for hours, coating London in a thick, white blanket. It’ll be gone tomorrow, but it’s here tonight, and it’s perfect.

“You know that saying, excited as a kid on Christmas morning? They’re talking about you,” she arches her neck backward into my shoulder. I press a kiss to her temple and breathe in the smell of her shampoo.

Even though the whole apartment smells like pine and gingerbread and cinnamon, I can still smell her when she’s up close like this.

“We may have gone a little overboard.”

“We, nothing. This is all on you. I purchased a reasonable amount of Christmas decorations.” Her eyes twinkle, reflecting the warm glow from all the strategically placed, battery-powered candles.

We can’t have real candles for fear the place would go up like a tinderbox if they got too close to one of the many decorated fir trees. There’s an enormous one—Big Mama—in the living room, before us. Em wants to decorate that one with ornaments from all the countries we travel to.

But there’s another tree in every single room, I think. And on the deck.

I may have gone a little overboard, I’ll admit it. I may have overcompensated, knowing it was Emily’s first Christmas away from her parents.

But she started it, overcompensating for my first real Christmas, period.

Now, between the two of us, it looks like Santa’s workshop up in here.

“Want more cider?” She asks before she stands, wraps the blanket around herself, and leaves me naked on the couch.

“Sure. Is there any more of that pudding left?” I ask as she walks into the kitchen. I take the opportunity to pick my pants up off the floor and slip them on.

“Christmas pudding, Yorkshire pudding, or figgy pudding?”

“I’ll eat any pudding you bring me, baby.” It’s winter break, I can live it up. Besides, someone has to eat the metric ton of food in this place.

Emily’s been cooking all month, including a few batches of ‘healthy’ sugar-free cookies that were a massive fail. She fed them to the ducks on the river instead of throwing them straight into the bin.

But food production and experimentation really ramped up earlier today for Christmas Eve dinner. I’ve never done so many dishes in my life.

I can’t say I ever thought I would have a full house on Christmas Eve, but we did. Dante’s not flying home to Italy until tomorrow, so he was here. Edmund and his wife stopped over, Klara and her new boyfriend. Emily issued an open invitation to anyone at Imperium who didn’t have anywhere to go.

Between everyone who came and went all night long, we demolished a twenty-four-pound turkey and enough liquor to fill a river.

Tomorrow it should be much quieter, and I’m actually looking forward to that. I want to watch Emily and Danica open all the gifts under the tree, the heaping mound she scolded me for adding to every day. I can’t help it.

I don’t want to help it.

As I polish off another one of the puddings that Em brings me—no clue which variety this one is, but it’s delicious—she snuggles back into the couch with her mug of cider.

“Time for presents yet?” I’ve been harassing her all day, but she’s insistent we have to wait until Christmas morning, which it now is. Technically.

“No.”

“Just one? You gave me one present already. Fair is fair.”

“I was kidding about that being a present,” she laughs.