Aspyn
“Aspyn…” he whispered.
Cold air billowed from my mouth. “What are you doing here?”
“I…came to get my grandfather a tree. But they don’t have one small enough.” He fumbled on his words. “I was…gonna call you the day after Christmas.”
I crossed my arms. “You don’t owe me a call.”
“The fuck I don’t.” He exhaled. “Look, nothing is what it seems like, okay? We really need to talk. But it’s not going to be an easy conversation. I don’t want to ruin your Christmas. So I chose not to tell you I was home until the twenty-sixth.”
“You think I’m gonna be able to focus on anything else besides you now that I know you’re back, and you just said that to me? You haven’t wanted to have a real conversation with me in weeks. I don’t even know what happened. You’ve already ruined my Christmas, Serrano. You might as well just say what you have to say now.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, looking down at the snow-covered ground.
A long moment of silence ensued as passersby moved around us, carrying their last-minute trees through the parking lot.
“I’m sorry. That was harsh,” I said. “I’m shocked to see you, that’s all.”
“I know.” He looked up. “I, uh, saw Kiki and your parents. They didn’t see me.”
“My parents’ furnace isn’t working. So we have to do Christmas at my place instead of theirs. Stupid me didn’t want to get a tree this year, so I wasn’t prepared. That’s what I get. We have no choice but to bring home one of these gargantuan trees at the last minute that they have left over. I don’t even know if it will fit in my house. The ceilings are pretty low.”
“Troy!” Kiki came running toward us.
He forced a huge smile, pretending to be surprised to see her. “Kiki! Hey!”
My poor niece looked so damn happy. “I can’t believe you’re back!”
“Yeah. I came home to see my grandad for Christmas.”
Her smile faded. “Not to see us?”
His mouth opened and closed a time or two before he finally said, “I was gonna come see you after Christmas, actually. I didn’t want to interrupt your family time.”
“Oh.” She looked over at me. “We think we found a tree that might fit.”
My father appeared. “It’s gonna be a bitch getting it on the top of my car.” He nodded toward Troy. “Who’s this?”
“This is Troy,” my mother answered from behind him.
My father’s eyes widened. “The guy who broke up with you?”
“No!” Troy blurted.
I arched my brow. “No?”
“No,” Troy whispered, his eyes searing into mine.
Confused, I turned to my dad. “He was always supposed to move back to Seattle. It was never permanent. It’s all good.”
The five of us stood in awkward silence until Troy pointed to his Range Rover. “Listen, I have a roof rack. I’d be happy to throw that thing on top of my car and drive it back for you.”
My father looked skeptical. “Only if it’s okay with my daughter.”
We’d be here all night trying to secure that tree to my dad’s car, so I agreed. “That would be great. Thank you.”
Troy followed my dad back over to the trees, and Kiki ran after them, leaving me alone with my mother.
“He just happened to be here?” she asked.
“Yeah. He came to find a small tree for his granddad, apparently. He wasn’t even going to tell me he was in town.”
“We don’t have to go along with this, you know.”
“No. It’s fine.” I sighed. “We need to get this tree home. I owe it to Kiki after being so damn stubborn about not having one.”
Since I’d met them here, I followed my dad’s car back to my house. Troy’s Range Rover drove behind me with the tree affixed to the top. We were in separate cars, not speaking, yet the weight of everything unsaid felt overpowering. I had so many questions, but no words to articulate any of them.
It was only 5 PM, but it was already dark, and light snowflakes had begun to fall.
After we got to my place, Troy and my dad carried the tree inside, but to everyone’s dismay, it was indeed too tall to fit.
“What are we gonna do?” Kiki cried.
Troy turned to me. “You don’t happen to have a saw, do you?”
I shook my head.
My dad scratched his chin. “I’m not sure I have anything appropriate at home, either.”
“My father has every tool known to man,” Troy said. “Let me run home and get something to cut it down.”
Troy disappeared a few seconds later. This would definitely go down as one of the most bizarre Christmas Eves on record. As we waited for him to return, I decided to just roll with this, putting on some Christmas music and getting out stuff to make cookies with Kiki. My plan was to do everything in my power to pretend like the guy who’d broken my heart wasn’t about to come back here and cut our freaking tree.
About a half hour later, Troy returned with a mix of large knives and saws. From my spot in the kitchen, I couldn’t see whatever he was doing, but by the time Kiki and I returned to the living room, Troy had successfully trimmed the tree down. It didn’t even look that warped. The fresh, woody scent was all I could smell.
My parents and Kiki began pulling ornaments and tinsel out of the box I’d had in storage. Troy gathered the pieces of tree scattered around the living room.
Some time later, he found me in the kitchen.
“Who knew you were a lumberjack?” I teased.
“A lumberjackass is what you really want to say, right?”
I took a tray of cookies out of the oven. “Actually, that is more fitting.”
“Well, I think I can use those tree parts to put something together for my grandfather. I can throw them in a pot, tie them together somehow, and put some lights around it. At least he’ll have the fresh smell he wanted. And better than going back there empty-handed.”
“Is he not going to your dad’s tonight?”
“He’s coming over tomorrow. He wanted to stay at Horizons tonight with his friends because so many of them aren’t gonna be with their families. They’re having their own little party.”
“Yeah, I heard. That’s sweet.”
Troy looked down at a tag of some sort in his hands.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It was hanging off the tree. It says Douglas fir. That’s the type of tree it is.” He paused. “My mother’s last name was Douglas. I’ve been thinking a lot about her today, so it shook me a little.”
“Wow,” I whispered.
The muffled sounds of my family in the next room seemed to fade as Troy moved closer and looked into my eyes. His gaze moved down to my lips, causing goosebumps to pepper my skin. And I never dreamed he would say what came out of his mouth next.
“I love you, Aspyn.”