The Christmas Blanket

A smile curled on my own lips. “Anddd Christmas music?”

River groaned but stood in concession. “Fine. But if Mariah Carey comes on, I’m throwing this radio across the room.”

“Or we could just turn it off for a few minutes.”

“Deal.”

I jumped up off the couch, squealing with delight. The excitement had Moose up and bouncing around my legs, too, and River chuckled when we both slid into the kitchen Tom Cruise style.

“Oh, I hope they play ‘The Christmas Song’. It’s my favorite!”

River shook his head, pulling down two glasses from the cabinet with another grunt of annoyance.

But I saw the smile he was trying to fight.“That’s so not true!” I said on the heels of a hiccup, giggling at the sound of it. “It was you who dared me to get on that old rope swing in the first place.”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t have done it whether I dared you or not,” River argued. “That’s why you wanted to party out behind that old house. It’s why you dragged us all there that day. You wanted to get on that rope swing, and you know it.” He shrugged then, taking a drink of his eggnog that was definitely more rum than anything at this point. “Not my fault you didn’t realize the rope was rotted.”

“I had a bruised tailbone for weeks,” I reminded him. “And you, you just laughed at me. Asshole.”

“It was funny!”

“I hurt myself!”

“You survived. And trust me, if you could have seen the way your arms flailed when that rope broke, sending you into the water right there off the shore, and the way you flopped into the shallow water like a fish…” He started laughing again at the memory of it, so much so that he couldn’t speak for a long moment, and I took the cinnamon stick out of my eggnog and chucked it at his head.

That made him laugh harder.

“And the sound you made,” he said when he finally caught his breath. “Sounded like a cat in heat.”

I joined in his laughter then, because even though I did hurt myself that day, I’d dragged us and a group of our friends down to the lake to party, it was pretty funny afterward.

“Wasn’t that the same day that Jenny tried to dare you to kiss Tabatha?” I asked, squinting through the rum haze swimming in my head as I tried to remember.

“Oh, shit,” River said on a chuckle, then he let out a low whistle. “Sure was. You were not happy about that.”

“Hell no, I wasn’t. That little tramp, she knew exactly what she was doing. Tabatha had the hots for you all through high school. She never did care that we were together.” I shook my head. “Just waiting for her chance.”

“Well, you didn’t let her take that chance, if I remember correctly,” River said with a shit-eating grin. “Because I’m pretty sure you said something along the lines of in your dreams, Flabby Tabby and then you straddled me and made out with me right there for everyone to see.”

I smiled proudly. “Had to remind those girls who had your heart.”

River’s eyes crinkled more with his grin, and maybe a little from the rum, too. I’d lost count of how many spiked eggnogs we’d had. All I knew was that they had gone from a nice, smooth, proper mixture, to something closer to all rum with a splash of nog on top.

I took a drink from my glass, still smiling at the memory. Then, an idea struck me.

“We should play now.”

River cocked a brow. “Play what?”

“Truth or dare.”

His smile turned into a frown, and he looked down at what remained in his glass, finishing it off before standing. He was already heading to the kitchen to refill when he said, “Aren’t we a little old for games?”

“Age is just a number,” I argued, hopping up from where I’d been sitting crisscross on the floor. I drained what was left of my own nog in the name of refilling at the same time as River, though he’d had a sip left in his and I’d had half a glass.

He smirked at me when I slid my glass next to his just as he was pouring the rum.

“Come on,” I insisted. “It’ll be fun. And tell you what — I’ll even give you a skip. If I ask you something you don’t want to answer, or dare you to do something you don’t want to do, you can use it.”

A heavy breath came from his throat as he poured.

“Pleeeease,” I added, batting my lashes.

He peeked at me with a grin, and then shook his head. “Fine. But I want two skips.”

“Baby.”

“Hey, I just know how dirty you can play this game, and I’m not trying to go streaking in a snowstorm.”

“Aw, dang it — you took my first idea!” I winked with the joke, pulling the eggnog from the fridge to top off our glasses.