How My Brother's Best Friend Stole Christmas

Funny how a few days ago, I was sure the future of us needed me to be dressed up like someone I wasn’t. And really, what Fucking Sam Porter and I needed was to be as naked as we could be.

And I planned on staying that way for as long as possible.

19

Sam

I came awake like I always did. In a heartbeat. Cataloging risks and realities. But I realized I was safe. Warm. Sophie a soft, snoring heap on the bed beside me. Sophie.

We should get a dog, I thought. That’s what this bed needs. A dog.

Or a baby.

I looked at the wild mess of Sophie’s hair peeking up from the edge of the covers. A girl with her hair. Her guts. My…well, I could teach her to throw a baseball or something. Make her eggs in the morning. Put in ponytails.

Carefully, I eased out of the bed, making sure not to wake her up. She rolled and sighed and started to snore again, and I felt like my whole body might just explode with happiness. The floors were cold and I hopped to the kitchen to fire up her coffee maker and see what she had that could be made into breakfast. The inside of her fridge was predictable. Eggs, ketchup, four jars of pickles. I grabbed the eggs and opened the freezer where she kept her bread.

A silver coil of Christmas ribbon fell down over the ice tray from the top of the fridge.

My gift was up there. Unopened.

“What are you doing?” Sophie asked, stepping into the kitchen wearing her pretty blue robe and that pair of knee-high red socks.

“I was going to make us some breakfast.”

“Coffee?”

I pointed at the pot.

“You didn’t open this?” I put the present on the counter.

Her eyes opened wide and she all but sparkled. “I…forgot.”

“Why didn’t you open it when I brought it?”

“Because I was mad at you. I’m not anymore, so gimme.” She sat down on the stool at her kitchen counter and pulled the present to her with both hands.

She pulled the ribbon and tore open the paper, and I vowed right at that moment to shower her with gifts. Nonstop. Just so I could watch the joy on her face. I was going to bring Christmas back to this woman, the way it should be. It was going to be Christmas albums and wreaths and real trees and eggnog. It would be the whole show, because Sophie deserved the whole show and I had an endless need to give it to her.

From the tissue paper she pulled out the silver combs I’d bought in the market a thousand miles and a lifetime ago.

“Sam,” she breathed, looking up at me with tear-filled eyes.

“I saw them and thought of you.”

“My hair?” she laughed.

“Actually,” I whispered. “I thought of this.”

I stepped behind her. I took in the sleep smell of her. The wild curls in my hands. The strong, beautiful set of her shoulders. Remembering what the teenage girl in the market had told me, I gathered her hair in my hands. Now I just needed to…twist?...the hair and put the combs in what felt like backwards and then…

Slowly, I stepped back, like any sudden moves and her hair would slip out of the combs. It didn’t.

“There,” I said. “I think that’s how it works.”

She stood up from the stool and went into the bathroom. I followed, really surprised that the combs were staying in place. Sophie stood in front of the mirror, turning to see how they held.

“How…how do they look?”

“Perfect,” I said, not really talking about the combs. “I got them in a market.”

“Where?”

“I…can’t actually tell you.”

She looked at me with wide eyes and I shrugged. “But I bought them and I imagined how they could give me an excuse to stand close to you and touch your hair and breath you in, because when I bought them I could not imagine a situation where you’d let me do that—without a reason.”

“I’ve got lots of reasons,” she said and came to put her arms around my waist where I stood in the door of the bathroom. “They’re beautiful and I love them.”

“So?” I asked, kissing her nose.

“So what?”

“I know you got me something.”

“Oh, sweetheart—”

“Sweetheart? That’s what we’re going with? Sweetheart?”

“You want me to give you a different pet name?”

“I always imagined being called babe.”

“This conversation is not happening.”

“Then give me my present,” I said, shaking her by her lean waist.

“Okay, but it’s awful. It’s like…a joke compared to these beautiful things,” she said, squeezing past me and touching the combs.

In her bedroom she pulled out a red-wrapped gift and handed it to me. “I’m serious. It’s terrible.”

Inside was a new video game headset.

“I know you left your last one behind.” She shrugged. “I told you it was lame.”

I put down the controller and wrapped my arms around her, collapsing us onto the bed. “You know what I like best about it?”