Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26006 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Instead, there was this beautiful new level of intimacy between us. It felt so good to be able to reach out and touch Noah, and kiss him, and cuddle with him. And it was every bit as satisfying to watch that same tenderness between Noah and Hudson.
I’d hoped for it, but I’d been unsure if it could ever really happen. After all, here were these two physically imposing men who looked like they should have been rivals. They reminded me of two lions who, instead of fighting and being territorial, had decided to band together. And me? I was the very lucky little housecat who got to round out their pride.
Once we finally got out of bed, Hudson loaned Noah some of his clothes, and we all got dressed and finished making dinner together. Then we stuffed ourselves with hearty soup and thick slices of French bread, while we laughed and joked just like we always had.
After dinner, we moved into the living room so we could start decorating the tree. While Noah and I unpacked the new boxes of ornaments I’d bought, Hudson tried to string the lights. Then he stepped back, took a look at his handiwork, and muttered, “That’s not right.”
“Maybe less lassoing the tree,” I suggested, as I made a cyclone gesture with my finger, “and more, like, festooning it?”
Hudson turned to me and grinned as he asked, “How does one festoon, exactly?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “Every time I’ve taken part in decorating a tree, someone else did the lights.”
“That’s way more experience than I have, so I vote you take over,” Hudson said, as he dropped onto the couch.
I got up and unwound the lights from the tree as I said, “This always looks so easy in the Christmas movies.”
“Well, sure,” Noah said. “That’s because the hard part’s always done behind the scenes by the art department. Then all the actors have to do is pose in a nice sweater, hang a single ornament in a predetermined spot, and voila—holiday perfection. Plus, most of those trees are plastic and come pre-lit.”
“None of that helps me,” I said. Then I held the lit strand of lights out to Noah and told him, “I don’t even know where to begin, so do you want to give it a shot?”
He got up and took the lights from me. Then he held them up and said, “Maybe if we just…or we could…” Finally, he conceded, “I’ve got nothing. In my defense, this is my first Christmas tree.”
“Ever?”
He nodded and told us, “I think I told you my parents were always traveling when I was growing up. Actually, they’re still gone over forty weeks a year. A lot of the time, we’d be in some random hotel over the holidays. Or if we did actually go home to our apartment in New York, we had the most ridiculous decorations you could possibly imagine. Hold on, I think I have a picture.” He tossed the strand of lights at the tree, then picked up his phone from the coffee table and started swiping through his albums.
Hudson picked up his phone too and asked, “Okay, but was it as bad as my parents’ black, white, and silver theme this year? Because that shit was grim.” He found a photo and held it up to show us, and I grimaced.
“That’s like, Christmas with the Addams family,” I said.
“Oh no, it was way less fun and cool than that,” Hudson said. Then he told Noah, “I bet your parents’ decorations are looking good by comparison, aren’t they?”
“You’d think so, right? But I’ll see your Addams family tree, and I’ll raise you my pretentious art collector tree.”
He turned the phone to show us a three-foot-tall gold-tinted glass cone on a flared base, which was lit from within. Hudson and I immediately burst out laughing. “Oh my god,” I managed, when I could breathe again, “your family Christmas tree is a giant butt plug!”
Noah exclaimed, “Exactly! My mother told me I was being crude when I pointed that out, but that’s exactly what it looks like.”
I asked, “How could that be your tree? In what universe?”
“Not just once, but every single Christmas that we were home! It’s made by some important artist, and just brilliant according to my mother,” he said. “It’s really fragile too, so god forbid I went within ten feet of it. That was fun when I was a kid.”
“I can totally relate to that last part,” Hudson said. “My brother and I were never allowed to touch eighty percent of the stuff in our house, because my mother was sure we’d break it.”
“Aw, that’s sad,” I muttered. “It must have been hard to grow up that way.”
Noah asked me, “What were your Christmases like?”
“They were great, actually. I mean, some of it was a hot mess. Every year, we’d bust out the same lopsided plastic tree and deck the halls with these cheap metallic garlands that had gotten totally squashed over time. But I still thought it was pretty.