Chapter 10 - Mistletoe
After much prodding on Christmas Eve, my mother had agreed that we could go to the large shindig known as the Carter’s second annual Christmas Festival. The party promised to host an onslaught of guests with food, fun, music, and laughter. A gentleman friend of my mother’s from work agreed to accompany Mom and I, and the three of us set out in our best holiday attire and drove to the crowded compound that housed multi-acreage, two pools, a dirt bike course, two docks, and an expansive menagerie of pets. The place was already bustling as we walked up the driveway and down a small pathway that lead to the rear of the house, where most of the festivities were taking place. The paths were lit with Christmas lights and the sound of holiday music greeted us as we walked, via an elaborate system of speakers that were hidden somewhere above our heads, perhaps in the trees or through the windows of the house, we weren’t sure. I carried two chicken parmesean dishes that mother and I had prepared during the day, and the other two carried other gifts of glad tidings. There breeze was chilly that night and as we walked into the party, it gave the place a little more of a feel for the holiday. The picture was foreign to my eyes, though, as I took in all the people, dressed in their tank tops and sun dresses, albeit fancy, yet still looking as if they were on vacation in the tropics, as in essence, they really were.
I scanned the crowd immediately, wishing desperately to find Nick’s eyes, to walk up to him and feel his lips press against mine. When I finally saw the top of his head, diagonally all the way across the patio, I made up my mind to get to him as quickly as possible. I turned to my mother and her friend, the two of them looking like teenagers with their hands linked lightly. As I was about to open my mouth to tell them to start mingling and that I was going to find my friend, there was a tap on my back and I turned to find Aaron and his mother standing there.
“Ma, you remember Green, right?” Jane simply nodded and smiled, a bit defensively, but still took my hand, shaking it gently, all the time her jaw still set, reminding me a bit of Nick and his stubborn streak.
I took Aaron’s cue and when Jane dropped my hand, I put my palm on my mothers arm and looked at the two Carters saying, “Mrs. Carter, Aaron, this is my mother, Barbara Hanlon. And her friend, Brian Smith.” The four of them extended forth their hands and in a mass of confusion, greeted one another. My uber-friendly mother began conversing with Jane and before I knew it, one mother was leading the other toward the food table, with Brian bringing up the rear.
Aaron and I were left standing there, beneath a cocoa palm that was decorated with large white lights. It gave the tree a strange illumination of snow, and I inwardly chuckled at the thought. “This is great.” I said, more to myself than to Aaron. He looked at me, raising his eyebrows in a smile. “This whole thing is great…” I repeated.
“Yeah.” He agreed, looking upward toward the sky that twinkled with stars that looked very much like the lights on the trees. Another cool breeze rolled in and I shivered slightly. “The breeze tonight is nice. Makes it feel a bit more Christmassy.”
I watched him taking in his surroundings and my face flushed a bit. The warm feeling was nice and I didn’t shrug it off for the first time.
“Was Santa good to you?” I asked the blond. He was standing before me wearing a pair of light blue jeans and a cream-colored turtleneck sweater with a short brown leather trench over it. For the first time since I had met him, his hair was neat and combed down. His eyes were large and brown and bright that night and they were smiling. A child on Christmas, capturing the essence of the holiday for me. Somehow his cheeks raised even more with his smile when he answered.
“Santa’s always good to me! But this year, he got me a sailboat.”
“Oh God! That’s so great!” I said sincerely. “When I was about your age, I used to sail on the coast during the summers. Its wonderful!”
“Yeah, no one in my family is into sailing. I thought I’d give it a try.”
“Well, you’re certainly the one who’d be able to accomplish it.” I unconsciously punched his arm, the way I would have done to one of the boys when I was in junior high. “Tell me, Aaron. Is there anything you CAN’T do?”
“I’m sure there is.” The young man answered me, rubbing a hand slightly on the back of his neck. He cleared his throat as I turned my head to my left, to where I had last seen Nick.
Aaron saw and leaned his head in front of where I was looking. I smirked. The obvious crush he had on me was cute and endearing and flattering and quite honestly, embarassing. No one had ever really taken much notice of me before.
“What’d you get for Christmas, Green?” Aaron’s brown eyes intently stared into my own unabashedly.
I sighed and smiled at him. I just couldn’t help it. He made me smile whenever I saw him. It was that undeniable vibrance about him. “Well,” I folded my arms and they brushed against his coat. I was getting chilly and quite honestly a bit jealous of the fact that he had a coat on. “I got some clothes and this ring.” I held out my hand that was adorned with a ring that had been created by my mother and myself. It was from a turquoise stone that had once sat in a ring of my father’s. I had always wanted to wear his rings, but they were much too large for my fingers. I explained it to Aaron and he put an index finger on the ring, tracing the stone back and forth. “Wow, that’s really special.” He told me.
“And…” Before I told him, I wondered if I should, wondered if he even knew that Nick had given me the painting. “Well, I got a Thomas Kinkade painting. That one I really liked in the shop that we went to in Key West.”
“The one of the church, right?” Aaron once again raised his eyebrows in question.
“Uh huh.” I motioned my head toward a bar that sat on the outskirts of the party. “Let’s go over there and get me a drink, shall we?” I asked. I took Aaron’s arm and he lead me around the edge of the masses. As we walked, I told him the story of the delivered painting, of opening it and of having no idea who it was from. He listened intently. I couldn’t stop myself from looking into his eyes, from grinning, from flushing just a bit, and from flirting with him. I finally realized that I had done it since I had met him. I was taking advantage of the school boy crush that he had. I would have to stop. After the party. I would stop then.
I flushed even more as I saw Nick out of the corner of my eye, probably only about 20 feet from us, talking to the man who had introduced me to the day we had first come to his house. His father’s racing throttle man, Lee.
“So, no idea who its from then?” Aaron asked me.
“Chardonnay, please.” The bar-tender nodded at me and quickly poured me a glass of wine. “Thank you.” I told him. I took a sip.
“Well, I have an idea. I mean, there’s really only one person it could be from.” I was distracted because I could feel Nick, that resonant electricity that he always seemed to spring on me. I rubbed my hand through my hair and turned to my left looking at him.
“Yeah.” I heard Aaron say and I looked at him.
His eyes were almost black and they were no longer wide. “Nick, huh?” He asked.
I got the chills. “Aaron, what’s wrong?” My brow furrowed. In the few days I had known him, I had never seen him become angry, not even when his brother had told him to leave the night that Nick had made me dinner.
“Of course.” He nodded. He looked out to the ocean and shrugged his shoulders. He spoke to the water now. “Of course Nick got you the painting.”
I put my hand on his shoulder, confused. He was jealous of Nick and I, I knew that. But had Aaron really thought there could be anything but mild flirtation between us. And of course a type of friendship, like between an older sister and a younger brother. “Aaron.” I said softly, sympathetically.
I felt his shoulder raise as he took a deep breath. When he turned back to me, there was no longer that angry look in his eyes, they were back to their normal color. But he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Yeah, Nick got you the painting Green. I’m glad you like it.”
I searched his face. It broke my heart that he looked so sad. I wasn’t concerned about Nick standing a few feet away anymore. I was concerned about Aaron. At first he did not turn his eyes from me, but then he looked down to the sandy ground.
“I don’t know what to tell you.” I murmured. “You know that I…I…we can’t…” Aaron raised his head, shaking it, and blinked his eyes.
“Don’t Green. I know.” He swallowed hard. “Let’s just have a nice Christmas, OK?”
I nodded, still concerned.
At that moment, I felt a heavy hand on the nape of my neck. It was course and fatherly and I knew that it was Bob, the boys’ father. He kissed me atop my head and said, “Merry Christmas, Miss Green.”
“Thanks Mr. Carter.” I grinned up at him. Yeah, he was a bit perverted. But he was a nice guy.
And then he did something that surprised me. He hit Aaron in the stomach, pointed upward and then smiled and walked away. Aaron and I both looked up at the same time.
Our eyes met again as we brought our heads down. Mistletoe. We had been standing beneath mistletoe the entire time. It was cheesy and wrong. It was just bad. Aaron looked to his left. He bit his bottom lip and moved his lips to the left. “Are we supposed to….?” He asked me.
It was then that a pain hit me in the stomach, hard. Nick wasn’t the only person that painting could have been from.
I let out a breath and Aaron came closer. I prayed that no one saw what was happening. I prayed that no one saw the way he was drawing me to him with those expressive eyes and those perfect lips with the little tiny scar in them. I prayed that I wouldn’t let it happen, but his hands took mine, holding them down by our legs. And our foreheads touched and I just couldn’t stop it. Nick cast a ‘stupid’ spell on me. But Aaron cast something different. It was something that swept away everything that was right. It was something that his eyes did to my heart and at that moment, I was angry at myself for admitting it, even to myself. Aaron was 15 years old and I was 25. It was not only a moral issue but also a legal one.
I closed my eyes and felt my eyelashes hit my cheek. I felt the wind all around us and then the music went away and there was only Aaron and I and the breeze. And then his lips touched mine. It should have been an innocent Christmas kiss. I shouldn’t have gotten completely ardent, my heart shouldn’t have felt like it had grown and was swelling out of my chest. It was simply and amazingly two lips touching, but that’s not all that was touching. Why was it that this boy seemed to understand my soul.
It was him. He had given me that painting for Christmas.
And then the kiss was over.
Aaron continued to hold my hands. To look into my eyes, his head leaning against mine. He was breathing hard. “Green.” He said breathlessly.
“Aaron.” I answered him, beginning already to shake my head, to come back to reality.
But the real snap back to reality was Nick’s voice.
“Lemme show you how a real man does that, little bro.” He said loudly, grabbing my arm and spinning me around. He looked at me with a slight grin, almost as if he knew what was going through my mind. He took one hand and shoved Aaron and the younger blonde’s back hit the side of the bar. Once again, Nick looked at me, smirked, licked his lips and grabbed my face, kissing me deeply, probing his tongue into my mouth. My stomach jumped and I was turned on instantly. He did that to my body, he made me hot for him. But my brain hurt, pounded, because I had a feeling that Aaron didn’t just have a little crush on me. And I knew it had to hurt him to watch this, and it hurt me. Nick just was insensitive to it. He was sensible and knew that he was the one who would be with me if either of them were at all.
And then we parted and I cleared my throat. “Better?” He asked. I looked into his eyes, searching him now. But I didn’t find an answer at all. I furrowed my brow and turned to where Aaron had been standing, Nick’s large hand covering my cheek. But Aaron was gone.
I shook my head at Nick.
“I think I’m going to go see what my mother and Brian are up to.” I told him.
“If that’s what you want.” Nick looked at the bar tender and ordered a bud light. Did he even care? He licked his lips. “If we uh, don’t talk again…come over tonight, after the party.”
“Alright.” I whispered. I took a deep breath and turned. He hadn’t even asked me about Aaron. He probably just saw a harmless kiss exchanged.
Harmless.
I looked around the crowd. I didn’t see the blond hair. I didn’t see him bounding back and forth between people merrily. My heart sank. For him. And for me as well. I stopped a server and took another glass of wine off his tray. I sighed, thinking to myself that it was going to be a long night.
Chapter 11
Summer Christmas
NinasFiction
