Page 63 of With Love, from Cold World
Kiki rolled her eyes. “I assume you and Lauren have swapped spit before, so it’s not like—” She broke off as Lauren came up to join them. “Hey! We were just talking about you. About your drink. Asa accidentally had some.”
“Oh,” Lauren said, her fingers brushing his as she accepted the plastic cup from him. “That’s okay.”
She took a tentative sip, then immediately started coughing. “Wow. It’s so... sweet.”
“It’s deadly,” Kiki said, tapping her cup against Lauren’s in a quickcheers. “Someone take my phone away, becauseafter one of these I can’t be held responsible for anything I text Marj.”
Kiki started explaining to Lauren what she’d already told Asa, about how Marj had bailed on the holiday party at the last minute. Lauren made sympathetic noises in the right places, and it wasn’t long before they were huddled together and giggling over something on Kiki’s phone. Asa left to grab the beer he’d wanted, and by the time he got back, Lauren had somehow gotten monopolized by Daniel again, who was leading her away from Kiki and back over to Dolores.
After that, it was hard to keep track of where Lauren was at the party, because she seemed to move every five minutes. She was sitting on the bleachers next to Elliot, intent in conversation. She was laughing, trying to land a jingle bell in a cup for a chance to win a gift card. She was getting another drink. The band started playing “Last Christmas,” and she was dancing with Kiki.
There was something so endearing about the way Lauren danced. She seemed self-conscious at first, unsure of what to do with her arms. All her moves were in her shoulders, which she shimmied to the beat, doing a cute little head bang when the drums kicked in louder. He found himself smiling, raising his beer to John when his housemate looked up from his guitar solo. It was obvious he was playing the Jimmy Eat World version, but that was okay. Asa could be magnanimous.
By the time Dolores gathered everyone around the bleachers for the gift exchange, Asa was all keyed up. When she handed him his Santa hat, he almost didn’t know what to do with it.
“You’re still handing out, yes?” she asked.
Of course. As he’d done every year. Almost everyoneended up announcing themself when their gift was opened, but in the true spirit of the “secret” part, Asa distributed all the presents to their marked recipients to preserve anonymity. He grabbed one at random, reading Saulo’s name before tossing it to him.
“Hey,” Saulo said, catching the wrapped present. “This could’ve been that crystal snowman I had my eye on in the gift shop.”
But the package was clearly something soft, and Saulo made an exaggerated face of surprise when he opened up a pair of socks with pug faces all over them. “Just like my Chappie!” he said. “Okay, who got this?”
Sonia raised her hand. “I saw them and couldn’t resist.”
Most gifts were pretty spot-on, although Asa couldn’t help but notice that Marcus looked confused when he opened up his shrink-wrapped square of a gift.
“You can load your ten favorite songs on it,” Dolores said, beaming. “And keep it in your pocket to listen to them whenever you want. And it comes with a lanyard in case you want to wear it around your neck.”
“Cool,” Marcus said, instead ofSo like a minuscule fraction of what my phone already does. It was a Christmas miracle of maturity, coming from him.
Asa grabbed the next present, sloppily wrapped in Charlie Brown wrapping paper, his name written on the tag. “Oh,” he said, grinning. “Looks like it’s mine.”
He slid his finger along the taped seam, and he was just thinking that Lauren hadn’t taken as much of his wrapping tutorial to heart when he flipped it over to see what it was.
“Well?” Kiki demanded, trying to crane her neck to see.
The packaging advertised:Will Make Five Different Fart Noises!The button next toSqueezed Fartcould be pushed through an opening in the plastic, next to a sticker that saidTry Me!Asa pushed it and actually recoiled from the deep, wet sound that emanated from the gadget.
Well. He didn’t know what he had expected.
“It’s a Fart Maker!” Marcus called out. “They’re hilarious. You can prank all your friends with it. I figured you could get Kiki and, uh, all the other people who are... at this party... so now know about it. Okay, I didn’t think that part through, but the possibilities are endless.”
Asa glanced up, his gaze connecting immediately with Lauren’s. If he’d thought there’d been some kind of mistake, that Kiki had misunderstood Lauren having him for Secret Santa, the truth was written all over her face. She swallowed, looking down at her drink in her hand, then away.
“Thanks, man,” Asa said, pressing the button one more time for effect before sliding the gadget into his pocket. “And the next one goes to... Kiki!”
Saulo had gotten Kiki a gift card to a local coffee shop, always a safe choice. Dolores opened Kiki’s vintage-y flamingo ornament and seemed genuinely thrilled. Sonia gushed over a stack of romance novels from Lauren, which meant that Lauren must’ve traded names with Marcus sometime after Asa had done the same thing. He wondered about the exact timeline—whether Lauren had made the decision after the moment in his room, or after they’d gone ice skating with Eddie. Not that it mattered. The end result was the same.
And now they had reached the last present, and people were already starting to disperse while Lauren looked around, obviously trying to figure out where hers was. He had no idea what to do. The thought of giving her the gift he’d made, watching her open it in front of him, made his insides twist.It was too much, especially for someone who’d actively arranged it so shedidn’thave to exchange gifts with him. At the same time, he couldn’t stand to see that look on her face, the disappointment behind the smile she gave to Kiki.
He could tell her he just forgot, and then find something little to give her next week at work. It’d be relatively easy to get her a gift card for a takeout place near work, or a pound of ground coffee. Something impersonal that he knew she’d like.
But then Kiki was pointing down at him, waving her cup until pink punch sloshed over the side. “Asa, you idiot, you didn’t bring Lauren’s present in! It’s still in John’s trunk!”
The next time he added anyone to a lease, he was adding provisions likeKnock and actually wait for an invitation before entering a roomandKeep your mouth shut about presents if the gift giver himself hasn’t mentioned them first.
“Yeah,” he said, trying to figure a way out of this one. “The only—”
