Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I laugh as he hands me the thin present, the wrapping paper is filled with Grinch faces, making me laugh. “This is very me.” I hold up the soft gift and then I open it and it’s a calendar. “What is this?” I open it and every single month is a different picture from this past week.
The tears in my eyes make it blurry to see all the images. Once I get to October I laugh when I see Whiskey with a stuffed pumpkin in his mouth. “That is from last year,” he admits, “but the one in December was taken two days ago.” I flip to it and the three of them are together.
The cats have red collars on that have white balls at the end of them and Whiskey has a Santa hat on his head. Lying on the ground, he’s the only one looking at the camera. Bean looks like she’s desperately trying to get the collar off of her, while Baby Cat is glaring at the camera. I can’t help the laughter that comes out. “This one has to be my favorite.” I hold it up, fighting back the tears. “Thank you.” I smile at him. “I’m going to put this up in my locker at work. Might have another one made so I can also have it on my fridge.” The tightness starts to form in my stomach.
“My turn,” I say quicky, looking away from him, going to the gifts. “This one is a gag gift.” I hand him the long box and sit next to him. He unwraps it and the top of the box says Oral Fun: the game of eating out while staying in. “It’s a board game.”
He turns it around and smirks. “We’ll be playing this hourly”—he puts it to the side—“which makes my gift even better.” He grabs the small square gift. This one is wrapped with little Christmas bows all over it.
I rip it open and turn it over, the black box with Quickies written in white. “What in the world?” I open the box as he sits there with a smile on his face, every single card is black. One side has a scratch pad, the other side has Quickies in glossy black writing.
“So you pick a card and scratch it off, and you have to do what they tell you to do.”
“Ohh, I need something to scratch with.” I get up and rush to the kitchen, grabbing a butter knife.
“You really doing that now?” he asks and I look up at him.
“Um, yeah,” I reply as the white words appear. “In the next twenty minutes, try at least five different sex positions,” I read out loud and then read the rest to myself. “We can’t do this one.”
“Yes we can,” he assures from the couch and I hold up the card.
“The goal is to not climax before the twenty minutes is done,” I shriek. “Fuck that.”
“So it’s a challenge,” he goads me. “You are always good with a challenge.”
“It’s a challenge that is dumb,” I retort, walking to him. “There is no way I can last twenty minutes.”
“I’ll help you,” he offers and I laugh at him.
“That is super kind of you. Thank you so much for that. You are such a great friend.” The minute I say the words, something changes on his face. I want to take it back as soon as the words are out of my mouth, but what else am I going to call him? My hookup? My holiday fling? Nothing would be good enough, except for the word I should be using. Right person, wrong fucking time, I keep hearing the words play over and over in my head.
“My turn,” I say walking back and taking the big box in the back. “It’s thin, but—” I say bringing it to him. “I love it, and I really hope you do also.”
I hand him the box and he unwraps the paper slowly, the white square box showing him nothing of what is inside. He takes the cover off and then the white tissue paper and the black frame greets him. His mouth opens in shock and he looks over at me. “How the fuck?”
I sit next to him and look at the picture I had professionally made. It’s a picture of his clinic and in front, on one side, are his parents that I took from the picture he had on a side table, and then on the other side is a picture of his grandparents. In the middle, sitting down, is Nate with Whiskey and the cats by his side. “How did you do this?” he asks me, speechless.
“I found the picture of you in front of the clinic in my parents’ house,” I explain to him as he runs his fingers over the image of his parents. “Then I asked if we could add the two other images in there.” He looks over at me and smiles, but it’s a smile filled with sorrow. “You said that you wouldn’t have it without them, and I think that—” I shake my head, correcting myself. “I know they are so proud of you.”