I have his old record player.” Before I can even open the box, Evie has scrambled over to me, reaching inside eagerly.
“You have a Bing Crosby Christmas album?” Evie exclaims, practically jumping into my arms. “Do you have any idea how perfect this is? Everett, your grandfather had great taste.”
“Let me set this up.”
“I’ll set it up,” she says. “You need to get us some Christmas drinks.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t have Jägermeister or whatever shitty drinks you like at those parties you go to.”
She cocks an eyebrow, her body language saying, let’s get this party started. “Give me some whiskey. I’m good to go.”
“No,” I tell her shaking my head. “We already had our whiskey for today. I think it’s time we had some hot buttered rum.”
“Let me guess,” she says plugging in the record player and opening the lid. “You made the spiced butter yourself?”
“Are you teasing me, Evie?”
“No, I was just thinking you should definitely have a guest feature on my blog. I mean, a mountain man who makes his own hot buttered rum? You would have more pussy than you know what to do with. It’s like an entire thing, you know, that, right? Mountain men? It’s like the new cowboy. Only hotter.”
“In that case, I’ll definitely do a guest feature on your blog.
“Oh, so you want a lot of pussy?”
“No. I want your pussy. If I do that for you, will you come back and visit me?”
My words must’ve struck a chord with her, because she swallows and looks away, averting her eyes from me. I take that as my cue to go to the kitchen and get our drinks.
Self-doubt crawls at my skin, as I get out the mugs, and maybe I read this woman all-wrong. I swear to God she liked what she saw. She liked what we did. But maybe she doesn’t want to come back for more.
“This is perfect,” Evie says clasping her hands together as the record begins to spin a soft familiar sound through the room. “Do you have any twine?” she asks as I bring over our hot buttered rums and set them down on the dining room table.
“Sure do.” I go to a drawer and ask, “Green or brown?”
“Both,” she says, laughing in shock. “I don’t think you understand how much I love the fact that you have more than one kind of twine. It’s pretty much a craft blogger’s wet dream.”
“Your wet dream, huh? Well, finding you lost in the woods is kind of a mountain man’s wet dream.”
She laughs again, and I swear to God no one would ever need to listen to records, not a single goddamn piece of music if they could just hear Evie’s laugh. It fills up the room in a way Crosby never could. She sounds like Christmas when she laughs. Bright and merry and full of hope.
She’s a fucking angel.
“You have to help,” she tells me, handing me a pair of scissors. “I already folded the paper, all you have to do is cut some shapes out.”
“Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do?” Holding the paper in my hand I suddenly feel like a second-grader learning to cut in a straight line. I’ve no idea what the hell I’m doing. I may be able to harvest a field and milk the goats... but cut a snowflake, that’s impossible.
“I’m going to make garlands out of them. For the tree.”
We work in quiet unison, the music our background and the two of us finding an easy rhythm side-by-side. She folds and hands me the papers to cut, pointing and smiling encouragingly.
Once we have enough snowflakes, she ties them to the twine, and together we wrap them around the tree. The white and black newspaper snowflakes look classic, and when she places her snow globe cutout at the top of the tree, I can’t help but smile.
“Now we need popcorn,” she directs.
By now, I’ve learned not to argue with her.
“I’ll start that and you can get the needle and thread.” I know where she’s going with this.
“Let me guess, you have a sewing basket?”
“You’re gonna have to stop teasing me, girl,” I tell her as I add oil to a pot and throw some kernels in. “My sewing kit is next to the bookshelf.” Then I turn the burner on high and wait to hear the pop, pop, pop.
“My God, is this your book? I mean your books?” she asks. I look over and see she’s picked up the sewing kit,