eight: on the spot

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As my fifth day working at Cleveland's Second-Best Winter Wonderland comes to an end, I am beyond ready for the weekend. I'm beyond tired after spending eight hours a day on my feet, a jolly grin painted on my lips even when it doesn't belong there: my cheeks ache and my feet are burning and I'm not sure I can face another minute of Christmas music after hearing the same playlist on repeat since before nine.

Five minutes until the end of my shift. Five minutes until I'm free of this place, when I can finally peel off this damn outfit and meet Storie outside and we can go and grab a drink. My stomach rumbles at the thought. Maybe we'll get something to eat, too.

Kaylani appears out of nowhere as I'm rearranging a jumbled shelf of Christmas lights. Nobody has any damn respect for this place: they come in and mess up the displays and put stuff back where it doesn't belong, and they let their kids run wild like mini psychopaths all over the place, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

"Hey," she says, leaning her elbows on a disgraced shelf and resting her chin in her hands.

"Hi." I glance at her then back at the display, trying not to drop any of the five boxes of lights in my arms. Kaylani darts out a hand to catch one that topples.

"So, tonight's the night?"

All week, she's been bugging me for details about Storie. When the place is quiet – which is most of the time before schools start to let out – she tracks me down and asks questions, needling me for answers about ... well, everything, really. If she's not begging me to tell her what's so complicated about my history, then she's teasing me for the rare genuine smile that comes when I get a text from Storie.

"Yes," I say. "Tonight's the night that I officially complete my first week here." I give her an innocent smile and stack the lights, and take back the one she took from me.

"And it's date night, right?"

I sneak a glance at my watch. Five fifty-seven. Three more minutes of this, and I'm done. Storie's probably already here, waiting out in the parking lot. She probably left early to account for the weather – which is gross, a wet and snowy December – and she's been out there for seven minutes already, to make sure she got here on time. Because Storie has her life together.

In the time that I've been falling apart, she has picked herself up and stitched herself together.

"Come on, Liam," Kaylani says with a groan. "I need a gossip fix. This job is draining the life and smiles out of me. I can't take it much longer without a juicy injection of someone else's fun." She pouts, which looks strange when I'm more used to her blunt expression and rolling eyes. "Just a yes or no. Are you going on a date with your complicated girl?"

"She's not complicated," I say. Storie has never been complicated to me. I know she wouldn't agree, and I know her mind confuses her, but in my eyes she is clear as day. Especially now, more than ever. "And now it's six. I'll see you on Monday."

Shelf sufficiently stacked, I duck past her to the office to sign myself out and as soon as I'm off the clock, I change out of this stupid elf outfit. I'm halfway through tugging on my jeans when Kaylani bursts into the staff room and I nearly fall over.

"God, please, Kaylani, can you give it a break?" I mutter, exasperated. This job is exhausting enough without her hounding me all day. I know she means well and maybe this is some weird way of befriending me, but I don't have the energy for it. "Look, we dated, ok? And I messed it up, but now I have a second chance and I'm not going to mess it up this time because I'm crazy about her. Please can you stop quizzing me?"

She says nothing for a moment, then folds her arms. "Cool," she says. "I already stopped quizzing you, by the way. I only came in to tell you that complicated girl is here." She nods over her shoulder and only then do I register Storie standing a few meters away, a slightly awkward expression on her face.

"Oh."

"I'll leave you to it. Have a nice weekend," Kaylani says, and she disappears. I catch a glimpse of my Rudolph-red face in the mirror before I meet Storie's eye and hurriedly button my shirt and tug on a sweater.

"Hey," she says with a smile, hovering near the doorway. "So, I'm complicated?"

"No. No. Not even slightly. She just kept pestering me for details about us and I told her it was complicated," I say, unable to keep the grimace from my lips. "She's a bit much."

Storie lets out a quiet laugh and tucks her hair behind her ears. "I was going to say, the only thing that's complicated here is the way you buttoned your shirt."

I lift up my sweater. She's not wrong. With an awkward laugh and fumbling fingers, I get it right and pull on my coat, stuffing the elf suit to the bottom of my backpack. I can forget about that until I have to wash it on Sunday.

"Ready?" Storie asks.

"Ready."

*

There are moments that I can almost forget the last four years. Moments that I am right back in junior year, tapping my fingers to the tune of a song I've never heard before, something Storie is introducing me to via her car's Bluetooth. In those moments, I feel normal. It never takes long for some kind of anxiety to seep in.

This time, the moment of peace comes as Storie drives us to a quiet bar for a pre-show drink, and the anxiety hits when she pulls into a space and kills the engine. The song dies, and the tune in my ears is replaced with that incessant, nagging voice at the back of my head whose job it is to remind me that there's always something to worry about.

I used to be able to swallow that voice, to drown it out by surrounding myself with people. My frat, mostly. For more than two years, that house served pretty well as a buffer for those thoughts. I was never alone for long enough to pay them the attention they craved. Now, my mind snags any moment of quiet and uses it to bombard me with senseless jumbles of crap that send a chill of dread spiralling through me.

It quietens when we head inside and Storie asks what I want, and she pays for a couple of beers before I've even got my card out of my wallet, and she doesn't even acknowledge it. When I thank her, she just smiles and nods at a booth away from the majority of the people in here.

"It's good to see you again," she says. "It's been a long few days."

"You're telling me." I snort a laugh and take a sip of my beer. I hardly drink anymore. It's just too expensive, and I have no-one to drink with, so it tastes a million times better when the person I'm sharing a drink with is Storie. "You look incredible."

She smiles. It reaches her eyes. "Thanks." Coiling a strand of hair around her finger, she looks down at herself, her coat open to reveal a navy-blue dress. I feel underdressed next to her, in my favourite dark jeans, but at least it's several steps up from the elf. I have a feeling that by the time this gig is up, I'll be haunted by that uniform. Or Kaylani.

"Thanks for coming to this. You really didn't have to know. I know it'll be weird, seeing my family again." I can't help but pick at the label on my beer bottle. One corner is loose. My nail slides right under.

"I always loved your family." The words sound like a murmured afterthought, an unconscious statement. Her hands are steady; she isn't messing with her bottle. Her eyes graze over me. "You look a lot better than the last time I saw you."

Not hard, considering the last time she saw me, I was in tights that cut off the bloodstream to my legs, but I laugh and wiggle my eyebrows and look down at my jeans. Major improvement. "What, you don't find my elf outfit sexy?"

Storie grins. "It's very fetching. Perhaps a little too fetching."

"I try, I try. Maybe for our next date, I'll wear the oh-so-enticing fairy costume."

She raises a thick eyebrow. "I'll hold you to that, you know," she says before sipping her beer, somehow elegant in the way she drinks out of the bottle. "I was about to ask if you wanted to come to a carol service in a few days."

"A few days is nearly Christmas."

"That's kind of the point. I'm going to a service on the twenty-third, back home," she says, and then she catches herself with a quiet chuckle. "Home home. As in Five Oaks. It's weird, you know, as much as I love living here and as long as I called myself a New Yorker, Five Oaks has really cemented itself as my home." A quiet, almost wistful smile takes over. "Anyway. What do you say? Perhaps minus the fairy costume."

A carol service in Five Oaks means a carol service with Storie's family. Who hate me. Her mom, the sweetest woman, must despise me; the last time I saw her stepdad was when he kicked me out of the house as I begged for forgiveness.

"I'd love to," I say, "but is that a good idea? I don't want to ruin it by pissing off your family."

"I'll talk to them." Storie cradles her beer in both hands. "I wouldn't agree to give us another shot if I didn't think this could go further, and it can't go further if you have to avoid seeing my family. It's been a long time, Liam," she says. "We've both been through our fair share of shit and I can't tell you how many times Mom has told me that all she wants is to see me happy."

"Are you happy?"

"Right now?" She tilts her head slightly, then smiles. "Yeah. I'm pretty happy."

"Me too." My foot bumps hers under the table. Her smile widens. Mine does too.

"So, what's your answer. Will you be my plus-one for a night of people awkwardly singing carols they only half know?"

"I can't think of anything I'd rather do."

*

Thirty minutes pass in a blur, until it's suddenly time to head to my little brother's concert. It's only a couple of blocks away so, bundled in our coats, we decide to walk. When we step out of the bar, Storie slips her hand into mine like she always used to. It fits like it always did.

"Ok," she says as we near the venue, "I am a bit nervous."

"Me too."

"Do your family know about us?"

"No." Shit. Maybe I should have warned Mom, at least.

Storie grips my hand a little tighter, and she doesn't loosen her hold for the rest of the five-minute walk. I still can't quite believe that this is real. Part of me is convinced that this is some kind of anxiety-induced dream, that I worked myself into a state of feverish hopefulness and I'll wake up in my dad's car, back on that long drive.

But Storie's grip is as good as a pinch. I'm not dreaming. My dreams have come true.

"Where's your family?" she asks as we reach the hall, but any possible response is cut off.

I hear my mom before I see her. I hear her hyperactive screech, which belongs to someone a third of her age, moments before I'm almost knocked off my feet when she appears out of nowhere and barrels into me.

"Liam!" she cries, and then, louder, "Storie!" Mom lets go of me and stands shell-shocked in front of Storie, her hands on her shoulders. "Oh my goodness. Storie. Is that really you?" She looks to me. "Liam? What's going on?"

Storie smiles. "It's really me. Hi, Allie. It's so good to see you," she says, and she seems to melt into Mom's hug. Storie and I may not have been together long, and she may have only met my mom a handful of times, but they got pretty close and four years vanish in their embrace.

When the hug ends after a year, Mom comes away with her hand over her heart and her expression one of utter shock. "I ... I don't understand. Are you two back together? You never said anything, Liam! What's going on?"

"I'll catch up with you later," I say, hopefully transmitting my sincerity through my gaze. Mom just nods, and I see tears spring to her eyes. She has dealt with the brunt of my heartbreak over the years, piecing me together every time I've broken down over losing Storie, and now she's seeing us hand in hand.

"I..." She trails off. "Oh, Storie. It's so wonderful to see you."

"You too, Allie. I really missed you," Storie says. I don't miss the catch in her voice that feels like an icy stake.

"You look fantastic, sweetheart," Mom says, touching Storie's cheek. "Wow. I ... I have a lot of questions!" She laughs and blinks a few times, and nods at the lobby where I can make out the top of my dad's head through the window. My whole family is here, and now Storie is too. All my brothers; both my sisters; my parents.

The door opens. Daria comes out in search of Mom, holding Anna's hand, and almost drags her across the icy sidewalk when she spots me. Her face lights up and she lets go of Anna to throw herself at me. I know one day she'll stop being such a hugger and I'll miss it, so I let her hurt me with how tightly she wraps her arms around me.

"You came!" she squeals. "We're all together!"

"Hey, Dar." I ruffle her hair, knocking her fluffy earmuffs. She rights them with a grin, her eyes shifting to Storie. For a moment, she just scrutinises her and it strikes me that for her, four years is more than half her life. She wasn't yet four when Storie and I were together; Anna wasn't even born.

"Hi, Daria," Storie says, waving at my sister. "You probably don't remember me, bu-"

Daria shrieks. Recognition kicks in from some deep part of her brain and she flings herself at Storie.

Storie laughs. "I guess you do remember me, huh?"

Daria's grinning like mad. It's kind of infectious. "You came back!" she cries out. Of course I never told her the full story. All she knew was that she stopped seeing Storie around the house every now and then, and every time she asked where she was, I would fob her off with anything less painful than the truth.

"It's good to see you, Daria," Storie says, stroking Daria's plaits. "I can't believe how tall you've gotten! You're so grown up!"

Ordinarily, Daria would bask in compliments and brag about her height and her skills and her maturity but she says none of that. Instead, she decides to put us on the spot when she asks Storie, "Are you Liam's girlfriend again?"

My muscles tighten. Storie lets out a peep of surprise. I reach for her, to somehow convey that she doesn't have to answer that, but she just curls her hair around her finger and says, "Um ... yes, I guess."

"Yay!" Daria squeaks and hugs her again, and says, "Don't go again. I nearly forgot you."

I lean close enough to murmur an apology over Daria's squeals and Mom's gasp but we're herded into the hall to take our seats for the recital, and I manage to separate Storie and myself from the intensity of my family by a couple of rows. Storie grabs an aisle seat and I slip in next to her, and let out a sigh.

"We don't have to rush anything," I say. "No pressure. Not from me, at least. I'm sorry about Daria."

I guess I can't really say that, though. Not after the way I verbally vomited all over her with my messy confession of lingering love.

"It's fine," she says. "I, uh, I'm sorry if saying yes was the wrong answer." She winces. My eyes widen; I shake my head.

"No, no. No. I love you. I just know we've done all this a bit out of the blue. I don't want to go too fast."

She shrugs and idly fans herself with the program. "We agreed to give this another go," she says, "and for me, it's the relationship I want to revisit, not the awkward what-ifs before we were official. We already jumped way in the deep end, and ... well, I loved being your girlfriend."

"I loved you being my girlfriend too."

"I guess that's sorted then." She chuckles. "I think Daria saved us some time there."

*

As far as eighth grade recitals go, this one's pretty great. I hear how long I've been away from home in how good Sam's piano skills have gotten. He's a whizz on the keys – I even well up a bit at one point, pride filling me up until it has no way out except my eyes. His solo is a solid ten minutes, and I don't hear a single bum note. Maybe I'm biased, but I swear he's the best damn kid out there.

As soon as the lights come up, before Storie and I have even had a chance to think about standing up, Mom appears at the end of our row, holding Anna on her hip. She coddles that kid, but she coddled all of us and we turned out alright.

"I don't want to get in your hair, guys," she says, adding, "thank you for coming, by the way. I really appreciate it, and I know how happy you made Sammy. Anyway, we're staying in the city tonight and I was just wondering if perhaps you two would like to come out for lunch tomorrow."

I'm about to say no, to make an excuse to save Storie from yet another awkward run-in with my family, but she takes the reins with a smile and a nod before I have a chance.

"That'd be really nice," she says. "Thanks, Allie."

"Oh, wonderful! I'll text you, honey," she says to me. "Right. I need to go and herd up my flock. Thank you so much for coming." She leans across Storie to give me a one-armed hug, almost dropping Anna in the process, and plants a kiss on my cheek that I'm sure has left a pink mark. "Right. I'll see you tomorrow. Sleep well." She blows us a kiss and disappears, engulfed by the crowd.

Storie leans back with a laugh and pushes her hair off her face.

"Sorry for the intensity of my family. Well. My mom."

"I knew what to expect," she says, turning to face me with light in her eyes and her smile. "Though I wasn't expecting Daria to be so grown up now – and Anna. Last I heard, she was barely a week old and now she walks and talks."

"Honestly, same. She seems a whole year older each time I see her. Next thing I know, she'll be driving herself to college." I'm well aware of how old I sound as I say that, and I internally tut.

Storie checks her watch. It's getting late, almost ten o'clock. The thought of walking from the rapid station to my apartment is a crushing one – the thought of getting the train is crap enough.

"Any chance I could get a lift back to mine?" I ask while my confidence is still riding on the high of the rush that hit me when Storie called herself my girlfriend. It's a surreal painting in my mind.

She pulls a face. "No. I'm afraid not."

"Oh. No worries."

"I can give you a lift to mine, though," she says. "If we're having lunch with your family tomorrow, then I think we have some cramming to do – I'm not prepared for another of your dad's interrogations."

When I register her words, they come with a flood of love and relief that show themselves in my beam.

"Come on." She stands and takes my hand. "I have half a bottle of white in the fridge, and about an hour before I'll fall asleep, and I want to talk."

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i hope you enjoyed this chapter!