Chapter Text
I kick the front door closed with my heel and walk down the hall, my arms full of assorted grocery bags. The sound of the blender whirring to life attempts to drown out the lilting, instrumental music that filters through the townhouse.
Pausing at the stairs, I tuck the smallest of the bags under the credenza there, and I use my toe to shove it as far back as possible. I’ll snag it on my way up later. Maybe I’m being overly cautious, but I refuse to spoil the surprise for Xaden’s gift.
“That's not nearly enough rum.” Bodhi's voice competes with the clashing sounds as I turn the corner into the kitchen. The room is warm and washed in bright sunlight. It's one of my favorite places in the house, after our bedroom and the library. Moving in with Xaden a few months ago, right after graduation, felt like the most natural thing in the world, a seamless continuation of our life together. I’d already spent most weekends here in my final year anyway. Though once in a while, it does still feel surreal that this is my home. That this gorgeous townhouse that he grew up in, that we’ve been slowly updating and renovating, is my home as long as I want it to be. The most stable place I’ve ever lived.
Magda clicks her tongue and hustles over to crane around her grandson’s broad form. She’s a short and curvy silver-haired woman, so they make quite the pair. I catch him rolling his eyes at his cousin for tattling. She slides the bottle of rum across the counter closer to Xaden.
“I’ll add more lo prometo, abuelita.” His voice is low and warm, and he hasn't caught sight of me yet. The room smells like cinnamon and nutmeg, the sharp tang of rum, and the creamy softness of coconut. Absolutely divine.
Bodhi catches my eye and strides over to relieve me of the bags I’m carrying, lifting them onto the kitchen island in one fluid motion. Squeezing his shoulder, I pass Bodhi and step up to invade Xaden's space. Without turning around, he senses me, reaching out an arm to circle my waist as I approach, and he draws me flush against his side. One hand remains on the top of the blender as he drops a kiss to my cheek; his lips are warm against my cool skin, still chilled from the windy New York day.
“Gracias, mija.” Magda gives me a smile as she eyes the groceries Bodhi unloads. I always feel her affection when she uses that term of endearment, but it's also a reminder that she might not remember my name today. “Y tú–” A smack to Xaden’s bicep, the highest on him she can reach. “Más ron por favor, usa mi receta, mijo.”
“Por supuesto abuelita, más ron.” He pauses the blender, opening the top and pouring more of the warm brown liquid into the mix. The smell of holiday spices wafts over me with the action. Magda's eyes watch his hand closely, dark irises glittering and calculating before she sucks her teeth and juts her chin– “Ya, flaco.”
He stops as soon as she instructs, then returns the lid and resumes the motor. She wanders off to assist Bodhi in unpacking the rest of the items. The tiny old woman calling Xaden ‘skinny’ always makes me smirk, as it conjures an image of him at 15 when he shot up a foot in a year. Xaden was never gangly, he's always been annoyingly graceful, but there was a year or two where he flirted with it.
“Hi, love.” Xaden turns his full attention to me, giving me a proper kiss that, despite its chasteness, leaves me blushing. Now, he's all broad shoulders and muscled arms; no one would look at him and say skinny, maybe lean, but even that's a stretch.
“Hi.”
I grin, leaning into him before I continue. “They had yuca and green plantains. I also picked up stuff for chocolate cake and grilled cheeses.” He tightens his hold around my middle and pauses the blender. “I got oranges for making garlands, and extra for next week.” I smile, listing things off on my fingers, ticking them off like a list. With the last statement, his brows lift.
His voice is soft as he asks, head tilting, “You remembered that?”
He’d told me a while ago about Three Kings Day, how in his house growing up, it had been a part of the holiday season, that they didn’t take the tree down until it passed. That in the morning there would be oranges and small presents in his and Bodhi’s shoes where they sat by the front door, because the color orange is for luck. “This is our first holiday together, living together, I want it to be ours. A blend of you and me.” His thumb rubs circles against my spine.
I know he loves me, but sometimes when he looks at me like this, eyes soft and wide, glittering with gold, I remember all over again, and it leaves me breathless.
Twisting out of his hold, I grin. “We’re going to celebrate Christmas Eve.” It was always low-key in my household, but apparently, in his, it was a bigger party than Christmas Day. I list the holidays out on my fingers, wiggling and ticking them off once again, “Christmas, New Year's, and Three Kings, it'll be two weeks of celebrating.”
All of our friends are coming over the next few days to join the festivities, and most will probably just end up staying with us, as we have the space. I’m hoping Mira will actually get Christmas off this year. She said she was working on trading around shifts, but hasn't made any promises. I know I’ll get a call at some point along the lines of “I’ll be at JFK in 5 hours, can you have your rich roommate pick me up?”
And that’s one of the nicer names she uses for Xaden.
The music shifts, more upbeat and pulsing, and there’s soft bickering coming from the kitchen island. Xaden simply flashes me a long-suffering look as he spins to lean against the counter, watching the two remaining members of his family teasing one another.
Bodhi's laugh booms through the room. Harmonizing with the music softly playing in the background. Magda’s head is tilted back, bending to look up at the marginally shorter of her grandsons.
“Didn’t I teach you how to dance ‘Di? You at least have rhythm, unlike your father, that man was helpless.” She smacks a teatowel against his hip.
Bodhi spins on his heel and holds out a hand for the petite woman. “Of course, and you did a phenomenal job. Let me remind you.”
He guides her away from the island and spins her before drawing her close. Stepping together and then apart, onto their back feet, before pulling away only to spin and draw back together again. Bodhi leads his grandmother in a salsa as the sounds of brass and drums fill the room, a crooning male voice accompanying the music. Part of me longs for a relationship with my own grandmother, watching them together like this.
Magda’s still living in the house Bodhi grew up in, about 20 minutes north of us. Two of her friends moved in with her over the past year, and it's been an enormous relief for Xaden. She’s perfectly mobile and self-sufficient, but her memory is spotty, which is a concern left unattended. Their friend Eya, who's a nurse, has a few shifts a week with them, and so far it’s been really good for all of them. They’re all widows who no longer could, nor wanted to, live alone. The big old house is as full of life and joy as ever. I’d spent quite a few afternoons recently getting my ass handed to me in a variety of card games by the three grandmothers.
I hope to never need to, but one day I can see Jes, Rhi and I similarly content.
Xaden tugs me away from the counter with a sly smile, and I know what he’s thinking. I let him lead me around the room, only stumbling on the counts a few times. When I’d first learned to dance with him, he’d tease me endlessly about trying to lead him, and sometimes I still do. But I’ve learned, and besides, he’s a much better dancer and spins me around like it’s nothing, swaying and stepping, moving our bodies together as one.
When the song quiets and flows into the next, I step back as Magda wraps her arm around me.
“So graceful, Violeta, you have gotten so much better.” My face heats as Xaden smirks down at me.
“She has a good teacher.” I scoff in response at the same moment she sucks her teeth and waves a derisive hand at him.
“Pride is a sin, mijo.”
Bodhi steps around his cousin, nudging his shoulder as he does. “Well, then Xaden was damned a long time ago.”
Another wave of her hand as she hushes her other grandson, pivoting to give us all directions to be more useful.
We fall back into the kitchen chores. Madga teaches me how to tie a banana leaf around the filling for pasteles. She, Bodhi and I work like an assembly line, piling the tied results high on a plate. While Xaden moves on to make the second batch of coquito, after bottling and refrigerating the first.
Days like this always feel so special to me, the way I’ve been folded into their little family, as if I were always a part of it. Sometimes I think Xaden comes off as so cold and intense because the other side of him knows this warm, soft love, and he’s fiercely protective of it. He knows how quickly it can be taken away.
There’s a pleasure in knowing that I’m now a part of that love, one of the people he wants to protect. And an even deeper pleasure knowing that he lets me protect him, that he shows me his underbelly and isn’t afraid I’ll strike.
My fingers are covered in masa and the strings of banana leaves as he comes up behind me, palm spread across the small of my back, lips dipping to brush where my neck meets my collar. “Need any help?”
“Now he offers,” Bodhi's voice lilts from across the island. “When we’re almost done.”
“I certainly wasn’t offering to help you, Bodh.” Xaden’s voice is harsh, but Bodhi only laughs as if they were having a perfectly pleasant conversation.
I lean back, humming in contentment as Xaden moves to stand fully behind me. Taking on some of my weight, bracing his hands on the worktop.
They all continue to tease and chatter around me, Magda chiming in with her own digs at the two grown men. It’s a melody I’ll never tire of as I let my mind drift, utterly fulfilled.