I stared at the picture on my phone screen and wanted to smash the glass into dust.

It was an email from Carol. The subject line was full of hearts and happy smiles, that should have been my first clue that something was wrong. I opened it thinking it might be important.

Now, all I could do was sit with tears pouring down my face and wait for Tony to come back with black cherry ice cream and a big bottle of rum. Yes, I was about to get stupidly drunk for the first time in my life.

“It can’t be real, honey,” Tony said as he came back in the house, bags in hand. He’d bought freshly baked chocolate chip cookies too, I could smell them as I followed him.

“You mean they just made it look like Arabella was wrapped around Jake’s head with the magic of software?” I was being sarcastic but I couldn’t help it. I was breaking apart inside.

“Maybe. Even if it is real, it doesn’t mean anything. That man loves you, Laney. Even I could sense that and Tony’s a hardened kind of guy, you know?” He gave me that ‘and that’s that’ look he’d perfected long before I came along and started taking out bowls. He turned back to look at me as he put the bowls down. “Never mind, we don’t need these bowls. Come on.”

He grabbed two spoons, the bags, and marched me into the living room. By the time I’d dug my first bite of ice cream out of the plastic tub I was blubbering again.

“I know he loves me, and I believe him when he says he doesn’t want anyone but me, but she’s gorgeous, Tony!” The ice cream melted smoothly on my tongue and if I wasn’t so miserable I’d have moaned.

He handed me a glass filled with rum and cola before he found his own spoon.

“So, basically, you don’t trust him?” He gave me another look, one that said ‘bitch, please’ without actually saying the words.

“Of course, I do!” I countered, digging deeper into the ice cream. “I just have a problem with self-confidence.”

“How does he make you feel?” He took his own dig at the ice cream. And me.

“Like a queen.” I glared back at the dig.

“Touché! I am THE queen though, honey, don’t give me that look.” He patted the back of his head and went back to the ice cream.

“So you think I’m just being silly?” I sipped at my drink before I took a cookie out of the box.

“Maybe just a little. I could understand anger. Jake shouldn’t have allowed himself to get into a situation like this. Sadness and mourning? Girl, you’re crazy. That man would tear down the Great Wall of China with his bare hands for you.”

More ice cream disappeared, and I thought about what Tony had to say.

I brought the picture back up on my phone and looked at it again. Arabella looked stunning, even from the back. The way her right foot was kicked up looked artful too. Jake, on the other hand, looked disheveled, as though he’d just woken up, and when I enlarged the picture, it looked like he was shocked and about to push her away.

The hands that had originally looked like they were pulling her closer, now looked to be pushing her away. And his hair was that tangled kind of messy that only good sex or sleep could produce. Hmmm. Had she been leaving after a session? He was in a bathrobe after all.

I put the phone down.

“I don’t think we have enough rum,” I said, moaning as I opened the phone once more.

“I bought two bottles. You’re going to be too sick to care by the time tomorrow rolls around.” He put more rum in my glass, filling the glass from half to full.

I gulped as he handed it to me. “Drink up, sweetpea. Momma’s going to make it all better.”

I disagreed. “My momma would tell me to stop being a ninny and eat broccoli, it’s better for my heart.”

“True, very true. She’d also tell you you’re being silly, though. Have some faith, girl, Christmas magic, remember? Good things are coming for you. Santa told me so last night.”

“Santa? You didn’t sleep with a mall Santa, did you?” I stared at him shocked.

“No, my, uh, my boyfriend might have dressed up as Santa though.”

He hadn’t come home until early this morning. I guess Santa had quite a few gifts in his sack for Tony.

“Oh, do tell. Boyfriend now, is he?” I urged, happy for the distraction.

“I’m getting too old to play the field. Plus, you and your boring boyfriend making goo-goo eyes at each other got me thinking. It’s time for both of us to settle down.” He wouldn’t look at me, just kept eating the ice cream on his side of the tub.

I fell back against the couch in disbelief.

“Too... old? Settle? Oh my God, did you say settle down?”

“Girl, leave me alone. I’m trying. I’m not making any promises, but we’ll see how it goes.” He looked at me, at last, and gave me a smile. “He’s a lot like your Jackson, quiet, calm, and sexy as fuck!”

“I have to meet this paragon of manhood.” I gave him a grin and went back for more ice cream.

“Maybe we can have a Christmas dinner here.”

“We’re having dinner at Jake’s Gran’s house,” I answered automatically. I wondered if we still were.

“Of course, you are.” He looked away, and I could see sadness in his eyes.

“You were invited, I just forgot to tell you.”

He turned to me, his smile back in place. “Great! Do you think she’ll mind if I bring a man with me?”

I knew some of the struggles Tony faced, and I’d protect him from them all if I could. He was my tiger, my bear, and sometimes he was the kitten that needed stroking to soothe him back down.

“Mrs. Mallory will not care, believe me. She’ll just be happy to be feeding another mouth.” The woman loved to cook, it kept her happy it seemed.

“Good. I’ll call him later. If I remember to.” He tilted his own glass at me in a cheer, and we both guzzled our drinks down.

“I’m going to be so sick tomorrow,” I said as I stuffed another cookie in my mouth.

“Run another mile, that’ll sweat it out of you.” Tony grinned happily and poured us both another drink.

“Seriously though, what are we going to do after this is all over?” I was starting to feel the rum, but didn’t mind. It was taking my mind off smashing my phone into the basest of particles.

“I’m going to keep living right here, and I imagine you’ll go off to live in the woods with your mountain man. Nerd. Whatever.” He was teasing me again.

“Like you wouldn’t love to get your hands on Jake’s, ahem, wood.”

“I’d let him sp... uh, you just never mind what I meant. He is fine, girl.” He put the empty tub of ice cream down and broke out some other box.

Chocolate covered cherries!

“Oh boy, I am going to be sick tomorrow!” I crammed one in my mouth and let the heavenly taste soothe me.

“There’s nothing better for heartache than chocolate, alcohol, and ice cream.” He waved at the empty ice cream tub with his glass. “Momma knows how to fix everything.”

“I guess you do.” I slurred as I downed more rum and sucked at my teeth to get chocolate out of them. “What’s on TV?”

I wasn’t exactly sure I could concentrate enough to watch anything, but Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer was on and I’d be damned if I was going to miss that! A childhood favorite of my parents, the cartoon had become a family tradition that I’d yet to miss.

“Girl, you are not about to make me watch some cartoon, are you?” Tony wrinkled his nose at the program and picked up a cherry.

“Girl, I am! You just don’t know good television. How could you not love Rudolph?” I asked, pushing his hand out of the box to grab a cherry before he took another one.

“I’ve never seen it,” he said it glibly, as if it wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation!

“What?” I hit pause on the DVR and looked at him. “You have never seen Rudolph? What non-TV having rock did you grow up under?”

“My momma didn’t want us watching stuff like that. Said it was of the devil. I was never interested in it, so I haven’t seen it.”

“Good grief. Wait, have you seen any Christmas cartoons at all? What about Frosty? Or Charlie Brown? Any of those?”

“Laney, cartoons just freaked my momma out in general. I’ve never watched them.”

“Okay, settle in and buckle up, because you are about to have the experience of a lifetime.” I’d find them all online if I had to, but Tony was having the full-on Christmas experience. I took another slug of rum and cola and decided I’d move on to movies after the cartoons. Wasn’t there one where a kid got his tongue stuck to a metal pole for a bet?

We’d finished off one bottle of rum by the time I went through the list of cartoons I wanted to show Tony and I swear I heard him sniffle at the end of Frosty, but he wouldn’t admit it.

“Stop, I can’t take anymore,” he slurred, caught between crying and laughing. “I think I have to go to bed. I knew I was getting too old for this shit.”

“I don’t think we’re too old, I think we’re just too full of sugar. And rum. And Christmas magic.” I exploded from the couch, prancing around drunkenly as Frosty started to play again.

Tony danced with me for a moment, laughter filling the house. I didn’t know what the future held, or what we were going to do about our living arrangements, but I did know that Tony would be a fixture in my life until the day I died, if I had anything to say about it.

“I’m going to bed before the room starts spinning. You probably should too, Laney.” He kissed the top of my head and bounced to his room. Bounced because he went down the hall like a ball hitting bumpers in a pinball machine.

I went to take a shower to wash away the salt of my tears and to wake myself up a little. I didn’t feel like crying anymore, so Tony was right about that part, but I did have to think about that email some more. Carol had sent that to me on purpose. Those little hearts were like rubbing salt in a wound, just the kind of snide thing Carol would do.

I rubbed at my suddenly itchy nose with the back of my hand and wondered why my eyes were so blurry. It probably wasn’t the best idea to get drunk and take a shower, but it did make me giggle as I tried to keep my balance.

I wondered what Jake was doing right now. Was he missing me as much as I missed him? I got out of the shower and wobbled through the bathroom and into my bedroom with nothing but a towel on. Tony would fuss at me about the floors, but I wasn’t thinking about floors right now. I was thinking about my man.

He’d better be alone up in that hotel room. I wondered who had called the photographers as I tripped over into my bed and passed out.