December 24th
Kim’s body practically flew two inches up off the bed when Giovanni jumped on it. She shot him a fake glare that he entirely ignored as he buried his face into a pillow and groaned loudly.
“He’s in bed, right?”
“Gruuumpff.”
“What?”
More mumbles came from her husband.
With a laugh, Kim reached over and smacked Gio on his arm. “Stop it. Look at me so I can understand you, smartass.”
Gio tipped his head to the side just enough for Kim to see half of his face as he said, “Finally, yes, he is in bed.”
“Andino is excited, that’s all.”
“Oh, my God, Kim. It’s fucking ten o’clock.”
“And you stay up until one every morning. What’s your point?”
“But not that long with him. Do you know how exhausting he is when he just goes, and goes, and fucking goes. He’s like an energizer bunny but with speed. You know, the good kind—makes your heart race and your vision blur because everything is just so fast. Except with that kind of speed, you don’t get out of breath like you do with him, and you don’t get sore and tired until you crash.”
“You haven’t taken speed in like … ten years.”
“Something like that,” Gio mumbled. “Fact remains, that’s what he’s like, but I’m not young anymore and he tires me out.”
Kim rolled her eyes. “You’re fine.”
“My legs hurt.”
“You tired him out, likely.”
“Probably,” her husband agreed.
Then, Gio buried his face back into the pillow. Kim decided to let him stay like that for a little while if only because soon enough they would both have to get out of their comfy, warm bed. After all, Santa had to come for Andino before morning.
That meant the two of them would spend a couple of hours downstairs setting extra gifts up, making everything look nice, and filling their son’s stocking. Not to mention, eating the cookies, drinking the milk the boy left out … Gio could handle eating the carrot, though. Kim fucking hated carrots.
And marriage was about compromise, so …
A few minutes passed them by in silence before Gio turned to look at Kim once more. His green gaze drifted over her before he said quietly, “I still didn’t find something for Andino that would satisfy the whales. A stuffed whale, and the documentary or whatever that he hasn’t seen yet, but still, yeah.”
Too little, too late.
It was Christmas Eve.
“It’ll be fine, Gio,” Kim assured.
It wasn’t like Andino was spoiled, or anything. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Their son was kind of like a free range kid in the way they simply let him wander his interests from one thing or another. They didn’t overwhelm him with stuff and things. If Andino showed interest in something particular, then they helped to feed into that interest, but nothing more.
The whales were the same thing.
Eventually, he would move on to something else.
“He really didn’t ask for much, Kim,” Gio pointed out. “A couple of things, something for someone else, and a fucking whale.”
Kim laughed softly. “Exactly. Our son—who’s six, by the way—thought to write on his Santa list for someone else, Gio. He barely thought about things he wanted, and those things were basically immaterial. He put something for John closer to the top, like it was a big priority. And the whale thing? At the very bottom, like an afterthought.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You said it, Gio. He’s not stupid. He’s little. He’s young. His attention bounces back and forth at times, but he’s not stupid. What he really wanted, he got. Don’t fret.”
“Shouldn’t that just make me feel like an even bigger piece of shit, then?”
Kim frowned. “What, why?”
“Because he’s that good of a damn kid. Because he’s tenderhearted, or something. I don’t know. Because he asked for Santa to bring John’s dad home, but he won’t even get what he wanted the most.”
“You’re overthinking this, Gio.”
“No, I think it makes perfect—”
The ring of a doorbell stopped her husband from saying anything else. They had the doorbell speakers wired all throughout their home so that no matter where they were, they would hear it.
Kim pushed out of the bed first, but Gio followed right after.
“Me first,” he told her. “Who the fuck is ringing our bell at ten at night on Christmas Eve? I don’t like that at all.”
“Stop being paranoid, Gio. It’s Christmas.”
“Hush, woman.”
Kim glowered at his back, but decided not to say more. It wasn’t long before they were downstairs, and whoever it was waiting outside rang the doorbell twice more in quick succession.
“Well, whoever it is, they’re persistent.”
“Persistent about getting my fist through their face if they wake up my kid,” Gio muttered.
“Stop being nasty, it’s—”
“Christmas. Yeah, yeah.” Gio yanked opened the front door with a harsh, “What?”
On the other side of the door standing on their front stoop was a man Kim recognized, but couldn’t bring forth his name. He was young—maybe twenty-two or so, if that. An enforcer for the Marcello family who often watched over the Marcello home or took Cecelia places when she wasn’t in the mood to drive.
“Nate,” Gio said, “what are you doing here?”
The young man wore a Santa cap on his head, and held out a small white gift box with a perfect red bow on top. The box was maybe a foot-long by six-inches wide.
“Someone wanted this sent along, Skip.”
Gio took the box, and eyed it. “Someone like my mother or father?”
“Or Santa?” Nate smiled. “Not supposed to say, you know.”
“All right. Thanks, man.”
Nate gave a two finger salute, and headed back down the steps without as much as a look over his shoulder. Gio closed the door once the man was out of sight, and then turned to face his wife with the gift in his hands.
“Are you going to open it or not?” Kim asked.
“Should probably wait for morning, shouldn’t—”
Screw that.
Kim snagged the box from Gio’s hand, and popped the top off. Inside, plane tickets and papers with information on a whale watching tour rested on top of white tissue paper. On top of those sat a handwritten note.
To Gio and Andino, it read. Santa thought a whale watching trip in Vancouver, Canada might be a little bit better than an actual whale inside your house.
—Love Santa
“Oh, wow,” Kim said, unable to form much else for words.
Gio picked out the note, and read it over a good ten times before a smile lifted the edges of his mouth into a full blown grin. “You know …”
“That’s totally your dad’s handwriting.”
“Yeah,” Gio said.
“Merry Christmas, Gio.”
Gio laughed as he tapped the note against his palm. Then, he kissed his wife. “Merry Christmas, Kim. Ready to set some shit up?”
“You say that like we have a choice.”
He looked down at the note again. “Not really concerned about tomorrow, now. Looking forward to it, actually.”
She bet.