Christmas morning dawned, and I seemed to wake earlier than everyone. I went downstairs to find a whole bunch of presents wrapped and placed around the Christmas tree, including overfilled stockings hanging above the fireplace which hadn't been used in months due to the summer heat. Mum and I never had a fireplace before moving into Ruben's house, but she always had a stocking for me which she hung up somewhere else around our house. She made it for me for my first Christmas apparently. It was big and blue, with snowflakes on it for a weird twist of irony in our snowless, blisteringly hot Australian Christmases. It had my name stitched in blue writing, and a fluffy trim which was currently partially hidden beneath the overflowing gifts she had placed in it. This year my stocking had a matching partner which read 'Jet', similarly overflowing with gifts. It was perfect, and he would love it.
I decided to do Ruben's morning job and make everyone their daily coffee. Being the son of a caffeine addict—or as she liked to call it, a 'coffee connoisseur,' but really, who was she kidding?—had taught me a thing or two about making coffee, even though I didn't drink the stuff myself. No one liked drinking hot coffee in summer, so I had learned how to make iced coffees, too. Ice, ice-cream, coffee shots, milk, and if we had a can of whipped coconut cream, a squeeze of that and chocolate sprinkles on top. What can I say? I had inherited Mum's coffee making passion early on in life.
I made myself a chocolate equivalent, and walked carefully upstairs with the four drinks balancing on the tray used to bring us our morning drinks before school and work every morning. Ruben made it look a lot easier than it actually was, as I soon learned. Or maybe that was just because I was operating at one and a half arm capacity. Still, I made it up the stairs without a glitch and into Mum's room, where I heard them talking softly behind the door.
"Well, well. Now what is all this?" said Mum, eyeing off the iced drinks in my hands. Coffee was my mother's life force, so I knew this would make her happy. "Bringing me coffee in bed? I think you have some competition, Ruby." She grinned at me, placing the tray I'd handed her on the beside table. "Merry Christmas, baby. Come here!" she said, rolling me into the bed with her and Ruben, and smothering me with kisses. Ruben immediately joined in too, and I was very quickly laying upside down in their bed trying to escape their clutches, one of them attacking my feet with tickles and the other my ribs.
My cackling must have woke Jet up, as I soon saw him walking into Mum and Ruben's bedroom upside down, as my head was now lolling off the end of the bed. "Morning, all. What's going on in here?" He was rubbing his eyes sleepily, and scratching his bare stomach. His long brown hair, which usually hung down past his shoulders was messy and pointing in every different direction possible.
"The kid bought us all coffee in bed," said Ruben, gesturing for Jet to join us, even though there wasn't much room left. He sat down on the mattress next to Ruben, who pulled him into a hug and kissed him on the top of his messy hair, wishing him a Merry Christmas. Mum, too, leaned over me and held his head in her hands, kissing him on the cheek and wishing him the same. Jet shuffled down the bed to the end where I lay watching them and sat on my stomach, perfectly poised to tickle the hell out of me, which is exactly what he then did. It was a good thing I had already peed this morning or we would all be in serious trouble.
"Merry Christmas, little bro," he said, abandoning his attack and pulling me off the edge of the bed by my arms, which were exhausted from trying to fend all three of them off for ages. When I was upright, he hugged me and I forgave his early morning onslaught within one heart beat. He had that effect on me. "So, where's this coffee I heard spoke of?" He and Mum could have been the same person for all their reliance on coffee in the morning.
We sat in bed for a while, talking and finishing our drinks before heading downstairs. I ran down ahead of everyone, mostly because I just wanted to see Jet's face when he saw everything. And I was so glad I did, because the tears in his eyes when he touched his name on the stocking hanging next to mine was so worth it. I doubt he would have cared what it held inside it. The stocking itself could have held dog food and raw fish and he would still be crying.
YOU ARE READING
When You Know
RomanceMadden Jace Carter has spent his whole life waiting for the day he could finally call his Aunt Sadie his mother. Having been raised from birth by Sadie - a woman who has unfortunately experienced too much of the darker side of life and love - Madden...
