Haircut (Beth Harmon X Benny Watts)

Chapter 30

I didn't wake up because of the loud noises outside. You get used to the city sounds pretty quick. I woke up from the smell of coffee and toast. And a hand rubbing my back.

When I opened my eyes I saw Benny crouched next to me. He had a soft smile on his face. "Goodmorning." He said.

I was confused for a moment, Benny usually didn't wake me, but waited till I came out of the room myself. "Goodmorning." I said.

"Breakfast is ready."

He rubbed my back once more and walked out of the bedroom. Breakfast was ready?, I thought. Eggs?

I quickly put on a woollen sweater and followed the amazing smell that hung in the room. When I walked in, I couldn't surpress a smile.

In the small table was an old tablecloth and two filled plates. He had baked his own pancakes, and even though they were burned still looked better than the food I ate in a long time.

Benny was already sitting at the table, reading through the new Chess review. I had expected that the chess board would already have a new game on it, but the pieces later scattered around the board.

When I sat down, Benny put the chess review away.

I still looked at him confused, why did I deserve this kind of breakfast?

"I don't know if you have any traditions or something, but I'll hope this is okay." He laughed. "You know cooking isn't my strongest point."

He stopped with laughing and looked at me comfortably. "Merry Christmas, Beth."

Holy shit, it was Christmas morning, I though to myself. I was so busy with fixing everything around me, that I hadn't thought about the holidays for even a second.

"Merry Christmas." I said softly.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, while he laid a pancake on my plate.

"No, no, I didn't expect this. At all"

"Yeah, me neither. But I somehow got in the jingle mood."

We ate our pancakes, which were pretty great, once you scraped the burned sides of it. We talked about our experiences with Christmas and came to the conclusion, that we both didn't have many.

We didn't talk about chess for a whole hour and that didn't happen often.

It only took a few pancakes, one Christmas ball that Benny had played down on the table and his smile, to get me in the Christmas mood.

When we were done eating, I thought that we would immediately go back to chess again, but before I could stand up and put our dishes in the sink he grabbed my hand.

"Hey wait, I'm not done yet." He stood up and walked to the bedroom. Leaving me even more confused.

A minute later he returned with a small white box and a scrunched red ribbon. He put it in front of me, before he sat back down, looking a bit nervous.

"Open it." He said.

I wrapped my fingers around the ribbon and untied the bow. I carefully removed the lid.

In the box was a small silver necklace with a charm in the shape of queen. The queen of chess. It looked so beautiful, I was scared to touch it.

I looked up at Benny who was smiling with satisfaction.

I pulled the necklace out of the box and held it up in the air. The sun reflected on the charm.

I scoffed unbelievably. "It-it is beautiful, Benny."

"I know, I have great taste." He smirked, clearly happy that I liked it.

"Apparently, you do." I smiled at him. "I love it."

"Here let me help." He got up from the table and walked up behind me. He put the necklace on me. The cold silver sliding pas my skin.

"Thanks." I said again, still in awe of the amazing thing hanging around my neck. "You didn't have to."

"But I did." He said and gave me a long kiss. Making the butterflies in my stomach fly around like crazy.

He grabbed out empty plates and walked to the sink. I pinned the queen between my fingers and looked at it again.

I wore it the whole day, and the day after. Ans the day after that. I smiled everytime it bounced on my skin.

I was still smiling like a fool, when Benny was getting our luggage out of the trunk, when we arrived at the airport. Our flight to Las Vegas was leaving in a few hours.

It was freezing outside. My hands were deep in my pockets and I had pulled my hat over my ears. A small misty cloud escaped Benny's mouth when he closed the trunk of the car. He carried our luggage to me.

"I've heard it will be 55 degrees in Vegas." He said as he gave me my purse. "It's not hot but it's a lot better than 28 °F. My hands hurt like hell."

I accepted the purse and pointed at my other bag. Benny simply shook his head. "Let's get inside, your lips are starting to turn blue."

The airport was busy. Probably a lot of families getting back home from their holiday trip. I saw a lot of children running around with toys, that still looked shiny.

We dropped of our luggage and sat down in out gate. After less than 5 minutes both Benny and I got recognized by a boy from around 15.

"I hope he is the only one we will see today." I whispered to Benny. "I really need to get some sleep on the plane."

He chuckled. "Well, then maybe we need to burn all of these." He turned around and grabbed the first magazine on the pile. On the front page was a picture of us, playing our last game in Ohio.

"Yeah, maybe you're right." I laughed, as I put the magazine in my bag.

After 30 minutes and only one little boy that looked at us like he recognized us, we could board the plane.

I sat next to the window and Benny sat right beside me. When the weels of the plane got loose from the ground, I laid my head on Benny's shoulder and closed my eyes.

"Las Vegas, here we come."