Sip of Assistance

Chapter 29

When they were done hugging she looked him over. I expected her to react as most grandmothers do, commenting on how thin he was and how they weren’t feeding him enough back home, but she surprised me. “Aren‘t you just as handsome and fit as ever! It’s no wonder I hear a girl followed you here all the way from California for Christmas. You should probably try eating like a civilized person or she’s going to run off.” Her tone was playful and James smiled, not bothering to correct her and let her know that I followed him because I was alone, not because he was ‘handsome and fit’ -though he certainly was.

“Now where is this Holly I’ve heard so much about?” She peaked around James, looking even smaller next to his tall muscular body. She spotted me turned around in my seat and came over to sit next to me.

“Well she is certainly beautiful. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you, you too… um…”

“You can just call me Nana. Everyone does. Become a grandmother and suddenly you have no name,” she said wistfully.

“As if you’d let us call you anything else. You love every minute of it,” James told her before picking up where he left off with his bacon.

“I’m surprised she didn’t have me call her that before James and Olivia were even born,” William piped in.

A sly smile came over Nana’s face, “They know me too well.”

Caroline came in and sat down and with that everyone was eating breakfast and discussing the day’s plans and traditions. Caroline began handing out a sheet of Christmas paper to each of us at the table. I stared down at the one in front of me, wondering what I was supposed to do with it. James sensed my confusion, “Every Christmas Eve we write down what we want on the paper for Santa and after dinner we toss it in the fireplace.” He seemed a bit embarrassed, “Its tradition.”

“I’ve never done it before, sounds nice. What other traditions do you have?”

He turned to face me, eyes glistening in the morning light coming through the glass doors. “You’ll see.”

Caroline began cleaning away the table and refused all help so James and I stood to go get cleaned up and headed towards the hall. We made it as far as the doorway when Nana stopped us.

“Wait, there’s one tradition you can show her now, James.”

We both turned around to await her answer. She pointed above our heads to the mistletoe, smiling warmly as if it’d be no big deal to kiss James in front of them especially considering it was the same way I had my first kiss with Jon.

“Here we call it a mistletoe kissing bough. Go on James show her how it’s done.”

Caroline was frozen in place waiting and William winked at me and laughed quietly to himself. I looked up at James and knew he was going to kiss me if I didn’t stop him.

“Yeah, we do this in the US too,” I told Nana before grabbing James’ face and pulling it towards mine. I was on my tiptoes and our mouths were millimeters away when I turned his head so I could place a lingering kiss on his cheek. I’d even meant for that to be short, but I couldn’t help but drag it out and enjoy the heat under my lips and in my palms where I was touching him. I let go of his face and rocked back on my heels, “I’m gonna get dressed.” I left James behind and headed to my room, touching my lips and picturing how sweet a real kiss would have been.

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I headed to my room, thinking about the lack of subtlety in my family. Could it be more obvious that my Mum and Nana were plotting to get us together? All it took was one look from my mother for Nana to be in on the scheme.