Nochelle - Our Stories

P R E S E N T

"Okay..." It's not like he didn't know that telling her to calm down wouldn't make her calm down, but it seamed like an obvious first try. Instead of giving up, like he maybe should at this point, he took a deep breath and walked over to her list of jobs on the coffee table. "But at least let me help." His eyes quickly skimmed over the visible pages, taking in all the sections, sub-sections and even sub-sub-sections.

By then she no longer looked mad, but rather discouraged upon hearing him offer his help. "That's very sweet of you," she tugged the dirty laundry into the basket she'd brought along for the ride around the entire apartment. "But there's so much to do and it needs to be done to my standards. Just go back to sleep. I'll be okay."

"Richie..." he grabbed her wrist as she rushed past him, gently removing the laundry basket from her other hand and putting it down besides them. Before she could object to it, he was holding onto both of her hands in order to make sure she that he had her full attention. It was obvious, from the look in her dark eyes, that she was anxious, stressed and tired. Christmas was supposed to be the exact opposite. "There's no way you can do this all by yourself. Let's sit down for a minute, at least have a cup of coffee, and you can tell me what to do. Okay?" He looked straight into her eyes, sincerely hoping that she'd accept his offer and take some of the burden off her shoulders. To further persuade her, he soothingly drew circles on the inside of her palms with his thumbs, hopefully working away some nerves.

Oddly enough, hearing her sigh and seeing her shoulders drop in defeat was indeed more than a simple victory for Noah. It meant that he, to some extent, had fought off the stressed beast inside Richelle's gut. "I guess you're right... Sorry."

"Don't apologise," he sent her a tired smile, before pressing his lips to her forehead for a tender moment, before mumbling against it. "Sit down and I'll brew us some coffee. Then we can go through your plan together."

~~~

A lot had happened since T-minus 29 hours.  Even though the entire apartment was now spotless, decorated to pure perfection (precisely like Richelle's plan had instructed: colour-coordinated, well-balanced and extremely festive) and most of the food was prepped for tomorrow morning, they'd hit the 13 hour-mark. Just when he thought he'd seen Richelle at her worst, she absolutely crumbled in front of him.

"No no no no!" She almost screamed at the oven, squatting in front of it and desperately pressing all of its buttons. "Why. Won't. You. Work!" With every word, the poor, defenceless oven received a punch from the agitated woman. That's when Noah decided that enough was enough. He wanted to be the last person to tell a woman what to do, but there had to be limits. Beating up an oven was now one.

"Woah woah woah!" He jogged over to gently pull her to her feet and back away to a point where  the oven wouldn't suffer further abuse. "Alright, Rich... Time out." He grabbed her shoulders to spin her 180 degrees and restrain her from turning away.

"But the turkey needs to slow roast!" She whined and Noah could swear that he could spot tears forming in his eyes. "It needs 12 hours and 45 minutes in the oven like Lola showed me, and if everyone arrives at 10 AM tomorrow, then it needs to get in within the next 5 minutes!"

"Rich—" he tried to get through to her (again) slightly tightening his soft grip on her shoulder, just to get her attention as he had rarely seen her spiral like this.

"You don't get it! If it doesn't go in NOW, then it'll be way too pink for anyone to eat—"

"Richelle!" He snapped, not angrily bit firmly enough to get her attention for a second. "Breathe with me, okay?" He started taking deep breaths - inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth - never letting his eyes leave hers. Seconds later she was quietly breathing with him, and he allowed himself to gently rub her shoulders. The worst was over.