I opened my eyes to see Rain hovering over me.
"Kelly said you had a headache. You alright?" He asked, sitting down on the bed beside me.
"Yea, I'm fine. I was tired and wanted an excuse to get out of the kitchen." I sighed.
"I guess you and Laura don't get along well?" He frowned.
"No, not really." I rolled my eyes. I checked the clock. I had only been up here for about an hour.
"Well, your mom and Meg pretty much are taking care of the cooking, so if you want to lay up here, you can." He said, giving me a small smile.
"Thanks." I nodded, holding Rain's pillow closer to me. "Are you having fun with the kids?" I asked, seeing Rain start to smile.
"Yea. They are a ton of fun and really funny!" He giggled. I smiled with a nod.
"I'm you're enjoying them. I would always be stuck babysitting them and we always had a blast." I chuckled.
"Why don't you come down and play with us? Pleeassseeee!" He whined with a pout, making me laugh.
"Okay fine!" I sighed, climbing out of the bed and slipping my boots back on. I followed Rain downstairs and slipped into the 2nd living room without anyone noticing me.
"Yay! Let's play Uno!" Riley suggested, already pulling out the Uno cards. I nodded, sitting between Rain and Shelby in the circle. Riley dealed out the cards and Rain started the game. I frowned at the red and greens I had with no yellows, which what the color was. By the time it was my turn, I had to draw a card. Blue. I scoffed with an eyeroll. Rain giggled, putting down a yellow reverse.
"Cosmo!" I groaned, drawing another red. The kids starting cackling, seeing me put down the red reverse.
"I don't have a red..." He sent me a playful glare before drawing a card. Ginger put down a red card, as did Riley and Shelby. We kept the game going, Rain only drawing 2 more times before changing the color to green. I had 4 cards let, one of them being a green skip. Once it was my turn, I put down the skip and saw Rain's defeated face as he looked down at his 2 cards.
"You're skipped." I said with a dirty smirk.
"No way." He gaped at me with sarcastic tone.
"Don't get snappy with me." I scolded with a giggle. He sent me a playful glare as the game continued.
"Uno!" I shouted, Rain quickly following in suit. Ginger switched the color to yellow again. I sent her a look as I looked down at my red six. Shelby and Riley both put down some yellows cards before reaching me. I sighed, drawing a green eight.
"Ha, I win!" Rain laughed, putting down his yellow card.
"Oh come on!" I rolled my eyes, watching the kids start giggling.
"I guess we just found out who the Uno master is." Rain huffed with triumph.
"Oh surrrrre!" I scoffed, shaking my head. "I'm the best at Uno here. I just let you win." I grinned, watching Rain's brown eyes twinkle.
"Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart." Rain sighed dramatically.
"We're going to go out to the barn and look at Shelby's lambs again." Riley said, standing up.
"Alright, have fun!" I smiled, sending them all a small wave as they left the room.
"That was fun." Rain sighed, laying back on the floor.
"Mhm." I nodded, scooting over to the bookcase and looking through the books.
"We can do a 500 piece puzzle." I said, pulling out the old puzzle.
"I'm horrible at puzzles. Sodo is the one that's good at those." Rain chuckled.
"Somehow I can't picture Sodo ever touching a puzzle." I laughed.
"He never does it when people are around. When we would have puzzles going at the ministry, one morning we'd wake up and a 1001 piece puzzle would be completely put together. It would always smell like the herbs Mountain grows for Sodo to smoke. He's the only one that does smoke them because Mountain sticks to plain weed, so we always knew it was Sodo. He'd always deny it, but we all knew that. So sometimes we would buy a new puzzle set and just start it for something Sodo to do during the winter because he would never go outside."
"Really? Wow! No wonder Sodo always hates going outside in the cold weather." I chuckled. "Which reminds me, what do you want for Christmas?" I asked, moving onto my stomach and propping my head up in my hands.
"I have all I could ever want for Christmas." He smiled.
"Okay but like... there has to be something!" I argued.
"Nope." He shook his head, gathering the cards and putting them away.
"Okay then... what do you think Sodo would want?" I asked again, seeing him go deep into thought.
"Hm... probably some weed or something." Rain giggled.
"How come he doesn't smoke around me?" I asked, Rain shrugging.
"Probably because he doesn't want to make you upset. He used to do a lot of smoking, but then again, smoking can't harm him in any way, so he would vape, smoke, and all that stuff just to get high. It was also a stress relief for him as well. Sometimes the ministry can get really overwhelming and sometimes a nice smoke is what you need." Rain spoke, putting away the last of the cards.
"I've only smoked once, I think. Someone gave me a herbal joint. It had like lavender and stuff like that in it. I smoked it before I went to sleep and I slept pretty good, but I prefer to keep my lungs healthy as long as possible." I chuckled.
"Yea. Understandable." Rain shrugged.
"That still doesn't give me any Christmas gift ideas." I sighed. "Maybe I could just surf amazon."
"Hey Alyson, mom needs some help." Laura said, poking her head into the room.
"Okay." I sighed, standing up and stepping over Rain. I entered into the kitchen, seeing mom at the mixer.
"Can you roll out the pie dough and get it in the pie pan?" She asked. I nodded, grabbing some flour and coating my hands in the powder before starting to work the dough. After a couple of minutes it was ready and I was delicately putting it in the pie pan. I took a glance at the clock, holding back the long sigh as I knew the day was barely started.
~
I had just finished setting the table, pulling my phone out and sending a picture to Sodo. I was trying to keep in contact with him throughout the day, whither it was little pictures throughout the day of some of the stuff I had been working on.
"Wait, I want a picture too!" Rain giggled, moving in front of the table and kneeling on the floor. I let out a laugh, stepping back and taking a picture of Rain posing in front of the table, a goofy grin on his face with his thumbs pointing back to the table. I quickly sent it to Sodo and put my phone away into the pocket of my skirt.
"The turkey is done!" My dad shouted, bringing the bird inside. Everyone gasped and gathered around as he set it down in the middle of the table. I walked into the empty kitchen, enjoying the peace and quiet. I brought out a couple platters of food, the cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole and mashed potatoes. Within 5 minutes the table was set and we had all gathered around it.
"Ricky, would you ask the blessing on the food?" My dad asked, looking to my brother. He nodded, taking off his beanie. Rain respectfully bowed his head, as did I, listening to my bther pray before rounds of 'Amens' went around the table, Rain giving the slightest whisper. I felt proud of him for stepping outside of his comfort zone for my family. I pulled out a chair and settled down, Rain beside me. Already everyone was talking and Ricky and Colton struck up a conversation with Rain about Canada. I couldn't help but giggle at my brother and brother-in-law's reaction to some of the stuff Rain told them. I smiled to myself, realizing the stress and anger today all payed off.
"What time are you leaving tomorrow?" Mom asked me finally.
"The flight for New York leaves at 8:30, as long as there is no delays, so if we could be at the airport by 7:45, that'd be great." I nodded.
"Alright, we'll see what we can do." She smiled. There wasn't much said to me during the supper, but I was happy to sit back and enjoy the conversation. Afterwards, we got up and all went into the living room. Rain and I settled down on the floor with the kids, me laying between his legs as he leaned against the edge of the couch. We watched 'Charlie Brown Thanksgiving' and then pulled out the Christmas decorations, which is my favorite part.
"Aly. You start the first song." My mom encouraged, making Rain's eyes twinkle. I knew he never heard me sing, and my palms grew sweaty.
I- um..." I wracked my brain and slowly let the words to 'O Christmas Tree' roll off my tongue. Everyone joined in and Rain hummed along as we took turn placing ornaments on the tree. I almost swore I saw Rain tearing up, watching me help Ginger put her ornament on, but I didn't want to say anything. We sang every Christmas carol we could think of and soon my dad came up and handed the star to Rain.
"Would you?" He asked, looking Rain in the eye. Rain hesitated before taking it, turning and standing on his tip-toes and slowly setting down on the tree. Dad quickly leaned down and plugged the lights in, the tree lighting up beautifully.
"It looks so pretty!" I smile, tangling my arm with Rain's as I leaned my head on his shoulder. He nodded in agreement, everyone looking at the tree before returning to their duties.
"Let's go get those dishes washed." Mom sighed, walking into the kitchen. The men gathered around in the living room, going to try and find some football on the TV channels. Rain joined them as I went into the kitchen, a smile on my face the whole time.