Milk and Cookies

"Yeah, he's yelling at me, too," Brittany said with a laugh. "But the angel on the other pillow is telling me that it kinda likes you."

She was reading my mind. It was a little scary.

"Like... I might really like you. I know, I barely know you, but still."

"You mentioned leaving the milk and cookies out," I said. "Well, in my house, we had a tradition, too. You get to open one or two presents on Christmas Eve..."

"But you have to wait until Christmas to open the big presents," she finished.

We stared at each other for long moment, until we both started laughing.

"Is this conversation a little eerie?" I asked.

"A little," she admitted. "But I'm glad we agree."

"We do. Besides," I whispered in her ear. "Christmas is tomorrow."

Brittany shot me a "come hither" look that would have torched the neighborhood if there was an open flame nearby. We probably made out for another hour before finally falling asleep.

************************

"Merry Christmas."

My brain was trapped under a thick layer of fog, but I was able to vaguely make out a woman's voice coming from nearby. My eyes were only half open, and it was still dark in the room. I couldn't see her, but I could feel her presence next to me on the bed.

I switched on the bedside lamp and turned over, and the memories from the day before rushed back to me as Brittany came into view. I was thrilled to discover that she hadn't been a dream or a figment of my imagination. She was laying right next to me in bed. Her shirt had come off during our makeout session, leaving her topless. Her hair fell over her shoulder and splashed across her naked breasts. She was beautiful.

"You are the best Christmas present ever," I said.

I kissed her. Hard. I forced my tongue into her mouth and, after a little squeal of surprise, hers met it eagerly. My fingers danced across her chest, brushing her nipples with each pass.

"Wow," she said a few minutes later.

"I agree," I replied. "I hope you know this is not how I expected things to happen."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I want to date you, Brittany," I said. "I want to get to know you. God and Mother Nature got together and sped things up a little, and I'm certainly not complaining about everything that's happened. But I didn't ask for your number yesterday so I could get you into bed. I asked so I could take you to dinner."

She had an incredulous look on her face.

"I'm not a bullshitter," I continued. "I'll always be straight and honest with you. I don't want what happened yesterday to give you the wrong impression. I know we haven't been on a real date yet, but if it goes like I think it will, I want there to be another one, and another one after that. If you're not okay with that, now would be the time to say so."

She leaned over and answered me with a long, soft kiss. It wasn't nearly as frantic or heated as most of our other kisses had been, but my toes were still curling when it was over.

"I'm more than okay with it," she said. "I'm friggin' ecstatic. In fact, I'd like to show you just how ecstatic, but..."

She trailed off, and a light bulb clicked on in my brain.

"You're missing Christmas with your daughter," I said, immediately getting out of bed. "We need to get going."

"But the roads--"

"Not every piece of pavement in the Metroplex is closed, Brittany," I said, heading toward the shower. "I have a GPS. I'll find a way."

She sat on the bed, her mouth hanging open. "Wow."

"Wow, what?"

"I'm just surprised it's that important to you, that's all."

"A mother getting to spend Christmas with her daughter? It means a whole lot to me, yeah."

I left her grinning on the bed as I got into the shower. A few seconds later, she pulled the curtains back. She was gloriously naked, and again, I had to fight the urge to throw her down on the floor. She stood on her tippy toes and gave me a kiss.

"You are such a sexy man," she cooed. "Can I come in?"

We both let our hands roam, but we somehow managed to stop things from going further. I washed her, paying special attention to her magnificent breasts and her back, giving both a decent massage in the process. She returned the favor, making sure my cock was nice and clean before she moved on to my legs. All it did was heighten my desire to explore her even further, but more important things took precedence.

"So, I guess that answers that question, then," she said as we dried each other off in the bedroom. I just shot her a quizzical look. "I was going to ask if you'd join my family and I for Christmas dinner today."

"Oh," I said. "Well, I just don't want you driving, Brittany. I would have dropped you off and gone somewhere else for a while. I was not planning to invite myself to your family's Christmas."

"You don't have to, Kevin," she said. "I just did. It's the least I can do after how nice you've been to me, getting me out of the storm yesterday. Plus, I would hate knowing you're spending Christmas by yourself. And besides... I just want you there with me. That's okay, right?"

And with that, my Christmas plans morphed from football and beer to spending an entire day with people I didn't know. I bristled momentarily, thinking about my reasons for turning down Tim's invitation, but then I relaxed. With Brittany around, there was no way I would be in a sour mood.

*****************

The rest of the day was, to put it lightly, a massive zoo.

Thankfully, parts of the Interstate were open, so it only took about an hour and a half to make what should have been a 45-minute drive. There were 15 or 20 people at the house when we finally pulled into the crowded driveway. Brittany told me it was pretty much all of the family they had in the area except for her older sister, who was spending the day with her husband's family in south Texas, and one of her older brothers, the one who worked in Denver and was staying there this year.

Brittany's mom was thrilled to have another guest to feed, making a big production of welcoming me to her house and ordering me to feel at home. With her friendly smile and pleasant demeanor, that was going to be easy.

Her dad was a different story. He was wary of me from the moment I walked in, even through all the presents. It was slightly odd being the only one there with no presents to unwrap, but I was okay with it. My only contribution to the presents at all was the stuffed cat I gave to Alicia, Brittany's daughter. It was an exact replica of Chester. I told her family that a friend had given it to me, but it had actually been a gift from Kira. She knew how much I liked the cat, and she'd taken a picture of him to a toy store one year for my birthday. It was one of the best gifts I'd ever received, but I figured it would be in good hands with Alicia.

Brittany's dad started to warm up to me a little later in the day as we watched college football. We talked a lot of strategy, why the teams were doing what they were doing, etc. He peppered me with questions about the Rangers, and I mentioned that I'd met Kellen Howard, their young first baseman, on several occasions. We also talked about my brief professional baseball career.

I could tell he wanted to ask me about my relationship with his daughter, but he never brought it up. Considering my relationship with his daughter consisted of two chance encounters, two orgasms, one shower and about four hours of tonsil hockey, I wasn't going to bring it up if he didn't. By halftime of the second football game, we were chatting like old friends.

Alicia wasn't quite sure what to make of me, but she was enjoying the day in general. She knew how to give high fives, and anytime I extended my hand, she would dutifully slap it. She grinned at me when I used the stuffed cat to play with her, and I could definitely see the resemblance.

Dinner was, well, there's no nice way to say it. Dinner was fucking fantastic. Ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied yams, and all the rest of the regular Christmas dinner fare was mixed in with some spectacular Tex-Mex cooking. On one plate I had ham, refried beans, deviled eggs and enchiladas. My stomach would likely hate me later, but my taste buds wanted to award me a Nobel Prize.

Throughout it all, Brittany and I made faces at each other. Most of the time they were goofy, humorous faces, but a couple times I caught her staring at me when she thought no one was looking. For my part, I stole a glimpse of her whenever I could. She was just so beautiful. She wore very minimal makeup, and for most of the day, she walked around in pajamas and bunny slippers. Still, whenever I saw her, I wanted to wrap her up and never let her go.

It was quite frankly a little scary to me. Not two days ago I sat in my living room, half-buzzed, telling myself that someday soon I might be able to start dating again. Now here I was, daydreaming about a woman I'd just met and getting a touch romantic.

I brushed off those thoughts and started helping her mom do the dishes. She protested at first, but I told her I wasn't leaving the kitchen till everything was clean, so she could either accept my help or not. She washed, I dried, and Brittany put things away. The three of us made a pretty good team, and the kitchen was spotless in about a half hour.

Brittany chose that point to tell me about another Christmas tradition in her house, just as her mom started mixing up cookie dough.

"Every year, mama makes a different kind of cookie," she explained. "This year is oatmeal chocolate chip."

"Oooh," I said. "Good choice."

"Oh, but mama, do we have milk?" Brittany asked, sticking her tongue out at me through her pearly white teeth. "Kevin here is a snob. He doesn't eat cookies without milk."

"Hey," I defended myself. "I'm a guest in your house, so I'll take whatever is being offered. Still... if you're going to do something, I say you should do it right."

They both laughed.

"Kevin said he even had cookies and milk on his first date, when he and his family lived in Turkey." Her mom raised her eyebrows at that, but didn't say anything.

"It's true," I said. "A man doesn't forget such a momentous event in his life."

"Well, I just opened a new gallon a couple of hours ago," her mom said. "You're all set."

"Thank you," I replied. "Thanks for this whole day, really. My plan was to spend Christmas by myself until Brittany showed up. Your family has shown me such great hospitality today, and the food... I think you need to start a restaurant, Mrs. Morgan."

"You're such a sweet man," she said, pinching my cheek. "But it's Mrs. Pacheco. Morgan was the asshole mi hija over there divorced."

The name she'd given me, Pacheco, sounded familiar to me, but I wasn't sure why. Brittany stared at the ground as her mom talked, but when it got quiet, she looked up at me. She was giving me a specific look. Hope, maybe? Anticipation? Anticipation of what? I mean, I'd promised her a Christmas gift, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"Well, Mrs. Pacheco, then," I said. "I'm very happy I got to spend the day with your magnificent family. I'm going to go give my regards to Mr. Pacheco, then I need to be going."

"You're going home?" Brittany asked. I could tell she wasn't happy about it. "My car is in your garage."

"I know," I said. "But I need to sleep somewhere tonight."

"You can't drive all the way to Garland tonight, Kevin," she pleaded. "It's way past dark and the roads are still nasty."

"She's right, Kevin," her mom said. "You literally can't, at least not on the freeway. A semi jackknifed on I-30 a few hours ago. It'll be shut down until tomorrow."

"They have side roads," I countered.

"And we have plenty of room here," her mom said with finality. "You'll be sleeping here tonight. Don't argue with me."

"Yay!" Brittany exclaimed, clapping her hands and jumping like a schoolgirl.

"He'll be sleeping in the living room, young lady," her mom said, tossing me a wink as she put the cookies in the oven.

**************************

It was a little after 11 when Brittany's youngest brother went to bed, leaving she and I as the last two awake. The last of the family had left around 8 or 9 p.m. to head home, and her mom and dad had gone to bed right as the last car was pulling out of the driveway. So, we stood in the kitchen, bonding over a little late-night snack. Her mom's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, just like everything else she'd cooked today, were outstanding.

"Alicia is the cutest little girl I have ever met, by the way," I said. "I would have known she was your daughter even if you hadn't told me. The resemblance is striking."

"Thank you," she said, looking down into her glass of milk. "She likes you, you know."

"I didn't," I said. "How can you tell?"

"She loves my dad and brothers, of course," she said. "But she isn't really comfortable around most other guys."

"What about her dad?" I asked.

"She hasn't seen him except on the other side of a bulletproof plexiglass window since she was six months old," she said. "She cries when I take her, and she's the only reason I go visit him. He's there for at least 10 more years before he's up for parole."

"Can I ask what he did?"

"Pushed me down a flight of stairs," she said. With her tone of voice, she could have been ordering Chinese takeout. "It was right after Alicia was born. We got into a fight about something, and he shoved me into the wall. He did that all the time, and I guess I'd just gotten used to it. We lived in a second-floor apartment, and when I went to leave, he screamed for me to come back. I made it halfway down the stairs before he caught up to me and pushed me the rest of the way down. Broke my right leg and a couple of fingers."

"Son of a bitch," I muttered. I briefly pondered how hard it would be to break into a prison and kill someone, but a comment my mother always made during my teenage years came to mind. 'Son, if a woman wants you to fix something, she'll tell you so. Most of the time, all she wants is for you to listen.' So, I listened.

"That probably wouldn't have landed in him jail, though. I somehow managed to get into my car and drive here, where mama was watching Alicia. She took me to the hospital, and when my ex found out what happened, he wanted to come to the hospital. I wish he'd have made it, because papa would have killed him. Instead, the dumb shit got pulled over for speeding on the way over, and the cops found about 30 kilos of cocaine in his trunk."

"Holy shit," I said.

"Yeah," she replied. "While he was awaiting trial on that, some girl accused him of raping her a couple years before, right after we got married. I don't know what ever came of that, though. I filed for divorce before I got out of the hospital."

"Wow," I said, pulling her into a hug right there in the kitchen. She wasn't emotional about it at all -- I guess when you have enough time to deal with something, it becomes no big deal. I felt pretty horrible for her, though.

"So, there ya go," she said. "I've dated a few times since then, and the couple guys who did meet Alicia, she wasn't really happy about. She took right to you, though."

"I give good high-five, I guess," I responded, earning a laugh. "My turn."

"Oh, no," she said. "I didn't mean to tell you about that, it just kind of spilled out. You can tell me about your past whenever you want."

"What if I want to right now?" I asked. She blinked, so I moved right on. "I met Kira about a year before I got out of the Marines, when I was back home in Maryland on leave. We got married about a year after I got out. She worked in Washington, D.C. as a lobbyist for an energy company, and I quickly got a job working for an airline based out of Washington Reagan. For the first two years, our marriage was spectacular."

"And then?" Brittany rested her head on my chest as we stood together. If there'd been some Barry White playing in the background, we could have been slow dancing.

"I guess we started to drift a little bit, but I didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary. She was taking trips, I was always on the road, and we just didn't spend as much time together as we used to."

"So what ended it?" she asked.

"I came back from a flight to Las Vegas one night. When I walked off the plane, I turned my cell back on and had about 20 voicemails. The first was from an Associated Press political writer, asking me for a comment on the allegations. I had no fucking clue what he was talking about, so before checking the rest of my messages, I immediately called the guy back."

I think Brittany could sense the hammer coming, so she just stood there in silence waiting for it.

"And he's actually the one who told me that my wife had been cheating on me for the better part of a year."

"Oh, Jesus, Kevin," Brittany said.

"Yeah," I replied. "Anyway, most of the other messages were from other news people. A few from my friends, and about three from Kira, telling me we needed to talk."

"Wow," she said.

"She told me she'd slept with a few political nobodies in the past, interns or junior aides to this senator or that representative, just trying to earn a few favors. The media started caring about it when she skipped the underlings and went straight to the top. Apparently, someone had video of her in a threesome with a female senator from New Hampshire and her husband."

"Oh, God," she moaned.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Kira said that exact thing once or twice in the video," I said. It was my attempt to be glib, but Brittany didn't see the humor. Truthfully, neither did I. "Honestly, I have no problems with threesomes. You have yet to really scratch the surface with me, Brittany -- I'm a pretty open-minded, adventurous guy. I have a lot of fantasies. I just can't tolerate being lied to."

"I'm the exact same way," she said into my chest. I wasn't sure which part she was talking about. I was happy either way.

"Anyway, Kira got fired, the senator resigned, and my airline put me on a one-month paid leave of absence due to all the publicity I was getting. That was about nine months ago. It was actually all over the news for about a week. I'm surprised you didn't hear about it."

"Well, there's a lot going on in my life," she said. "And I don't really follow politics too closely. I'm so, so sorry for you."

"Eh, I'm a very firm believer in a couple of things. God works in mysterious ways, and everything happens for a reason. I could have lived without being a political punchline, but honestly, it worked out for the best."

"How so?"

"My current boss, Tim, called me up the day after the airline put me on leave and offered me a job and a paid move out here," I said. "Doubled my salary instantly, and gave me a quick, one-way ticket out of town. Kira begged me for a second chance, told me we could move back to Salisbury, start over, and she'd make it up to me. I figured that maybe if it was just the one indiscretion, as public as it may have been, I could forgive her eventually. Maybe. But as many times as it happened, as many times as she lied to me about it... I just wanted to wash my hands of the whole thing."

She nodded.

"And it's not like our relationship was all wine and roses anyway. She didn't want to have kids at least until she was in her 30s, if ever, and I wanted to start a family pretty much the moment my elbow blew up."

She looked up at me. Tears were lined up on the edges of her eyelids, but she had a shy smile on her lips.

"I know we're not there yet, Brittany," I said. "But that's why you having a daughter doesn't scare me. I've been ready to have kids since the day she and I got married. If things go bad between you and I, it won't be because of Alicia. But if things go like I think they will, I'll want her to be as much a part of it as you are."