Love Letter

Ian:

I woke with what felt like a high. Whatever was planted inside me last night was growing and taking over every emotion I had. I was ready for Christmas this year; I had been prepared for Christmas in the past, but nothing like what I was feeling today. Amanda was in the living room sitting next to the fire with Kevin. They both had coffee, and I could see the effects from the night before on them. Stepping in Amanda's view, her eyes shoot up when she takes in my grey Christmas sweater with a green tree on the front. "You are not wearing that," she says pointedly.

"I'm feeling the Christmas spirit this year – call me Saint Nick," I say, smiling.

"Please do not say that again. I see the dork is finally shining through," she says. She stands, grabbing her jacket and keys to Kevin's SUV in hand. "Let's go, Romeo," she says, opening the front door.

I have to contain my excitement with Lynne's present sitting on my lap on the way over. I did not know how she would react to it, but I would give it to her either way. I knock on the door and wait for someone to answer. Either Zach or Frank opened the door since I could not tell them apart. "Hey," he said, opening the door for me. "Everyone is still asleep," he said, making his way back to the living room and plopping down on the couch.

"But it is almost noon," I say, confused.

"Francine will have dinner ready around three or four," he says, watching ESPN.

I make my way to the kitchen and find Francine rolling out the dough for a pie. I hand her a bottle of wine for dinner later that night. She takes it in her hand and looks at "For Meredith?" she asks with an accent I cannot place.

I laugh and respond by saying, "For everyone. Do you know when everyone will wake up?" I ask. She shakes her head no, putting the wine in the wine cooler a few spaces down from the two dishwashers built-in. "Well then, is there anything I can help with?" I ask, rolling up my sleeves.

Francine hands me more dough, telling me to follow her movements. She was making an apple cobbler pie, and I would be making a blueberry one for dessert. It was fun kneading the dough and following her exact movements. Her pie crust was rolled out before I was halfway done with mine. I could tell she was impressed with my pie crust or wondered if anyone would complain about it. We were just adding the filling for each pie when I could sense someone watching us.

"Hi," I say after I do a few sweeps over her body. Lynne was standing in front of me in red silk pajamas with green Christmas trees on them, and her feet had black and red slippers covering up to her ankles. She could have been a poster for what every Christmas morning should look like.

"Hi," she says, blushing. Francine leaves, muttering about needing something from the deep freeze steps out of the room.

I had never seen anyone the following day after the first date, and I didn't know what to do. I felt like staring at her smiling while I had blueberry filling in my hands was not what it should be like. "How did you sleep?" I ask, filling the silence.

"Good," she says, and I know she is leaving something out. "I was booted from my room to the couch. I woke up this morning and looked around, thinking I must be in the wrong house."

"That would be a strange feeling to wake up too," I say, putting the rest of the filling in the pie and stepping around the island closer to her. "So now what?" I ask with the question having more meaning in it than she would ever know.

"Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer?" she says, shrugging. It took everything I had not to kiss her on the nose, so instead, I grabbed her hand and pulled her off toward the living room.

"Really?" One of the twins says while plopping down on the sectional with us.

"Really," I say, holding and squeezing Lynne's hand that hadn't left mine since sitting down. Then I whisper to Lynne, "which one is Fred or Zach?" she giggles, letting me know that it was Zach and that she would fill me in on how you know which one is which later.