You for Christmas

Part 4

Lydia drove down the icy coated black street, occasionally glancing in the rearview mirror at Lily. She seemed exhausted but content that she got to spend some time with her friends instead of in the isolated tower she called her room. She nibbled at her red and blue snow cone, slurping the juice that ran down the sides and onto her fingers.

"Be careful hun. I don't want you to get it all over the seats," Lydia warned.

"I'm not mom," she chuckled, slurping the juice from the brim of the cone, "I don't want to waste any."

"Okay," Lydia's voice trailed, "So did you have fun with your friends? I saw you skating really fast!"

"Oh yea mom." She responded excitedly, "Ginger made up this came called angel tag. It was super fun!"

"Angel tag?" Lydia smiled, "how do you play that?"

"Well," she paused from eating her snow cone, the juice began to drip between her fingers on to her pants, "It's kind of just like regular tag but you pretend you're an angel and went you get tagged you have to drop down and make a snow angel!"

"On the ice?"

"Yes," she laughed, "but I didn't get tagged at all."

"Oh, I see," she smiled, "Hun do you mind if we stop by the café? Your Aunt said she closed it for a few hours, but I just want to check on something."

"Can we get muffins?" Lily perked up in her seat.

"I'll see if I can sneak us some," she winked in the rearview mirror.

Lily celebrated and continued to enjoy the half-melted snow cone which was more or less a slushie now. Constance had a bad habit of not turning off the back-of-the house coffee pots especially when she was leaving in a hurry and from the sound of it, she did just that. Lydia's brakes screeched loudly as she pulled into the reserved parking spot in front of the back entrance of the honeybean café. She could see a dim light from one of the back windows. It was the breakroom. Lydia sighed and unclicked her seatbelt and Lily followed suit.

"Hey mom," Lily said jumping down on to the concrete, "what kind of muffin can I get?"

"It depends on which ones are freshly baked, " she said slamming the car door, before auto locking.

"OOOh mom someone left the lights on," Lily said pointing at the window as they approached the back door.

"I know," she said punching the code onto the keypad, "it's a good thing stopped by."

The strong aroma of slightly burnt coffee filled their noses as soon as the door swung open.

"Eww mom! What's that smell?" Lily scoffed.

"Coffee," Lydia said dryly, making a left down the short hallway to the breakroom, "go pick out some muffins from the display for you and Gaby and see if there are any lemon tarts for your brother."

Lily walked down the narrow hall, passing the kitchen and storage along the way to the front of the café. Her eyes beamed with satisfaction as she could see the muffin and pastry displays were fully stocked. Grabbing a medium-sized brown paper bag from under the long ceramic counter, she cleared a row of muffins and grabbled two lemon tarts for her brother and the scurried back to the breakroom to find her mother. She found her mother grumbling in disgust while rinsing out the stained coffee pots.

"Mom," Lily interrupted, "I got the muffins and tarts," she said holding up the back accomplished.

"That's great hun," Lydia said quickly glancing at her, "as soon as I'm done with this, we can go okay?"

"Okay," Lily said sitting in one of the pale blue chairs that provided a pop of color in the dull breakroom.

Mmmmzzzz! Mmmmzzzz!

Lydia's phone vibrated loudly, interrupting her concentration in scrubbing the coffee pots. It was Alec. He was probably getting antsy that she wasn't home yet and running out of ideas on how to keep Gaby and AJ entertained. Lydia let the pots soak in the soapy water, dried her hands, and reached in her purse to answer her phone.

"Hey."

"Hey babe. I was just calling to see where you were."

"Oh, I had to stop by the café."

"Oh," he sounded surprised, "Constance needed you today? I figured with everything going on in the square that she wouldn't be as busy."

"Yea, no it's not that," she fumbled over her words, "She's at the square with the kids and Scott."

"Oh really? Well that's interesting," he chuckled.

"Yea, I thought so too but she said they want to try and keep some things normal for the kids."

"Makes sense," he paused, "So you gave her the afternoon off?"

"No. I'm going to be headed home in a bit," she sighed looking at her watch, "I just swung by because she mentioned leaving the café in a hurry and you know how careless she can be sometimes."

"Coffee pots?" he questioned.

"Yep" she said chuckling and shaking her head, "well I'm going to wrap up here and we'll be home in a bit. We got some muffins."

"Okay sounds good. Oh babe, can you bring some of that cranberry chicken salad home. We're starving!"

"Alec," she sighed, "I told you to make the kids mac and cheese for lunch."

"They didn't want that, and they have been in here going crazy for the last 45 minutes."

"Ugh fine," she snarled, "I'll see if there is some in the fridge but that's what you get for negotiating with terrorist."

Alec laughed, "Okay babe. I'll see you in a bit but please hurry."

Lydia shook her head and smiled to herself. Alec always caved when it came to following through with plans for the children, but they seemed to enjoy the spontaneity of their father.

"Ready?" Lydia glanced at Lily.

"Yes," she said hopping up from her chair.

"Okay. Let's go grab some chicken salad from the fridge," she smiled.