Frowned Upon [H.S. AU]

TWENTY-ONE

"Falling in love,

Deeper than before I've felt it

before with you, baby."

✿ ✿ ✿

HARRY STYLES

December 24th, 2021

My entire body flinches at the sound of candy dropping and bouncing onto the floor, and I turn around to see Zayn wincing. An empty bag of candy is in his hands, accidentally torn in half.

"You idiot!" I whisper-scream at him.

"I'm sorry!" He whispers loudly back. "It was an accident!"

"If you wake up Naomi, I swear to fuck—"

"You bitching at me is going to wake her up!" He argues before I can finish my sentence.

Our whisper fight comes to an abrupt ending when I realize he's right, and I let out a heavy sigh. I knew tonight would be stressful, but I underestimated how much I had left to do.

Maybe I should have let Zayn go to bed and taken my mum's offer to help me. No, no. My mum was exhausted. I can suffer through Zayn's terribly-timed clumsiness.

I promised myself that I wouldn't delegate Christmas to-dos this year. It helps, but I handed off every to-do last year because of work and ended up disconnected from the holiday. Phoebe previously helped me with everything on the night of Christmas Eve, and I woke up to how much I was missing.

Although I couldn't take time off work entirely since Naomi started her winter break, I did my best to get off earlier and have taken a few personal days to spend time with her. After a few long days at the office, I managed to get three days off while also allowing the rest of my employees to work short days.

It felt selfish to take Christmas Eve, Christmas, and the day after Christmas off, but I couldn't go another year missing half the day. Thankfully, all the work we got done before today, collectively as a company, allowed everyone to get off early this afternoon, have the holiday tomorrow off, and allow them to have another short shift the day after.

All of that work meant pushing off some present wrapping for tonight, and of course, setting up for the morning.

Last year, Naomi fell asleep around nine o'clock after we watched a movie. This year she had endless energy and stayed up until half past ten o'clock.

I set the freshly wrapped present underneath our tall, luscious Christmas tree, and I let out a heavy sigh. My hand runs through my hair, and I glance around to see the mess surrounding me.

There is a pile of smaller presents a few feet from me; still tucked in front of the couch and out of sight from the stairs in case Naomi wakes up. Zayn is working on filling up everyone's stockings, besides his own because I'm not an asshole. I'll fill his stocking up with his favorite candies and the smaller gifts I got for him when he goes to bed.

My eyes drift to the plate of cookies, that Zayn already indulged in, but I have to remind myself to drink some of the milk from the glass next to it. Shit, I forgot about the 'reindeer food,' or maybe it was bait, Naomi brought home that she made with Iris in class. She sprinkled it across the front porch earlier. I need to figure out how to make the dry oatmeal and glitter look like it has been eaten. On top of replacing the carrots outside with clean, bitten-into ones from the fridge.

I can't help but glance over at the stocking designated for myself that is poorly tucked into one of the kitchen chairs. Zayn thought he was discreet in hiding it, and for his sake, I pretended not to see it. He was trying his best.