Peppermint

Chapter 40 - Christmas Eve/Sarajevo

***ALEX***

Merry Christmas, fam. Though the mellow's more than a little harshed for me and my mom, with all the shit that's been going on the last few days, we're still finding time to celebrate. With AK and his parents, no less. I think the original plan was to meet at Nannu and Nanna's? Well, it looks like all that's changed. AK's 'rents wanted to host the festivities this year anyway, seeing how this is their first Christmas in the Bay. And bonus, because they live in San Cas, that means I get to bridge the gap between two Christmas houses - AK's, and Gideon's just down the street.

Or, more accurately, up the street, because AK's place is at the bottom of a steep hill. Three sloped streets converge in an intersection right in front of his house, and a fourth one, short and wide enough to fit a whole other house, slopes more gently down towards a canyon that runs behind the house. A canyon that allows a very lovely view of San Castiel Mountain, the one major impediment between here and a distant SF skyline view, from the windowed corner of the Grants' living room. Well, it'd be lovely if it weren't still cloudy, and the mountain weren't so shrouded in fog. But at least the rain's done, so that means that as soon as all my cousins - the Cassars, who live on the eastern side of San Cas - get here, we can take that tiny stub of street and convert it into an impromptu mini-football field. The youngest of my mom's sister's kids, Tim (no longer Timmy like we've called him for the last fourteen years), just got a beautiful Nike football as his big present, and of course he wants to put it to use immediately.

"'Cause I'm gonna be on the freshman team next year," he announces to the entire party the second he whips that ball out of the burlap sack in which he brought it. No, seriously, an actual honest-to-Elliot Graziadei burlap sack. I can't make shit like that up, not that I haven't tried.

"You sure you wanna play, Alex?" asks Ben, the sixteen-year-old middle child, who reminds me a lot of Luca but skinnier. Curly black hair, light skin like the rest of the Cassars - my mom and I are the darkest in the family, inherited from Nannu. "I remember you always used to get tired-"

I cut him off by rolling up my sleeve to expose the thicc biceps I've grown in the last year. Just enough to also show the tip of my tattoo, so it looks like some kind of killer's teardrop. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the adult Cassars - Aunt Penelope, Uncle Diego, and Michelle, age twenty-one - all raise their eyebrows at me. They all know I'm inked, but they don't want me being a bad influence on the two youngest.

Not to be outdone, and somewhat misinterpreting the message I'm trying to send to Ben and Tim, AK rolls up his own sleeve, showing a well-muscled arm on a level I haven't seen in real life since Paul Smythe. And with a tattoo of his own, of course. A Maltese cross, just like Mom semi-jokingly wishes Gabe and I would've gotten. Red chevrons with black tips pointing into each other, and a blue outline.

Out loud, AK tells the Cassars, "I'm game."

In his head, he says, Don't look so surprised, Alex. You're not the edgiest cousin in the family anymore, not now that I'm here.

In my head, I tell him, I wanna do that next.

Yes, Mom chimes in behind me as she carries a plate full of fresh pastizzi onto the living room table. I love that design!

Every one of us kids, naturally, grabs at least one cheese-filled pastry before running down and out. That includes AK and Michelle, neither of whom are technically kids anymore - and me, almost, since I'm only about a month and a half shy of eighteen.

And then, once we're on the street, we're joined by someone else over eighteen, but my God, what a kid he really is at heart. Who else but Gideon, skateboarding down the steepest of the three streets leading into this little bowl in his signature Punisher hoodie? No, seriously, I'm pretty sure that by now, he's actually had the thing signed. Jon Bernthal was in San Jose at the start of this month, I think. I bet he'll never wash it again, which would be a shame given how often he wears it. I'd hope that that smell doesn't precede him into any room the way I'd hope the smell of Joey's Pizza would.