Jingle Bells

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year... again.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

The blaring music wakes him up, but he just covers his head with a pillow to try and drown it out. Not this time of year again.

He hears muffled footsteps, and then he feels the weight of someone landing on top of him. He groans in pain and tries pushing her off of him, but she just giggled and lifts the pillow off his head. He opens his eyes to look up at her, and she grins down at him.

"Happy December first!" She exclaims.

"Christmas isn't for another twenty-five days, Nins" he says, running a hand down his face tiredly.

"Not true. Today's the first day of Christmas."

"Not in my world."

"Well, on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..."

She smiles wider.

"A headache," he deadpans.

She pouts. "But it's the most wonderful time of the year."

"Yeah, for you."

"I know you like Christmas now."

"It's a love-hate relationship."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Fine, no hot chocolate for you."

"You can't deprive me of your hot chocolate, baby. That's like depriving me of oxygen."

She shrugs innocently, a smile on her face. "You can't enjoy hot chocolate without being in the Christmas spirit."

He sighs. "Can you at least turn the music down?"

"Nope. It's the most wonderful time of the year."

"It's also the coldest and darkest time of the year."

She smiles and crawls off him, snuggling into his side. "And that's why you have a girlfriend to cuddle with."

He sighs, wrapping an arm around her and kissing her head. "You're lucky I love you."

"Yeah, I am."

He closes his eyes, and slowly he drifts back to sleep. When he wakes up again and looks at the clock, he just about scares Nini to death with how loudly he curses.

"What?! What's wrong?!" She exclaims, looking around for some kind of problem.

"I'm late for work! I have a meeting in ten minutes!"

He rushes to the closet and gets dressed as quickly as he can before sprinting to the bathroom to brush his teeth, cursing every thirty seconds.

"You're the CEO. What're they gonna do, fire you?" She asks him.

"This meeting is with Benjamin Mazzara, Nini."

"Oh. Yeah, you better hurry."

He doesn't say anything else, running out the door to get to the office on time.

He runs into the meeting with barely a second to spare, trying to catch his breath and fix his toe while apologizing profusely to Benjamin.

"Ricky, there you are."

He shakes Benjamin's hand. "Again, I'm so sorry. I overslept."

"Happens to the best of us," Benjamin says.

Ricky nods, sitting down at the conference table across from him.

"So, how's the girlfriend?"

"She's good," Ricky says with another bud. "She gets a little... excited at Christmas time. Gonna be a long month."

Benjamin chuckles. "I don't know how you of all people could deal with that."

Ricky shrugs. "I honestly don't know either."

"From what I've heard, she's bossy and an overbearing perfectionist. A real witch with a capital 'B' if you know what I mean."

Ricky tilts his head, knitting his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"Hey, man, no hard feelings."

"No, of course not. It's only my girlfriend you're talking about," Ricky says sarcastically.

"Well, it's not like you're marrying her or anything, right?"

Ricky freezes for a second, taken off guard by his statement. "What!"

"I mean, you've been dating for two years, and nothing has really happened."

Ricky presses his lips together in a tight line. "Maybe we should reschedule this meeting."

"Ricky-"

"I have other things to attend to." He stands up, holding out his hand. "My assistant will be in touch."

Benjamin sighs and shakes his hand, exiting the room.
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**Bit of a time jump, but it needed to happen 😉**