'Tis the Season

Chapter 13: Mouse King

Chapter Thirteen: Mouse King

The next day was pretty uneventful, which was welcome given the insanityof the two before it. Carson was busy catching up with some of his friends I'dmet at the party, Everleigh was at school so she wasn't home much, and Ryan waschief surgeon at a local hospital so he was almost always at work.

Emilia graciously offered for me to go and do a bit of Christmas shopping with her, and I jumped at the opportunity. I hadn't even thought about the fact that not only did I have to get Ryan's Secret Santa present for the gift exchange but, now that I was crashing their Christmas, I also wanted to make sure that I had the perfect gifts for everyone else.

I was a bit concerned walking into the mall, but I actually found things that I felt spoke to most of the family pretty easily. By the end of our trip, I only had to grab Ryan's gift for Christmas day, one for Emilia since I couldn't look for her while she was standing right next to me, and one for Carson. Carson was proving to be the most difficult person to shop for, I had no idea what to get him and it was stressing me out.

I felt surprisingly at ease the whole time I was with Emilia. I felt like I'd been dating her son for years and known her my whole life as we chatted while we shopped and she was very helpful in confirming my present ideas for the rest of her family.

I spent the majority of the next day with Connor since he was around with nothing to do himself. I was a little intimidated by him at first, but as the day progressed I actually began to have a lot of fun with him. He was surprisingly very mature, but he was also definitely a drama queen.

He attempted to teach me how to play the game he and Carson were playing when I walked in on them, but it was quite difficult for someone who's video game experience consists of nothing except an odd battle in "Just Dance" at friends' houses when I was in elementary school.

He gave up on me after about an hour of my inability to memorize which button controlled what, and decided he should start me off with a more basic game. That game ended up being Mario Kart.

I definitely lost the first ten matches or so, but around match twelve I began to get the hang of it and by match twenty I had started to beat him consistently, much to my delight and his dissatisfaction.

"Hey, what's going on in here? Mom says you two have been holed up here for hours?" Carson walks in around dinner time. Neither of us look up.

"Carson! I really missed you, but I'm about to finish this lap and kick your brother's ass and for that I need about thirty more seconds of silent concentration," I tell him as I skillfully throw a turtle at Connor's car, sending him spiraling out of the path.

"Yeah, Carson, I missed you really a lot too," Connor mocks, making kissy noises and earning him a hard punch in his shoulder.

"Ouch- shit!" Connor throws his controller down as I cross the finish line half a second before him. "Carson, your girlfriend- who- isn't- your- girlfriend has never played video games before today and she's freakishly good at Mario Kart," he announces as I jump up in victory.

Carson crosses to me while he gives us a strange look, placing his arms around my waist and pulling me into a tight hug. Connor doesn't comment on it, oddly enough, and just continues to rattle on, sharing how poorly I did in the other game.

"Connor, dinner is ready. Tell mom we'll be down in a second," Carson tells him and Connor groans loudly in response.

"No making out or sexual intercourse is permitted in my room," he says sharply before turning and leaving.