Presents and Mistletoe

Presents and Mistletoe

“Jinxy! Jinxy get up! It’s Christmas!” I cried, throwing the door open to her room and grinning madly from ear to ear. I wasn’t usually this hyped up about Christmas, not since I’d hit fourteen or so, but this was my first Christmas that I was spending, not with my family, but with my best friend since seventeen. Over the summer, after having finished my eighth year at college, I’d moved down to Phoenix to live with her in an incredibly warm climate. We both hated the cold something fierce and she’d moved down here about four or five years ago to get away from the cold herself. I’d only had to finish college before I could come down here…

However, right now it was Christmas morning. And my best friend needed to wake her ass up so that we could open presents and make dinner and everything like that. Granted, dinner wasn’t until later in the day, but still. It was seven in the morning and she needed to be awake so that we could do the whole ‘present’ thing together.

Yes, I was awake at seven in the morning. I was generally awake at this time of day, so Christmas morning wasn’t really anything different for me. My best friends sometimes tended to sleep in on days she had off, but it was an iffy thing with her considering her sleeping schedule was always out of whack.

She groaned from beneath her blankets and I smirked as I crossed the floor to her bed. I planted my rump down on the edge of it, poking my friend’s side a few times. “Wake up!” I whined, frowning slightly as she refused to wake up. “Jinxy! Come on! I have awesome presents for you and you need to get up!” I urged, poking her a few more times.

Her hands reached over and swatted at me. With a smirk, I stood and turned to stand over her, hands on my hips as I looked down at her. “Get up, sleepy head.”

“Ugh. Fine… I’m up, I’m up…”

“Well get your ass into the living room soon. ‘Cause I’m tired of waiting.”

“You’re not impatient at all, are you?” I shook my head at her question, grinning.

“Me? Of course not!” With that, I turned on my heel and began walking out of her room and through the short hall to our living room.

Almost an hour later, we had opened all that there was to open from underneath our sad excuse for a Christmas tree. It wasn’t naked or a Charlie Brown tree or anything, it was just…small. And short. Therefore, it was a pretty sad excuse for a Christmas tree, by my standards. But hey, it worked to fulfill it’s purpose and that was really the only thing that mattered.

Jinx was standing up just as a knock came to the door. She smirked and rolled her eyes. “You can get that. Do you want breakfast at all, Trin?” she asked me. I sighed and rolled over off the couch and onto the floor, causing a pile of bows and various wrapping paper shreddings to fall onto the floor with me. I was careful not to squish any presents or anything like that in my fall or when I stood up.

With a sigh, I scrubbed a hand through my hair and yawned. Alright. So I had only gotten a few hours of sleep last night and I was ready to go back to bed now that all the excitement of Christmas morning, and Christmas in general, was pretty much over. I wasn’t religious or anything, so it wasn’t like I had Church to go to or anything like that.

“I’m good, thanks,” I told my friend before walking to the door and pulling it open. One Maxwell Green stood standing in the doorway with a couple of presents in his hands and Bryan Money leaning around him to wave at me excitedly. I grinned and gave a wave back, my heart jumping into my chest.

“Hey, love! Hey, Bryan! Where’s Robert?” I asked, smiling softly as I moved to hug Max.

“Getting Jinx’s present,” he told me with a wink. My smile turned into a grin and I jumped excitedly in place.

“Well come in!”

“Hey guys! Where’s Robert and Craig?” Jinx’s voice sounded from behind us and I turned around from letting the boys in to see that she looked slightly disappointed that her favorite member of Escape the Fate was nowhere to be found. I had to keep myself from breaking into evil laughter right then and there.

“Craig’s with Leila and Robert had to make a few stops before he came over,” Max said, wrapping his arms around me and resting his chin on my shoulder. I watched Jinx carefully, smiling to myself and about to burst into a fit of excited giggles.

“Oh. Okay,” she said with a nod before disappearing back into the kitchen.

“Merry Christmas, girls!” Bryan and Max said excitedly. Max handed me one of the presents while Bryan took the other one off his hands and ran off to the kitchen to give Jinx hers.

“Merry Christmas,” the two of us said in unison. I swear, we were like twins that were three years apart in age, Jinx and I. I mean the majority of the time, our brains worked in unison with one another. Which was cool, but it got a little scary sometimes.

“Trin! Should we start making dinner now or wait until everyone else gets here?” Jinx asked me from the kitchen. I smiled and walked into it, seeing Bryan sitting on our counter with a smirk upon his face and his dark brown hair in his eyes. I shrugged and turned to Max, who looked rather content at the moment.

“I don’t know. What do you think, Max?”

“Now. Robert and Craig won’t want to wait to eat when they get here.” I almost started laughing again when he said that. Oh yeah. Craig was definitely not going to want to wait to eat when he and Robert got to our apartment…

Jinx looked at me like I was crazy before shrugging and digging into her bowl of cereal. “Get the steaks out of the fridge, then,” she told me in between bites. Bryan grimaced and I smirked.

“Don’t worry, Bryan. We’re making a bunch of other food, too,” I said with a nod.

Jinx and I had gone with steaks instead of the traditional ham or turkey for our holiday meal because of the fact that ham made me sick and Jinx wasn’t that fond of meat in general. Steak was the one meat that we both agreed on and everything like that.

I pulled away from Max, despite his whining, to move to the fridge and pull out the four steaks. As for Bryan and Robert, we were planning on feeding them an overload of vegetables and biscuits. I prayed that neither of them were going to get too offended over the lack of vegetarian-focused meals in our home. Which was kind of a lie, considering the fact that Jinx and I didn’t buy meat often and generally stuck around the food that didn’t contain meat in it. It was cheaper and we weren’t that huge on eating meat anyway.

It was another hour or so when Jinx and I had finished cooking everything.

It was still really hard for me to not burst into excited giggles every five minutes or so. Mostly because of the fact that I knew what her present from Escape the Fate was going to be and I was sure that she was going to love it. Like…one hundred percent sure that she was going to love it. I was pretty bouncy all morning, though, even with her eyeing me like I was insane the entire time. Especially since I had gone from being exhausted to being really hyper.

Okay, so I was a spaz. What else was new?

“Max! You should call Robert and see when he’s getting here! I don’t want any of this food to get cold!” Jinx said as I pulled the biscuits out from the oven. And just as I’d placed the baking sheet on the stove top and turned off the oven, the door knocked. I grinned and bounced my way over to the front door, grinning as I opened the door and saw Robert standing there with a large box on wheels.

Excitement flooded through me as I bounced up and down and clapped my hands together a few times. “Jinx! Close your eyes!”

“Wha-?”

“Now! Do it now!” I said, spinning around and rushing back to my best friend’s side. I moved behind her and placed my hands over her eyes, grinning as Robert and Max pushed the

“Dear god, when the fuck did this damn thing get so fucking fat?” Robert grumbled to himself as he and Max worked to position the large red box, with the even larger bow on top of it, in the middle of our living room.

“Are you’re eyes closed, Jinx?” I asked, bouncing still.

“Um…yeah?”

“Are they closed are not!? They have to be closed and you can’t open them until I say you can, okay!?”

“Yes, they’re closed, damn it. What the hell are you doing?”

“You’ll see. You’re gonna love me forever, though, I promise!”

“…Why do I feel like I should be afraid of your mind?”

“Because you should. Anyway! Back keeping your eyes closed. They are closed, right?” I asked again. There was no way in hell that I was going to miss seeing her face when she opened up her present. She sighed and nodded her head. I grinned and moved her so that she was standing in front of the massive box. “Okay. I’m going to take my eyes away now. And if you don’t keep your eyes closed, so help me I’ll -”

“Trin, would you just shut up already? My eyes are closed!”

Grinning, I pulled my hands away and moved around to stand behind the giant box, grinning and bouncing to myself as I nodded to Max and Robert, who stood on either side of it. They opened the top of it quietly and out rose one Craig Mabbitt with a little bunch of mistletoe.

Yes, it was corny as hell, but who cares. I just about burst into excited giggles again as he leaned towards my best friend and held the mistletoe above their heads. I had about the biggest grin on my face that ever was and I was just about squealing with joy.

It seemed like it took forever for Craig to finish leaning towards Jinx. Once he was close enough, I moved around so that I was standing beside the two, still grinning like a damned maniac.

“You can open your eyes now, Jinxy!” I declared, grinning and holding my hands together. I watched as she opened her eyes, almost warily and damned near jumped back.

“Merry Christmas,” Craig told her before leaning in and kissing her. I giggled and clapped my hands together as I bounced in place. I thought she was going to die, but it was so the best present for her. She’d had a thing for Craig since…forever ago. What better present than to give him to her?