After Tonight

Rob’s P.O.V.
“What size?” Abbey wandered around the tree lot with a worried look on her face. “I don’t know how tall our ceiling is.”
‘It’s not the ceiling I’m concerned about—how are we going to get it inside?” I shoved my hands in my pocket and tried to keep up with her.
“I’ll help you silly. I work out.” Abbey flexed her muscle. Though I couldn’t see any difference through her puffy black jacket, I still smiled. Abbey had pulled out all of her Christmas decorations that she’d had before we met. Four enormous green and red boxes currently consumed our living room.
I scratched my head and looked around. “Pick one then, I guess. We’ll figure out what to do with it.” Abbey’s face lit up and she grabbed my hand.
Fifteen minutes later, I heard my name echoing through the night air. Thinking something was the matter I ran through the rows of trees, breaking up crowds of families. When I finally reached her, Abbey stood proudly beside a vibrant green tree not much taller than me. Sighing, I slowed down and stopped in front of her.
She looked at me thoughtfully. “Why are you out of breath?”
“I guess I just really wanted to see that tree.” I thought it best not to tell her that I’d been dwelling on the incident she had at the club while I was away. Abbey looked at me suspiciously before carrying on.
“Well, Mr. Pattinson, come on down!” She held out her arms, Vana White-style, and spoke like a game-show host. “Behind door number 250—because Barry over there said there are 250 trees left in this lot and we’ve probably looked at all of them—is a Douglas Fir standing at exactly six and a half feet. It’s not the tallest one, but look at how full it is! This beauty is as green as they come, though watch out for the needles—they do hurt.”
By now I was laughing out loud. Abbey had drawn a small crowd but she was only looking at me.
“It’s perfect.”
“We’re taking this puppy home, Barry!” Abbey shouted happily to the man, who looked like Paul Bunyan, sitting inside a small shanty.
We paid Barry and he tied up the tree. Now we just had to get it on top of Abbey’s Jeep. And up the stairs.
...
“This end is lighter.” I nodded at the tip. “You take it.”
We had successfully made it to the flat. Abbey propped open the door with her gym bag that she kept in the Jeep. I backed in through it and as much as I loved our flat, I silently wished we’ve never gotten the place on the third floor.
“We can do it!” Abbey hollered cheerfully from the other end. I couldn’t see her face.
The first flight of stairs wasn’t bad, until we started getting poked with the needles. Abbey’s complaints, as well as my own, echoed through the stairwell. I heard brisk footsteps and panicked.
My arms were sore and I wasn’t sure I could hold the bloody tree up at a standstill.
“Uh oh.”’ I heard Abbey gasp. “What do we do?”
“Er, I’m not sure.” I looked up to see one of our neighbors, Alyssa, heading toward us at full speed and talking on her cell phone.
“Rob.” The tree started quivering. “I think I’m going to drop it!”
“Just hold on!” I shouted, feeling my own arms start to shake. What a disaster this was going to turn out to be.

Abbey’s P.O.V.
“We got it!” I heard Rob shout. We’d made it past Alyssa without any problems. But then I heard a stampede.
“Rob?” We’d suddenly stopped moving.
“Fuck.” That was all I heard him say.
“Language, Robert.” It was Mrs. Campbell. She and her husband lived four doors down from us. I’d forgotten that their entire family had come over earlier this morning. And that they’d be going to Rockefeller Center to ice skate at precisely 6:45.
“Sorry.” Rob muttered.
Both our arms were trembling, as evidence to the piles of needles beneath the tree.
“What if we set it down for a second?” Rob’s end had already lowered.
“We’re on a slant.” I tried to protest, but my arms were killing me.
Rob and I watched, rubbing our arms, as a parade of twenty or so people worked their way around us.
“It’ll be fine.” I watched Rob take a deep breath as he leaned against the wall, completely oblivious to the billion-ton tree slipping down the steps.
“Oh my God.” I didn’t know what to do except laugh and jump out of the way.
“Abbey!” Rob jumped up from his quick respite, completely panic-stricken. “Stop it!”
“I can’t stop it!” I shouted back, feeling my stomach tighten from all the laughter.
I looked up at Rob, whose eyes were as wide as saucers. It was completely silent except for the sound of the tree scraping against the walls. We stared at each other for a few more seconds, unsure of what to do next. And then we laughed. We stood there, laughing out of pain and stupidity. It wasn’t long before tears were rolling down my cheeks. Our perfect tree came to a halt in the landing of the second floor, still perfectly intact.
…
“Let there be light.” Rob crouched down and plugged the lights into the sockets. Standing up, he proudly admired his handiwork.
“Beautiful.” I clapped obnoxiously.
We’d finally gotten the tree into our flat, though I did have to go back out into the hall and clean up our mess. After forty-five minutes of debating where to put it and how to actually keep it from falling to the ground, Rob wrapped it in lights. I had to admit, it looked pretty nice. And we didn’t even have ornaments on it yet.
“Ornaments tomorrow?” Rob plopped down wearily onto the couch. I stood in front of him, looking at the tree.
“Yeah. We could do it tomorrow night.”
“Good.” I felt Rob’s arms wrap around my waist as he pulled me on top of him. “Because I don’t think I can take any more of that thing tonight.”
“Neither can I.” I laughed and kissed his face. “I feel like I’m covered in sap.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.” He rested his head on my shoulder.
“Shower?” I rubbed his cheek and looked back at him.
“Absolutely.”
…
My parents came into the bakery the next afternoon. In my dad’s arms was a large cardboard box.
“Let me help you with that!” I ran to his side as the box started slipping. “What the hell have you got in there?” We set the box onto one of the free tables.
“It’s for you.” My mom wrapped her arm around my dad’s waist.
“For me?” I smiled and ran my hands over the top. “It’s not even Christmas yet.”
“Hands off, kiddo.” My dad gave me a stern look, and then smiled. “We have to tell you about it first.”
My body itched in anticipation.
“We’ve done this for all you kids.” My parents and I pulled out the chairs and sat down. “Keith and Joplin already have gotten theirs. This is something you can’t tell Grace about.”
Grace conveniently was not on the schedule today. Man, my parents were sly.
Following my mom’s orders, I opened up the box. It was filled to the brim with Christmas ornaments. I looked up at them for some sort of explanation.
“There is an ornament in there for each year of your life. We wrote the years on all of the boxes—they’re all significant in some way. We called Rob and he said you guys were decorating the tree tonight. We thought this would be a good time to get them you.” Tears filled my mom’s eyes and my dad hugged her closer to him.
“This is really great guys.” I smiled, flushing with happiness. Leave it to my parents to think up some crazy tradition like this.
“We wanted to give it to you now, since you’re having your first Christmas without us. Keith got his box that year he and Emma had Christmas at their apartment, and Jo got her box with her wedding gift.”
I nodded and began to rummage through the box. The top layer was of the most recent years.
“Are you kidding me?” I picked up one box, examining it closely. It was one of those Hallmark figurine ornaments. This one was straight out of Twilight—Edward and Bella were dancing at prom.
“I thought you’d like that one.” My mom laughed. “How many times does a mother get to go to the store and buy and ornament of her daughter’s boyfriend?” I smiled, amazed at the likeness the three inch Rob held to the real one.
The next year was a golden retriever, which could only be Jude. I dug out the bottom layers and found myself tearing up. They had captured the most significant moments of my life. There was a Macy’s ornament from the first year we went to the parade. Another was an easel and paint brush from the year I discovered my love of painting. There was one that I had made in the first grade out of Popsicle sticks. A couple of them were Disney based, either from the trips we took or the time I was dead set on being Ariel when I grew up.
“This is amazing you guys, really.” I wrapped my arms around each of them, kissing their cheeks. “I love them, thank you!”
We said our goodbyes and I got back to work. Luckily, it had been a slow day and looked as if it were going to continue being slow—everyone went through the box and we spent the rest of time talking about the ornaments.
…
“So have you got anything to show me?” Rob found me in the kitchen getting dinner ready. He had a meeting with his agent earlier in the afternoon.
“You already know, don’t you?” I put my hands on my hips and smirked at him.
“Can I see them?”
“You’re going to love one of them.” I led him to the living room where I had carefully placed the box. “Trust me.”
I knelt down to get the ornament. “Close your eyes.”
Rob groaned, half-smiling. “You know I hate that.”
“Do you want to have sex tonight?” Rob closed his eyes immediately.
“No way.” Rob’s face flushed red when he looked at the ornament. “I didn’t know they made these. Do we have to hang it up?”
“Yes.”
“Why? It’s embarrassing. Really, I won’t be able to look at this great tree we’ve got here.”
“I’m hanging it up. A) I think it’s hilarious and B) it was a very significant event in my life and I want it on my fucking tree…please?”
Rob looked at me for a second. Then he snatched the ornament out of my hands and examined it closely.
“Huh.” He looked a little amused. “They worked really hard on these details, didn’t they?”
“So that means it’s going on the tree, yes?”
“Fine.”