When Everything Gets Crazy, I Get Lost In You.

I press my foot down on the accelerator as I drive around the twisting, turning lake roads around my house. It hasn't snowed in two days, so the roads are pretty clear and I don't worry about increasing my speed up the hills. Daisy is sitting in the passenger seat beside me, looking a little pale. She's always hated my driving, let alone my driving on the roads around my house... in the snow.

In the past four months, not a whole lot has changed. Jack and Nikki are still dating and talking about moving in together after the holidays. Both Adam and Jack, have been doing wonderful in their recoveries, and Jack is nearing his six month anniversary of being clean. Jack has been working two jobs and going to school to get a music degree, working towards getting hired at a production company in Chicago.

Adam and I have been married almost a whole year now, and I still can't believe all of the things that have happened since we said our vows on the beach that day.

I pull into our driveway and see about five or six extra cars parked there. I recognize one of them as Nikki's car, which means Jack is here. Everyone is parked in front of the garage, so I can't get in. I park behind Nikki, since I know that she'll be the last one to leave tonight.

"What the hell are all of these people doing here?" Daisy asks, "Isn't that your dad's truck?"

"Yeah it is. I wonder what they're doing," I say, grabbing my shopping bags out of the back seat of my car. Daisy does the same and transfers them to her car. It's about two and a half weeks before Christmas, my favorite holiday, and today we went to St. Louis to do some shopping.

We walk in the front door together, and I immediately notice a bunch of wet coats and boots in the foyer. The house smells like coffee, cigarettes, wet dogs, and some kind of food.

"Hello?" I say as Daisy and I round the corner into the living room. I grab what I recognize to be Shaun's coat off of the couch and hang it on a hook in the foyer. There are cigarettes smoldering in the ashtray on the counter, and a plate of cookies on the counter that's half gone.

"They know you live here, right?" Daisy says to me, inspecting the mess that they made while we were gone. "I mean, how disrespectful."
"It's gross, right? I mean, what the hell were they doing? They must all be down in the basement," I say, leading the way to the basement door.

We head down the stairs where I hear a bunch of talking and guitar playing going on. I see Adam, Shaun, Jack, My Dad, Nikki, Adam's friend, Ian, Mike, and a girl who I don't recognize. Adam, Shaun, Jack, and My Dad, all have guitars in their hands. The girl is reading what looks like lyrics over Adam's shoulder, and Ian is standing beside her singing something to them both.

I walk over to where Adam is sitting on the sectional couch and give him a kiss on the lips.

"Hey, Sophie babe," he says with a smile.

"What is going on down here?" I use my ass to make room on the couch in between where he's sitting, and where Shaun is sitting, and plop down.

"We're having a little family jam," he says.

"Oh boy."

"Yeah. Hey, this is Care," he says, pointing at the girl over his shoulder, "she's a friend of Ian's, she's been singing with us." I nod and smile at the girl. She's pretty and petite, with reddish black hair and brown eyes.

"Care, this is my wife, Sophie," Adam says to her.

"Nice to meet you," she says.

"You too. So what are we singing?" I ask.

"Fought The Law. Care's doing lead vocals, and Ian and I are doing back up and then we both have a little part in the middle. Your dad, Shaun, and Jack are all playing guitars, I guess. And, your brother is playing bass."

"You just need a drummer, and you'll be a real band," I joke.

"Yeah, we're working on that."

"Can you maybe work on it after we go get our Christmas tree?"

"Uhh, what?" I roll my eyes.

"You said that we would go get our tree tonight, remember?"

"Of course I remember. These guys can stay here and do what they've got to do while we go and do that, right?" he asks.

"Yeah, as long as they stay down here," I say, petting Simba's ears.

"That's cool," he says, standing up, "Hey guys, we're gonna cruise for a bit, you guys can stay and do what you're doing. We'll be back."

He grabs my hand and practically drags towards the staircase.

"Stay down here!" I yell to them as Adam drags me up the stairs.

When we get upstairs, Adam puts on a black jacket on and his boots. I still have my hat, gloves and boots on from when Daisy and I came home. We walk outside and Adam inspects the driveway situation.

"My car is trapped in the garage," he says.

"Well we're not taking my car."

"Go get your dad's keys. He's parked behind everyone, blocking the whole driveway practically," he says, saying the last part under his breath. I laugh and run back into the house, and down the basement stairs.

I run up to My Dad, and wrap my arms around his neck.

"What do you want, Daughter?"

"Your truck keys?" he gives me a raised eyebrow.

"We're blocked in the driveway, and it would be so much easier to take your huge ass truck than having all these people move their cars," I whine. He rolls his eyes and reaches into his jeans pocket.

"Tell your husband, that if there is a scratch on that truck, he's buying me a new one." I snatch the keys from him quickly, and give him a peck on the cheek.

"Thanks Daddy!" I hear him make some kind of strangled noise as I run back up the stairs and out to where Adam is waiting in the drivers seat of My Dad's truck.

I jump into the passenger seat and hand him the keys.

"I feel like a car thief or something," Adam says as he backs out of the driveway slowly.

"He said that if you scratch it, you have to buy him a new one."

"I'm surprised he hasn't made me buy him a new one, just for marrying his daughter."

We drive to a lot that's selling Christmas tree's and get out of the truck. Adam stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, and I loop my arm through his as we walk across the lot to look at the tree's.

"Oh my God, Sophie babe, look at all the beautiful tree's. I feel like we're in a winter wonderland. It's all so beautiful," he says in a mocking tone. I punch him in the arm and laugh.

"Asshole," I say.

"What? You don't think it's soooo beautiful? It's a fucking Christmas miracle out here." I laugh again.

"So, which one of these trees are going to be the Gontier family Christmas tree?" he asks, looking at some tree's.

"I want a five to six foot tree. That's really all the room we have for a tree," I say. He looks around and spots a tree, and picks it up by the middle of it's trunk.

"How about this one?" I look it over and wrinkle my nose. He puts it back down and goes to the next one in the line. We repeat the cycle over again, four more times, until I see a tree that is exactly what I'm looking for.

"It's perfect."

"What is the difference between this tree, and the first one I showed you, may I ask?" Adam asks me.

"There is a lot of difference. That one was a Frasier fir, and this one is a blue spruce." He widens his eyes and makes a face.

"You're right, there is a big difference. Huge, in fact."

He hauls the tree up to where a woman is wrapping them in mesh and drilling holes in the trunks, and sets the tree up on the large counter for her. After he pays for the tree, she drills into it, and wraps it for us.

"It's a good thing that Daisy and I bought some ornaments and lights today when we went shopping. All I have is some dinky balls and some clear lights," I say as I watch him put the tree in the back of My Dad's truck.

"It's damn good thing. It would probably ruin Christmas if you hadn't." I laugh again.

"You're such a Scrooge! Why do you have to be like that?"

"Because I know how much you love this time of year, and I like to mess with you."

We get back in the truck and start the drive back home, stopping at a Starbucks on the way home for coffee first. When we get home, I notice that Shaun and Daisy's car's are gone, as well as Care's car.

"Steener and Jackie are here," Adam says when we park My Dad's truck. I look and see Austin's car parked behind mine in the driveway.

"Yay!" I say in an airy voice. I walk up to the front door by myself, while he unloads the tree.

I see that nobody listened to me when I said stay downstairs, because now everybody is upstairs. Billie has hauled all of the shopping bags that I brought home today out and has everything sorted out in my bedroom, and has brought out all of the decorations that I bought. Jackie, who is about eight and a half months pregnant with a baby boy, is standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips, watching as Austin sets up the tree stand. A second later, Adam hauls the tree into the house and sets it on the stand as Austin lays under the tree trying to secure it.

"What's up, Steen?" Adam says to him, with a smile.

"Not a lot. J wanted to help you guys decorate." I walk over to Jackie and give her as much of a hug as I can with her big belly.

I take a cookie off of the tray that My Mother is passing around, and sit on the couch in between Ian and Jackie.

"Fa La La," Ian says to me. I laugh at him and shove my cookie into his mouth. Everything that you've heard about lead singers, applies to Ian. He's very flamboyant, flirty, full of himself sometimes, and very artistic.

Adam cuts the mesh wrap off of the tree and lets the branches fall down, while Austin carefully puts some water in the tree stand for it. The two of them start to put the lights that I bought today on it, while the rest of us get the ornaments ready to put on. Ian finds some garland that I bought, and decides that it needs to go over the fireplace where the five stockings that I had custom made for Adam and I, and Jack, and the dogs are already hanging up.

After the tree is all decorated, we all sit around drinking coffee and eating cookies, admiring it, laughing and talking until almost midnight when everyone leaves. Nikki decides to spend the night with Jack, which is a pretty often occurrence, and when they go into their room together, Adam and I stay in the living room with the dogs and continue to stare at the tree.

"Our first Christmas as an officially married couple," he says to me.

"Yeah it is."

"Last year at this time we were just engaged."

"Yeah, like exactly this time of year. Amazing how time flies when you're having fun, isn't it?" I look down at my wedding rings and smile to myself.

"Yeah it is."

"I've loved every second of it... so far," I say to him.

"What do you mean, so far? You think that that's going to change, woman?"

"I don't know. You can be pretty tough to take, sometimes," I tease. He gives me a dirty look and in one sudden movement, moves so that he's half on top of me.

"Get over here, woman. What do you mean I'm tough to take? You think you're easy to live with?" he says, tickling me a little. I giggle and put my hands on the sides of his face, kissing him.

"Well, when you put it that way, you are pretty easy to live with," he says.

"As are you, Babe."