“Fancy cheese balls. They basically take cheese dip and mix it with some other shit, then roll the whole thing in shaved almonds or chopped up walnuts or some shit. It’s a Wisconsin thing,” he replied.
“So of course it has cheese in it,” I remarked.
“Don’t worry,” he told me with an eyeroll. “Mom found some cashew cheese spread, so you’ll get one all your very own.”
I blinked. “Yay?” It was nice that they were including me, but I wasn’t entirely certain that I was going to actually like a fancy vegan cheese ball, with or without nuts.
“Welcome to the family,” he told me, patting my shoulder.
“Does that have to include Aunt Susan?” I asked, after checking that the woman in question wasn’t coming back.
He laughed. “Unfortunately, yes. But it also includes Rosie and Rupert, who are the actually awesome parts of the Hart family.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. C’mon. I’ll introduce you.”
For the record,the vegan fancy cheese ball was actually pretty decent, as far as vegan dairy-emulating-products went. Which was good, because I still had three-quarters of it, tucked lovingly into a recycled butter spread container, in Elliot’s fridge that had been sent home with me.
There was also another whole regular cheese ball for Elliot, a bunch of leftover turkey, bread, various salads that Elliot and Hart had pronounced were safe for me to eat, some slow-cooked beans, and a massive dish of roasted potatoes, some cabbage, and smoked trout.
We wouldn’t have to cook for at least three or four days—possibly longer.
Because we also had leftover french toast from this morning—we’d eaten half of it, very quickly, before heading over to the Harts’ house, rushed because I was the only morning person in the house and nobody else managed to get themselves up early enough to actually do presents before they had to get showered and dressed.
I’d made sure we all had coffee mixed with cocoa and a candy cane sticking out of the drinking hole in the travel mugs before I herded two sleepy shifters and Lulu—wearing a red fake-fur-trimmed mini skirt and matching bolero shrug, as well as candy-striped tights and knee-high red boots—into the FJ Cruiser.
Noah, Elliot, and I were all wearing various degrees of appropriate holiday sweaters. Elliot had on one that had a line of Bucky Badgers—the badger mascot of his alma mater—in Santa hats parading around the chest and little peppermint pinwheel studs in his ears, while Noah’s was a bit more tasteful, with giant snowflakes shot through with metallic thread. Mine was themost subdued—a Fair Isle-style cream-colored sweater with the neck pattern in shades of red and green.
By the time we got back to the house, loaded up with bags and plastic tubs of food, our bellies full and our voices hoarse from yelling over dozens of other people in a big house that had still been too small, we were tired, but also happy. Satisfied by a day of being mostly loved and accepted, being treated like family.
If I had to put up with Aunt Susan for that, then so be it.
“Presents and pajamas!” Noah yelled as soon as all of us were through the door, then ran off to the guest room to presumably change. Lulu and I shared a slightly-exasperated glance, and I was surprised to find myself smiling.
Lulu had apparently won me over.
It felt good.
“Give me that,” I said to Elliot, who was trying to carry too many bags with only one arm. “Go put on something that looks vaguely like pajamas and try not to scandalize or turn on my brother, okay?”
He was laughing as he disappeared down the hallway, leaving me to carry all the food to the kitchen and put it in the fridge.
He came back wearing a pair of my flannel pants—green and blue plaid with a thin line of red—and a long-sleeved t-shirt that readWisconsinon it. He took over putting things away, telling me it was my turn to go put on something pajama-worthy, and when I got back to the kitchen wearing a green pair of flannel pants with little red reindeer, Elliot was heating up water for hot chocolate and had broken out the candy canes again, although he’d come up with a box of cinnamon as well as mint.
“Cinnamon candy canes?”
“Cinnamon in hot chocolate is delicious,” he told me. “But if you want to be all boring and traditional and have mint, that’s your problem.”
Noah madea big deal out of handing out presents and also shredding the wrapping paper like the overexcited kid he’d never gotten the chance to be. I hadn’t either, but Noah definitely derived more pleasure from utterly destroying wrapping paper than I did. I preferred the challenge of opening mine with as minimal damage to the paper as possible.
“For fuck’s sake, Seth, we’re not gonna reuse it,” Elliot said on about the fourth box.
“I like taking my time,” I told him, then narrowed my eyes. “You don’t usually complain about that.”
I enjoyed the slight darkening of his cheeks as he flushed, but the snap in his hazel eyes told me that he was going to make me pay for that comment in the absolute best way possible later.
Elliot had carved me a wolf at some point—when, I had no idea—and had made a smooth wooden bowl set for Noah and Lulu out of something with a grain that almost gave the bowls a rippled watery pattern.
