Outcome

trying to overcome my shock, and suppress my joy. Then I got worried.

'Are you okay?' I asked, taking a step forward, my hand on the door.

'I will be if I can come in. It’s freezing out here.'

'Yeah, you know better than that.' I stepped back, and she quickly came in, me slamming the door shut behind her. 'What are you doing here?'

'What? Don’t you want me here?' she asked with a grin as she unwound the scarf from around her neck, then started on the buttons of her coat.

'Well, sure, but I mean you had your date.'

'Oh, yeah.' She said, hanging the coat up on the coat tree, and stuffing her discarded gloves in the pockets. 'Craig was a real treat.' I headed toward the living room, she followed, nearly running me over to sit on the hearth of the fireplace, wrapping her arms around herself. 'God, I bet it’s below zero already.'

'I’ll get you some hot tea.'

'Oh, that sounds nice.' She smiled, her teeth still chattering. I quickly poured her a cup from the kettle on the stove, adding just a tad of sugar and honey to it, just how she liked it, and hurried over to her with it.

'Drink.' Wrapping her hands around it, she slowly sipped. I pulled the ottoman from my arm chair, and rolled it so I could sit in front of her. 'Give me.' I grabbed a leg, setting her ankle on my thigh, and taking off snow-caked tennis shoe. 'Did you go this casual on your date?' She shook her head.

'No. Went home and changed first.'

'Oh.' Untying the laces, I took the shoe off, and began to rub her foot, getting some blood and warmth back into it. 'So tell me about it.'

'Well,' she said, taking another sip before setting the cup aside in order to grab the excited Pug who had woken up, and was now demanding her attention. 'Craig was nice enough, I guess. But, quite full of himself. He has designs on heading off to medical school and becoming one of the greatest doctors who ever lived.' She chuckled at the thought as she held my dog close to her chest, kissing the top of his head, and petting his back.

'Real winner, eh?'

'And then some. This guy had the balls to try and correct me on the amount of schooling I had! Really a prick. I don’t think I got one word in edgewise once he got started on himself. I don’t think he asked me one thing except to pass the salt at dinner. Truly horrible.' She grabbed Bunsen’s face, looking into his eyes. 'Don’t you ever treat a lady Pug like that, little guy, or you’ll be in big trouble. Got me?'

Snort.

'I think he understands.' She grinned, putting him down so he could go back and curl up in his bed. 'I have a confession to make, too,' she said shyly, glancing at me briefly.

'What’s that?'

'I missed you, missed our Saturday night.'

I smiled at her, saying nothing, but beaming inside.

Haley sighed as I put that foot back on the floor, and grabbed the other leg, doing the same to the other foot. She closed her eyes. 'That feels so good, Andi.'

'Are you warming up any?'

'Mmhmm. You could say that.'

I smiled, continuing my ministrations

'Andi?'

'Hmm?'

'When are we going to have our Christmas?' I looked at her to see she was looking at me through half- closed lids.

'Well, I don’t know.'

'It’s just that Christmas is four days away, and I’ll be in New York with my family at my brother’s place, and won’t be back until the twenty-seventh. I don’t want to have an after-Christmas.'

'Well, how about tonight?' She sat up straight as an arrow.

'Really?' I nodded.

'Sure. Why not?' Pulling her leg away from me, she began to quickly put her shoes back on.

'I’ll go get your stuff and bring it all over.' I smiled, loving the way she was the biggest kid I knew.

'Okay. Me and Bunsen will be waiting.'

Haley smiled, and hurried toward the door, throwing all her winter gear on, and bursting back out into the cold night. I sat there for a moment, listening to the sound of her car starting up, then it hit me.

Christmas!

I ran to the spare bedroom, Bunsen running after me, barking his little gray and black head off as I grabbed my little four-foot tree with the lights already built into it, and a few boxes of decorations. I hadn’t planned to even bother this year, only have a tree because I had Kendall for Christmas Eve last year.

We ran back out to the living room where I pushed the lamp off the side table by the couch, and set the tree up on it, plugging it in so the lights would start blinking, and doing their business, and I could start throwing colorful balls and tinsel on it. Bunsen had fun, too.

Next I had to get all of Haley’s gifts, arranging them just so. I really hoped she’d like them. I had an envelope, which held her big gift, a huge three by three box, and one smaller gift.

I sat in the chair again, grabbing my book again. Nonchalant was not my strong suit at times, but I was going to do my best. The house was completely dark now, save for the fireplace and the Christmas tree lights, bouncing colorful patterns on the surrounding walls.

I heard Haley knocking.

'Come in!'

The knob turned, and the door opened, with Haley being blown in, quickly closing the door behind her, leaning against it.

'Whew. It’s just not pleasant out there.' She stopped, and turned to look toward the light I imagine she saw out of the corner of her eye. A smile quickly spread across her face, and she turned, walked into the living room. 'Well, you’ve been busy.' She said, walking up to the tree, fingering a few decorations. She turned to me a grinned, nodding her head. 'I approve.'

'Well, I’m so glad.' I smiled, standing. 'Who’s going to go first?'

'Why don’t you?'

'Okay.' I grinned like a little kid, rubbing my hands together. Haley set down her offerings; two envelopes, one thick, an extremely odd-looking thing that was round, but not, and a small oval box.

'Here.' She handed me the odd-looking thing. It wasn’t heavy, per se, but it wasn’t real light, either. I carefully took the wrapping paper off of it, wondering why Haley had bothered wrapping it at all. Finally a little, limp spine came flopping out. I looked up at Haley with a grin on my face. Getting the rest of the paper off, I saw that I held a rainbow colored Koosh that was huge; nearly twice the size of a softball.

'That is one big Koosh.' I laughed. 'Love the rainbow, too.'

'Well, I figured I could help your budding Koosh collection that Kendall started, along.'

'Yeah, it got started thanks to you.' I laughed. She placed her hand on her chest.

'I remain innocent of all charges.'

'Right. Thank you. I think I’ll take this to work and put it on my desk.' I threw it up into the air, catching it, then walked over to the tree where I grabbed the small box, handed it to Haley. With the glee of a child, she took it, examining it, feeling its weight, and trying to determine its size. 'Would you just open the damn thing?'

Finally she began to carefully peel back the paper until she came to a white box. Slicing the tape with her nails, the box was opened, and she pulled out what was inside. She smiled as she looked a the Beanie Baby, but looked slightly confused.

'Look at the tag.' She did, and grinned.

'Siggy Bear, huh?'

'Yes, ma’am. He is one in the new career collection that Beanie has put out.'

'So this is their little shrink bear?' I nodded. She hugged me. 'Thank you, Andi.'

'You’re welcome.'

As we proceeded, my next gift was a little booklet that she had put together herself with little coupons for