The Stocking Was Hung(17)

“Picked yourself a real winner there, Leon. A sock collector and he diddles you under mom and dad’s roof,” Nicholas laughs.

I really need to work on my glare.

“NO MILK FOR YOU!” my dad yells from the front seat.

All of us scream when he takes his eyes off the road to turn around and give Sam a dirty look, causing the van to swerve over the yellow line.

He quickly gets the van back in the right lane and everyone is quiet for the next few minutes until we finally pull up to the curb of our destination. The van doors quickly open and everyone spills out faster than they’ve ever moved in their life.

While Nicholas helps Casey, his very pregnant wife, maneuver the curb and start up the walk and my parents and Aunt Bobbie take the lead up to the house, I wait back for Sam, an apology for the disastrous car ride on the tip of my tongue.

“Don’t apologize,” he cuts me off as soon as I open my mouth. “Just remember you owe me later, and I will take my payment in the form of you, naked, moaning my name again just like this morning.”

And just like that, my vagina bursts into flames and I feel like it was completely unnecessary for the owners of this place to shovel the walk. I could just sit down on the sidewalk and scoot across it on my ass like a dog trying to itch its butt. My vagina would melt all the snow and ice in a matter of seconds.

Sam grabs my hand and laces his fingers through mine as we head across the street to join my family on the front porch.

“What is this place, anyway?” he asks, staring up at the yellow, two-story Victorian with green trim. “Is that a large leg in the window turned into a light?”

My family hears his questions and they all grow silent, turning to stare at him with mouths open and eyes wide.

“Are you kidding me, man? Uh, that’s a leg lamp. You know, THE leg lamp,” Nicholas informs him.

Sam shrugs and shakes his head.

“This is the house where they filmed A Christmas Story,” I add, figuring that will jog his memory.

His face is still blank.

“You know, Ralphie, Randy, tongue stuck to a flagpole?” Casey asks him with a smile.

“Nope, no clue,” Sam replies.

“Wow, what a douchebag,” Nicholas snorts, which earns him another punch from me, this time in the arm.

“Dammit, Leon! That hurt!” he complains like the f*cking crybaby he is.

Everyone shoots Sam sad, pitying looks, like someone he loves just died instead of the fact that he’s never heard of A Christmas Story. I get it, only because this movie represents mine and Nicholas’s childhood and having the house where the movie was filmed only an hour away from where we grew up was always a big deal. Ever since they opened the house to tours eleven years ago, it’s been a tradition for our family to come here together and then go home and watch the movie. It only reminds me all over again that Sam doesn’t have a family. Never had a family and something like this is completely foreign to him.

While my dad buys everyone’s tickets right inside the front door, I push up on my toes and kiss Sam’s cheek, the scratch of his day-old stubble tickling my lips. When I pull back so we can walk inside the house, Sam looks down at me and smiles.

“What was that for?”

I shrug. “Just because.”

“Well, feel free to just because me anytime and anywhere you’d like,” he encourages with a wink.

I laugh, giving him a light smack on his arm as we walk through the doorway and enter the living room of the greatest Christmas movie ever made, my thoughts scrambled with visions of Ralphie and Randy opening presents and my mouth on Sam’s package. We pass by workers in each room of the house, all of them wishing us a Merry Christmas and each time, Sam just gives them an uncomfortable smile and a nod. I know he’s not a big fan of the holidays, but his refusal to reply to anyone who gives him the standard Christmas greeting makes me wonder.

As we all tour the house, I explain scenes from the movie to Sam in all the different rooms—the kitchen where the Bumpus’ herd of smelly hounds ate the turkey, the stairs where Ralphie stood in his pink bunny costume, and of course, the front window where the great Leg Lamp stands, tall and proud instead of broken and buried in the backyard. In between rooms, Nicholas takes the opportunity to grill Sam about his life, and I have to say, I’m pretty proud he only has to cough once trying to remember all the things about Logan I’d quickly thrown at him yesterday in our cab ride from the airport. And that one cough is justified since Nicholas asks him when he’s going to make an honest woman out of me and propose. Although the cough is more of a laugh/choke instead of a “Help me out here,” which earns him a very mean side-eye from me.

Poor Sam is grilled like a hamburger on a BBQ pit in the summer, Nicholas rapid-firing questions at him throughout the entire tour of the house, everything from where he went to college to how many woman he’s slept with. Sam answers all the questions with ease, making up the ones he doesn’t know, which only makes him look even hotter than he already does in my mind. This man—this Marine—who just finished an eighteen month tour overseas, has been thrown into this craziness and within a day already acts like he fits in perfectly. Did I ever picture Logan like this in the year we were together? I mean, I always thought about the first time he would come home and meet my family, planned it out in my head and stuff, but did I ever see it going this smoothly? This perfectly?