His Christmas List: – Naughty Stories For Your Stocking
His Christmas List: YOU WISH: Chapter 4

Aaron jerks awake and sits up straight. “What time is it?” He scrambles for his phone on the side table.

I roll over and put my back to him, my eyes still closed. “Early.”

“Fuck.” He bounds out of bed. “Get up, we need to leave.”

“No,” I whisper. I’m dead tired. It feels like we’ve been asleep for all of five minutes.

“Emma, I’m serious.” He flicks the blankets off me. “Get up.” He marches into the bathroom.

“Oh my god,” I moan, “leave me here, I’m not coming.”

“Then you won’t see your mother,” he calls as he puts his head around the door.

I screw up my face. “Every inch of my body is exhausted.”

“Yeah it is.” He smiles sarcastically before disappearing again.

I roll my eyes and pull the blankets back up. “You’re so annoying,” I grumble.

“I’m not leaving without you, and we leave in five minutes, so unless you want to be carried to the car naked…”

Stop.

I keep lying in bed, and he marches back out and tears the blankets back once more. “Move it,” he yells. “Get out of bed.” He’s fully dressed now, and he begins to pack my suitcase at double speed. “What are you wearing?”

“What?”

“What are you wearing today? My entire career depends on the presentation this morning. And we are late.” He bellows, “Mooooooove it.”

“Fuck it.” I flick the blankets back. “Fine, but I’m having a shower.”

“We don’t have time.”

“Aaron, I am having a shower. I smell like sex.”

“Fine.” His eyes nearly bulge from their sockets. “Thirty seconds, that’s it.” He marches back into the bathroom and turns the shower on and practically pushes me under the water. “Five, four, three.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m turning this off at one, so you better start washing.”

“Oh my god,” I splutter. “Get out.”

He marches out into the room and I begin to wash myself. I’m not even joking, this exhaustion is next level. He appears again, holding a towel out for me. “Come on.”

I roll my eyes and he jerks the towel. “I’m literally about to lose my mind. Hurry. The. Hell. Up.”

“You’re so fucking annoying,” I snap as I turn off the shower. I snatch the towel off him and he disappears again.

“Have you checked the weather?” I call as I dry myself. “Are the roads even safe?”

“It’s fine.”

“Are you lying?”

“Yes. Hurry up.”

I walk out to see my clothes laid out on the bed. “Get dressed. I’m going to check out. Meet you at the car.”

“Fine.”

He disappears with all the bags, and I put the clothes on that he laid out for me. I didn’t even get to brush my teeth yet.

Ugh.

I make my way downstairs and into the parking lot to see him in the car and waiting by the exit. I get in and slam the door. “Took your fucking time,” he mutters.

“Don’t blame me, this is all your fault.” I give him the side-eye. “I have chronic fatigue from your nocturnal activities. My vagina feels the size of a watermelon.”

He chuckles, and we zoom out of the parking lot at speed. The car nearly goes onto two wheels, and I hang on for dear life. “Slow down.”

“It’s probably best if you go to sleep,” he tells me.

“So you can kill us without me knowing?”

“So I can concentrate without being badgered.”

“You’re very annoying in the daylight, you know that?”

“Likewise.” He pulls out into the traffic. “Go. To. Sleep.”

Two and a half hours later, we pull into my hotel in Aspen. I would love to tell you how wonderful the trip here was, but that would be a blatant lie.

Aaron has driven like a maniac while I screamed for him to slow down.

We’ve fought and bickered, and now that he’s dropping me off… I don’t want him to go.

He pops the trunk, bounds out, retrieves my bag, and passes it to me. “Bye.” He gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.”

Then, without another word, he gets back into the car and zooms off.

What?

Is he serious? He didn’t even ask for my fucking number.

I let out a dejected sigh. At least I knew what I was getting into, I remind myself.

God, imagine if I had met him without any context of who he is. I would be rocking in the corner right now. After a night like that… I mean, maybe I still am.

Asshole.

Ugh… anyway, moving on.

I go inside the hotel and make my way up to the room. Now, time to do what I came here to do.

Nerves simmer deep in my stomach and I chase them away with logic. This woman is nothing to me and I don’t know her, so it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t like me. I close my eyes and try to prepare myself for her second rejection.

If only I knew how.

The Uber pulls up out the front of the house and I peer out the window. The house is of average size. Not fancy but not bad, either, somewhere in the middle class.

I mean, if Aspen were to have a middle class, that is.

The path and drive are freshly ploughed, and there are pine trees lining the boundary of the land. I look around as I try to remember every small detail.

It’s nice.

The snow is falling as I get out of the Uber and I look up into the sky. Magical dew drops for as far as the eye can see. A winter wonderland, right out of a storybook.

This moment feels monumental, and in approximately ten minutes I will know the outcome.

Magdalene Elkhart.

A name that has haunted my every waking thought for the last nine months.

I’ve dreamed about her, wondered if we look the same or share a personality. Did she know my mother personally, or did it happen another way? Although I have the adoption papers, there were no details on it other than her name.

My aunt knows none of the details, at least that’s what she’s telling me, but I don’t think she has a reason to lie.

Who knows, though, my moral compass has been well and truly rocked. I guess being lied to for twenty-five years by the person you love most in the world will do that to you.

I don’t know what I want to achieve by coming here today, but I pray that it brings me comfort.

My mind keeps going back to that place in time, and the thought of handing over your baby to a stranger and letting them take her away, knowing you will never see her again, kills me.

Did it kill her too?

Or was it a relief to be rid of the burden?

So many questions…

Okay, it’s time.

I slowly walk up to the house, my steps crunching the ice beneath them.

The air is still and I look up the road—not a soul in sight. Smoke drifts into the sky from the scattered chimneys.

Knock, knock, knock. I tap on the door.

My heart is about to leap from my chest, and I clench my fists at my sides as I hear someone walking through the house. The door opens and a young woman comes into view. “Hello.” She smiles. “Can I help you?” She’s a little older than me and has a young child on her hip.

“Hello,” I reply through the bucket of sand in my throat, “I’m looking for Magdalene Elkhart.”

“Oh. You’ve missed her.”

“Whe-when will she be back?”

“No, I mean you missed her. She sold us the house and moved out about a month ago.”

“Did she leave town?”

“No idea, sorry.” She shrugs. “We have a heap of mail here for her but don’t know where to send it. She said she was going to call back in, but she never did.”

My face falls. “Did she….” I try to collect my thoughts. “Who did she live here with?”

“She lived alone.”

“Where is her family?” I frown.

“As far as I know, she never had one.”

“Oh.” Shocked, unexpected tears fill my eyes. “Right.”

“Are you okay?” She frowns.

“Yeah.” I force a smile. “I’m looking for my biological mother, and I . . .”

Her face falls. “She’s your mother?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Ah”—I look up the street as I try to figure out what to say next, “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“Oh, wait, I have a photo of her.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Come in.” She turns and marches into the house, and I tentatively open the screen door and follow her in. She begins to riffle through some drawers as I stand and look around. The house is a pretty lemon throughout with floral curtains; it has a real lived-in and homey feel.

“It’s a lovely house.” I smile.

“Yes, it is.” She looks around as if to try and see it through my eyes. “Not sure about the blue, though.”

“This was the color it came?”

“These were Magdalene’s colors; she’s quite eccentric.”

The thought brings a smile to my face. “Only rich people are called eccentric. Poor people are just called weird.”

She chuckles. “True. I never thought of it like that, but you’re right.” She replaces what she’s looking for and shuffles through a pile of photographs. “Here.” She passes me three photos and I stare down at them. They’re of her and a man who I’m assuming is her husband, their baby, and an elderly woman. They’re standing beside a Sold sign out the front of the house. “This is the day we bought the house,” she tells me.

I stare at the photos.

“This is her.” She points to the woman. She has gray hair and a kind-looking face. She doesn’t really look like me, but there’s a familiar feel to her overall vibe… but maybe that’s just my imagination.

My eyes rise to meet hers. “What’s she like?” I ask.

“She’s nice.” She smiles. “She’s really nice.”

I get a lump in my throat.

“Do you want some tea?” she asks me.

“I don’t want to be a bother.” I hold the photos in my hand, unable to let them go.

“No bother at all, take a seat.”

I timidly sit down at the table and stare down at her looking back at me. Like an ethereal creature that I nearly know.

So close… but not at all.