His Christmas List: – Naughty Stories For Your Stocking
His Christmas List: YOU WISH: Chapter 6

Four weeks later

I strip off my clothes and get into the shower. After the longest day in history, I’m finally home. I worked and then had to go to drinks with colleagues and now it’s just after 10 p.m. and I’ve just got in.

Trevor, my border collie puppy, sprints into the bathroom and sprints out. He runs back in and he runs back out. He runs back in and circles on the spot three times, barks, and then runs back out.

I smile as I put my face under the water. Whenever I’m home late, he gets so excited to see me that he gets the zoomies.

He runs back in and barks at me and runs out again.

“Trevor, calm down.” I sigh. “I’m too tired to think you’re cute tonight.” He picks up my G-string with his teeth and runs out of the room. “Bring that back here,” I call.

Fuck’s sake…

“Trevor,” I call, “bring that back here.”

I hear him barking in the distance.

“Trevor,” I yell as I lose the last of my patience. “Damn it.” I turn the shower off, wrap myself in a towel, and go in search of the underwear thief.

I replace him in the kitchen, gagging.

“What are you doing?” I frown. He chokes some more and gags again, and my eyes widen. “You didn’t eat that G-string, did you?” I grab his mouth and pull his jaw open; at the very back of his throat I see the hot pink G-string. “Ahh,” I cry as I try to grab it. He fights me and runs off, thinking this is the best game ever. As I take off after him, I lose my towel in the process. “Come here.” By the time I catch him and pry his mouth open again, the underwear is long gone. “Oh my god. You’re going to die.” With shaky hands, I google

Emergency Vet Hospital

I dial the number as I pace back and forth. “Hello, this is the Emergency Vet Hospital.”

“Hello,” I stammer. “My dog swallowed my underwear.”

“Are you sure he swallowed them?”

“Yes. I saw them go down his throat.”

“Oh dear,” she replies.

“Is that bad?” I screw my face up in question.

“It’s not good. You better bring him straight in.”

“All right.”

“If he starts to choke on the way, stay calm and keep driving.”

“Oh my god,” I cry. “You think he’s going to choke?”

“It’s possible.”

“I’m on my way.” I hang up and take the stairs two at a time. I scramble through my clothes at double speed. “Trevor,” I call in a panic, “stay calm, okay?”

Silence.

“Oh my fuck.”

He’s dead.

“Trevor,” I call, “come here, boy.” No, wait, coming up the stairs will make him choke harder. “Don’t come up here, stay down there,” I yell. “Do not move.” I pull my track pants on so fast, my foot gets caught, and I trip and hit my elbow. “Ahhhhhh,” I scream, “not now, fuck it.” I run downstairs and grab his lead, and he comes bounding over.

“You stupid idiot,” I whisper, “you have no idea you are minutes from death.” We run out to the car and climb in. I google the address and we are on our way. My eyes continually flick between him and the road. “Stay calm,” I tell him. “Stay calm.”

I run straight over a roundabout and nearly run off the road. “Ahhh.” I grip the steering wheel with white-knuckle force. “Stay calm, Emma, or we will both die.”

We arrive at the vet hospital and I pick him up and carry him in. The nurse meets me at the door. “Hello. You must be Emma?” She smiles calmly. “This is Trevor?”

“Yes.” My heart is beating so hard in my chest that I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack.

“Here, let me.” She takes him off me and calmly pats his head. “What have you been doing, mister?” She puts him down onto the floor. “Your mommy is freaking out.”

I’m panting and disheveled, my hair is all over the place, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so stressed. “I am,” I pant. “It’s been a really bad night.”

The office door opens and my eyes widen in horror.

It just got worse… much worse.

Aaron is standing there in scrubs, green scrubs that have tinsel printed on them and a Santa hat… very festive.

His eyes widen in surprise as he looks between us. “Hello.”

Fuck. My. Life.

“This is our vet, Aaron Hammond,” the nurse introduces us. “He’s the best that there is. This is Emma and Trevor.”

“Hello.” He nods. The muscles in his jaw clench as if he’s angry. “This way, please.” He stands back and we walk past him into an exam room. Dear lord.

This can’t be happening.

“What seems to be the problem?” he asks dryly. He closes the door in the nurse’s face with a sharp snap.

“Umm.” Oh, fucking hell… “This is really embarrassing.” I feel the blood drain from my face. “He swallowed my panties.”

His eyes rise to meet mine. “Your panties?”

“Yes.”

“How did he get your panties in his mouth?”

“He picked them up off the floor, how do you think?”

“How do you know he swallowed it?”

“I saw them down the back of his throat.”

His eyebrows flick up in annoyance. “The throat goat like his mother.”

My mouth falls open in surprise. He did not just say that.

Wait, he thinks I’m a throat goat?

Ha!

I roll my lips to hide my smile.

He pries open his mouth and looks down his throat with a flashlight.

“I’m going to give him some medication that will make him throw up.” He opens the door. “Carol, we will get an IV started on Trevor, please.”

“Sure,” she replies, and takes his lead. “I’ll get him started now. You can take a seat, Emma. This will be a little while.” She disappears out the back.

“Thanks.” I awkwardly sit in the waiting room.

Aaron glares at me and then, without saying a word, closes his office door.

My face turns a bright shade of crimson.

I text Kara.

A reply bounces in

I type in my reply.

Thirty minutes later, the office door opens and Aaron appears. “We need to keep Trevor in overnight. You can go home now.”

“Is he okay?”

“He will be, but he still hasn’t brought them up. If he doesn’t respond, we may have to operate.”

“Oh.” I nod. “Okay. You’ll call me the moment you know something?”

“I don’t have the correct number.” His cold eyes hold mine.

Touché…

“You would have had the right number if you didn’t have a girlfriend. You have nobody to blame but yourself.”

He opens the door to his office in a rush. “A word.”

“Are we really going to do this now?” I snap.

“Get into my office.” He sneers.

I walk in and he slams the door behind me. “How fucking dare you give me the wrong number?” he whispers angrily.

“How dare I? How dare you?”

“Are you kidding me?” he spits. “We have a weekend like that and you give me the wrong fucking number? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“How’s your girlfriend, asshole?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he fires back.

“I saw her message in the morning.”

“What message?”

“Amanda.”

“What?” He screws up his face.

“Let me see, it went something like… Why didn’t you call me last night, I’m guessing you’re in conference mode.”

“Amanda is my sister, you idiot. What are you, five years old? Are you that emotionally stunted that you couldn’t ask a fucking question?”

Oh. I put my weight onto my back foot, shocked.

Didn’t see that coming.

“Get out,” he snaps.

“What?”

“Get the fuck out of my office. I have nothing to say to you.”

“What about my dog?” My mouth falls open in horror. “You are being very unprofessional right now.”

“I’ll call you when I know something,” he fumes. “Actually, scratch that. I will not be calling you. I’ll get the nurse to call you.”

“What does that mean?” I spit.

“It means I don’t want to speak to you ever again.”

“Fine by me.”

“Fine by me too.”

I march out and he slams the door behind me. The wall rattles in a dramatic fashion.

The nurse on reception fakes a smile as she pretends not to notice, and I want to die of embarrassment.

“Goodbye.” I nod. Adrenaline rushes through my bloodstream as I march out to the car through a red haze of fury.

Good one, Trevor.

It’s just on 2 a.m. when my phone rings. “Hello,” I answer.

“Hello, Emma, this is Samantha from Emergency Vet Hospital.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yes. We finally got it up.”

“That’s great news, thank you.”

“He’s had a bit of a rough time, though, and we are going to keep him overnight for surveillance.”

“Of course.”

“You may pick him up in the morning after ten.”

“Okay, thank you.”

I hang up and stare at the phone in my hand. He didn’t call, just like he said he wouldn’t.

His words come back to me. “Are you that emotionally stunted that you couldn’t ask a fucking question?”

I blow out a deflated breath as disappointment fills me.

Yes.

Yes, I am.

As the sun came up, so did the regrets. I haven’t slept a wink.

On looking back, I’m ashamed of my behavior in Aspen. I hate people who play games, and yet it seems I played them… very poorly, too.

Not that he cares. I’m sure he has plenty of women fawning all over him, but his words from last night have hit a nerve.

It’s no secret that I have trust issues. Having my own mother lie to me for my entire life has left a wound that I can’t seem to heal. Therapy isn’t even scratching the surface, and I have more baggage than a 747.

He was right.

I liked him, and rather than show vulnerability and risk being hurt, I chose to block him out, leave him on red. Hurt him before he hurt me…

I took the easy way out.

And maybe I didn’t hurt him at all, and maybe he didn’t care an ounce.

But what if he did?

The only thing I proved to both him and me was that I’m a coward.

The clock ticks over to 10 a.m., and I peer through the window of my car into the vet hospital.

Here we go.

I nervously make my way in, and today a different nurse is on reception. “Hello.” I smile. “I’m Emma, and I’m here to collect Trevor.”

“Ah, yes.” She smiles. “I’ll go and get him.”

“Is…” I steel myself. “Is the vet here? Aaron?”

“No, he worked night shift, so…”

“Of course.” I shake my head as realization sets in. “Yes, of course he did. I need to fix up the account.”

“Yes.” She looks it up on the computer. “It seems that account has been taken care of.”

“It has?”

“Yes, there’s a note here that it was paid in full last night.”

“Oh.” I frown. Shit. “Can I leave a message for the vet to call me, please? I would like to speak to him about what happened last night and treatment going forward.”

“Yes, for sure.” She types in her computer again. “Same number as what’s on your file?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go get Trevor.”

“Thank you.”

She returns moments later with my little troublemaker; he’s all happy and unfazed. “Hey, you.” I smile as I bend to pat him. “Let’s go home.” I stand and look back to the receptionist. “You won’t forget to give the vet my message, will you?”

“No, of course not.”

Five days is a long time to wait for a call.

Especially when you are torturing yourself with memories of a weekend in Aspen.

When for the first time in your life you actually felt alive. I keep seeing us laughing and joking, rolling around making love. The way he called me his girl… Even if I wasn’t, it felt good at the time.

I have this sick sinking feeling that I fucked up.

And I guess it doesn’t matter now. He’s obviously moved on. But I feel like I just added another weight to my already heavy load.

Christmas is approaching, and just like last year, I feel the weight of sadness creeping over me.

Loneliness is more vivid around the holidays. I wish I could forgive my mother for lying to me, but the cut just feels too deep. The betrayal too personal.

I can’t even bring myself to visit her grave anymore. It just reminds me of all the things I didn’t know.

I pick up my phone and check it.

No missed calls.