Present Tense by Jordan Castillo Price

Author:Jordan Castillo Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JCP Books LLC
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

4

YURI

Since drinking milk anytime after lunch has been digested has the potential to put Dixon in a coma, with any luck, he’d have fallen asleep the moment I walked out the door. That’s what I was hoping, anyhow, when I realized how difficult it was to find a fitting gift for my vozljublennyj on Christmas Eve. Frankly, I couldn’t find anything I’d even give to an acquaintance, let alone my beloved. Cheap baseball hats. Tacky bumper stickers. Shot glasses printed with lewd slogans. It seemed I would have no luck shopping at gas stations…but nothing else was open.

I was staring at an automotive display considering how much damage Dixon might do with a tire pressure gauge when the gas station door whisked open with a whirl of snow. A Handless man strode in carrying a very festive looking gift. A pair of ruddy, whining children trailed him, one on either side, a boy and a girl. The boy whined, “I don’t wa-a-ant a Game Buddy, I want a Tech Box. Nobody thinks Game Buddies are cool. Except Adeline.”

“Nuh-uh!” Adeline whined even louder. “If Aiden gets a Tech Box, then I want a Tech Box.”

Aiden said, “The only reason we’re getting Game Buddies at all is because they don’t make your stupid horse game for the Tech Box.”

Adeline drew such a deep breath, she bypassed red and turned a shade of mottled violet. “Joyful Pony Farm is not stupid! You’re stupid!”

“And you’re stupid times two!”

“You’re stupid times two…plus infinity!” Adeline declared.

Aiden grinned triumphantly. “I know you are, but what am I?”

A high-pitched whine escaped Adeline as tears sprang to her eyes and wobbled on her lower lashes. Were American children really that sensitive? Probably. Or maybe they were just strung out on sugar. And it didn’t help that the dynamic between these two played out as though it had been developing for years.

The father’s response had been building up, as well. Probably for just as long. “If you two spoiled brats don’t shut up, then once we bring Uncle Bob his present, Christmas is cancelled—and neither of you gets a Tech Tock or a Bling Buddy or whatever the heck it was you wanted.”

Aiden and Adeline stopped squabbling, and immediately shifted from enemies to allies. “Nuh-uh!” Adeline said.

Her brother added, “You don’t have the guts to tear down the tree and take back all our presents.”

Never would I have dreamed of taunting my own father in such a way. Not only would he have done as he threatened, but he would have swatted me with the dismantled tree to put me in my place. This was a different country—and a different generation—so the man who’d sired Adeline and Aiden was unlikely to get away with the same type of parenting my father doled out. No matter how sorely he might wish to put his foot down.

Though maybe I could use his frustration to my advantage.

The children deployed to grab handfuls of overpriced candy from the shelves, fighting now about whether caramel was better than nougat.

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