“You…uh….” I reached for my glass of water. If I drank the wine, I was sure I’d swallow it wrong and choke on it, and it was too fine a vintage to abuse that way. “You do?”
Christmas had never meant much to me. The last time I’d spent the holiday with family had been just before my father left. Uncle Steve had joined us, and I’d gotten a pocket knife and a BB gun. “Just don’t shoot your eye out, short stuff.”
That was before my old lady started hitting the bottle with a vengeance. Christmases after that had been spent with other men, and they hadn’t been bad, but that had been the best—
That had been a good Christmas.
“What does your mother think of that idea?”
“Mother is all for it. She’ll be calling you to confirm. Face it, Mark. She likes you. So do I.”
In spite of the fact that I
