Chapter 1- the awkward beginning

December 24, 2014

In a small apartment on the lower east side of New York City, sat a young girl with long light brown hair. She had on a festive sweater with reign deer flying up her shirt. She wore black leggings and fuzzy socks as she sipped from a mug of hot cocoa. Comfortably listening to music, Tammy was wrapping a present and bobbing her head to the music.
Rockin’ around the Christmas tree. At the Christmas Party hop. She finishes tying the bow on top and places it on the table.


****

Mistletoe hung where you can see. Every couple tries to stop.
The mall is flourished with red and green with a tinge of silver and gold. The halls are rushing with busy people buying last minute gifts. The Christmas spirit is alive in every mall in America. Two boys in their mid twenties are walking along with the pace of the rush.
“I got her concert tickets to her favorite band. They are front row seats.”
The man whistles, “How much did that cost.”
He raised his eyebrows, “ Enough.”
“When is it?”
“July twenty-seco-“
“Drew! What the hell?” He hit him on the shoulder. Drew pushes him back.
“What was that for Kyle?”
“You have been dating her for BARLEY two months.” Kyle throws his hands up in the air.
“I know I’m nervous as hell to give it to her, but I know she would love it. I just wish it was sooner so it doesn’t seem like a deal to stay with me.” Drew was a tall, lanky, twenty-six year old man with tan skin, dark brown hair that looked like waves of chocolate. His eyes were the color of the ocean after a storm. He had a short trim scraggly beard and was dressed in blue jeans paired with a black and white flannel shirt. On his head was a dark blue Beanie and under his flannel was a sweater with Santa in a sleigh.
“Don’t worry about it. If you break up she’ll go with her next boyfriend.” Kyle laughed while Drew rolled his eyes. Kyle was more of a joker than a friend. He had blonde spiky hair and wore baggy clothing all the time. Kyle continued to laugh and joke around. “ Did you even hit that yet?” He asks while spanking the air.
Drew’s face turns red with anger. “ Don’t say it like that.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because.” Drew turns his back and thinks, “I don’t think of her in that way.”
“Holy s**t, your serious man.” Drew looked up and nodded. “So did you” Kyle makes air quotes, “Make love to her.”
Drew puts his hands in his pockets and looks down shaking his head. “ No. No I did not.”
“Well what are you waiting for dude?”
Drew hesitates and mumbles. “The right moment.” Kyle busts a gut laughing at him.
“Oh my God. The right moment. Let me tell you something.” Kyle puts his arm around Drew’s neck, “The right moment doesn’t exist. You have to make the moment right.” He said while moving his hips.
“Would you stop it.”
“I have an idea, follow me.” Kyle ran down the flooded hallway, and Drew followed right behind him.
“Where are you going?”
“You’ll see” Kyle said with a smirk on his face. He stopped running, “We are here.” Drew stopped and looked up to read the sign.
“Victoria Secrets uh no man no.” Drew begins to walk away. Kyle chases after him. He grabs his shoulder and turns him back around.
“Just listen to me man.” They enter the store surrounded by walls of pink. Both of them feeling a little uncomfortable. They walk towards the back of the store.
“No, I’m not buying her a bra.”
“I didn’t say a bra.” They turn a corner and stand in the lingerie. Kyle had a smile on his face while Drew looked mortified. “Make the moment right.”
“I just said I don’t want to scare her away. Besides, I already bought the tickets.”
“Well, then maybe she’d like to pay you back.” Kyle said with a smirk.
“I don’t want it that way.” Drew protested.
“It ain’t gonna be that way. Besides this is classy. I didn’t take you to Spencer’s gifts, did I?
Drew puts his hand on his head, “ I don’t know.”
“Aight, hear me out. This can go one of two ways. She will like it and you two will.” Drew gave him a dirty look. “Make love.” Drew thought about it for a minute. “ BUT, if it goes bad” Kyle starts waving his finger, “Just tell her it’s a gag gift.” Drew looked at Kyle puzzled, “Look, I met her that first night you did, but how you talk about her and all the stories, something tells me that you two have the same sense of humor. You’ll have a good laugh. You just have to play your cards right.” Drew nodded hesitantly. “Now let’s look around.”

****

Back in the apartment, Tammy is placing the present underneath the tree. She looks down at it nervously. She picks up the present and moves it to the kitchen table. Tammy goes to make hot chocolate for Drew, because he will be here any minute. She’s really nervous because they weren’t dating that long, and she feels like the pressure is on. Hoping that she didn’t buy too expensive of a gift. What if he gets freak out over it? Her thoughts were interrupted by her cell phone. Fearing that it’s him to cancel their evening, She hesitates to look at the phone. It’s Miranda, her best friend. “Hello.”
“Hey, is he there yet?”
“God no. Not yet. I’m freaking out here.” She yells while pouring in milk for the coco.
“Why what’s the matter?”
“I don’t know I really like him and I want him to like me.”
“Girrrl, he’s like a puppy dog around you. “ Tammy laughs.
“I’m worried about my gift.”
“Which one?”
“Well both”
“Don’t even worry he’s gonna love both and if not you’ll two have a good laugh.”
“I hope so.”
“You will. Now call me when he leaves.”
“Ok, I will bye”
“Bye”
Tammy hangs up the phone and thinks about the night they met. It was Halloween night and they met by the drinks. She found it weird out of all those people at that party they would meet. She was zombie with her faced painted, ripped clothes and fake blood everywhere. He was in a werewolf mask, and have the night she couldn’t see his face. We talked inside for a while, but the music was so loud and people were half drunk that we decided to talk on the porch.
Outside, he took off his mask, and her heart melted a little inside. She kept Questioning herself, why is this cute boy sitting outside a party talking to me especially when she was dressed like that. There were plenty of other girls in their dressed in s****y “costumes.” In the middle of the conversation, Drew says, “you're different. I like different.” And those words have been ringing in her head since that day.

Tammy begins to sit out Christmas cookies on a tray and places them on the coffee table along with the hot cocoa and his present.

Drew begins to approach her door but hesitates to knock right away. He stands there for a moment to collect himself and to breathe. He knocks on the door, look at the Victoria Secrets bag. Suddenly, the door opens with Tammy standing there, and his heart drops.
“Hi” she says as she leans in for a hug and quick kiss.
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, come in” Drew follows Tammy into the house. “I set us up some hot chocolate and cookies in the living room.” Drew looks around the apartment in awe of all the decorations. “Too much?”
“No” Drew laughed. He looks at all the twinkling lights, and it feels magical. He turns to her and says, “it’s beautiful.” Drew took of his coat and sat down on the couch. Tammy joined him.
“Awe you wore your sweater.” She said pointing to hers than his.
“Yeah, they are kinda cute.” He said smiling at her.
“Want a cookie?”
“Yeah, thanks.” He took a chocolate chip cookie and ate it. Tammy picked up a no bake cookie. Drew went for the hot chocolate. Just when he took a drink of the cocoa goodness. Tammy asked,
“So, what did you and Kyle find at the mall.” Drew began to choke on his drink from the embarrassment and surprise of the question. “Oh are you alright.”
Drew talked in a rough, high voice, “Yeah I’m fine.” Drew took a second to collect himself. “Uhh,” Drew stuttered, “nothing we didn’t find anything.” Tammy squinted her eyes at him and smiled. “You know Christmas Eve. Shelves are bare.” He laughs nervously.
Drew keeps doubting himself more and more about this gift Kyle made him buy. “Do you want to exchange gifts?” Tammy asks eagerly. Drew panics for a moment, but he figures its best to get it out-of-the-way now.
“Yeah, here open mine first.” He slowly gives her the bag. Tammy starts to pull out the tissue paper digging deeper into the bag. Drew panic grows more and more. He is already begging for her foreignness. Tammy pulls out the leopard print lingerie and stares at for a minute a little in shock. Drew wants her to say something, anything to break the tension. “It’s a gag gift.” He blurted out.
“Really? That costs $40.” She says with a blank straight face. Drew wanted to blame Kyle for all of this, but Drew made the final call. Tammy couldn’t hold it in any longer. She started laughing and then laughed a little harder. “You should have seen your face.” Drew begins to laugh along with her. He reached into his pocket to grab the envelope. He pauses to look at the gift she got for him. It was beautifully wrapped with a card on top in an envelope that looked like a candy cane. He felt like s**t to pull out his plain white envelope with her name squabbled on it.
“Here, your real gift.”
“These aren’t going to be some coupons for a free back rub or a ten- minute rant session is it.” Tammy teased him as she felt the envelope. Drew sees an opportunity and takes it. He picks up her hand and says,
“You will never need a coupon for those with me.” He slowly kisses the top of her hand. Tammy’s face turns pink as she looks down and opens the envelope. She finds two concert tickets to her favorite band, and it’s set in July. Is he thinking that far ahead? Or did he want to do something nice and take a chance? ”I’m sorry I didn’t get your card.”
“Are you kidding it’s fine. I can’t believe you got this for me or for us.” Tammy leans over and kisses him. She leans back and looks at the tickets. Drew is so shocked that she was cool and excited about all of this. Drew grabs her back and kisses her with a deep passion. Their faces both turn pink as they rest on each other’s foreheads. They both smile. “Do you want to open your gift?” Tammy smiles and slides along the coffee table to him.
“Yes I do.” He says with a smile. He picks up the candy cane style envelope. “ I wish my gift was as charming as your.”
She laughed, “it’s fine. I loved it.” Drew laughed because he knew she was exaggerating. He started to open the envelope and saw two baseball tickets. “I guess we kinda had the same idea.”
“Yea but you know what this means?” Drew asked her.
“What?”
“We are going to have a fun year”
“Yeah we are.” Tammy looked down at the box. “Open your other gift.” She said excitedly.
“You didn’t have to get me something else.” He said as he shook the box.
“I know I wanted to.”
Drew started to untie the green bow from the perfectly wrapped box. Tammy became more nervous by the. Second, and drew noticed. “Are you ok?”
Tammy blinks her eyes, “Yeah”
Drew takes off the lid of the box and reaches in. He pulls out a cowboy hat. He laughs and flips on the hat and says with a bad southern accent, “giddy up.” He puts his arm in the air and swings it in a circle.
“Keep digging.” Tammy says with half a smile.
“There’s more?” Drew says confused. He begins to dig farther down, pulling out sparkly tissue paper. Tammy begins to regret this gift all together but it’s to late. Drew holds up a black pair of pants with fringes hanging on the sides. Drew holds it up and looks at it in awe.
“A*s less chaps?” He asks with half smile.
“What?” Tammy smiles “It’s a gag gift.” Drew looks at her have nervous and have turned on. Tammy winks at him, and Drew runs towards her.

Author's Note

First chapter of my new story. Let me know what you think.

Reviews

[emipoemi]

I started reading this and there's some potential to it. It's not an entirely original idea, and you could definitely work on making this more original, but you have made a great start at doing so. I however couldn't read the whole chapter given it says something about a piece of writing when your best written lines come at the very start. That opening paragraph is brilliant. It sets a good scene. I would suggest some tweaks in the narrative itself so it reads a little less amateur, but the scene plays out very nicely and a really good way to leave the readers hanging about who this is and how she'll fit into the story - an exemplar of how to employ "in medias res". What kept taking me out of the magic throughout the half I read were the constant spelling and punctuation errors that were strewn across the chapter, as well as the continuity errors and the structuring faux-pas that made reading this a tad confusing. It would be hard for me to detail all these on here (for it would take too much time and effort), so I'm going to let you do some preliminary editing, and when you're finished I can take a proper look at it, as it is a good start - a good set up. You simply have to tweak the technicalities and whatnot, and you would be on the road to greatness.

[Kent Rawski]

A penchant for romance.This story is cute with both of them having the same notions serendipity is in the air. You didn't have to capitalize your error Barley when meant to be barely that is funny Since this is the beginning of your story it will. be interesting to see the character development between them struggles and rising to the occasion and such. Keep on writing🧐

[Chris]

Promises to be "cute" and sweet. A couple of word flaws an editor will easily resolve for you.

[Talia]

Thanks! Im working on editing it now.