Shandy + baking cookies for the holiday prompts. Thank you in advance!
Thanks for the ask, @love-letters-x-cardigan-sweaters! 💜
Hope y’all enjoy! For purposes of this story, there is no covid :)
“Ahhh, it doesn’t feel like Christmas until I get here.” Sharon looked around the familiar Park City house, which was already decorated. “God, I love this house.” The rest of the O’Dwyer brood would begin arriving the next day, but she and Andy had decided to come a little early.
This is a great place to come, winter or summer,” Andy agreed. “How long have your parents had this house? Or part of it, anyway?”
“I was pregnant with Emily the first time we came, so...Wow, I can’t believe it’s been thirty-seven years.” Sharon shivered and placed the grocery bags in her hands on the kitchen counter. It was thirty-six degrees and so windy outside that they’d had trouble getting themselves up the steps. Their luggage was going to have to wait until the wind died down. “We have got to turn the heat up.”
Andy set down the grocery bags in his hands and wrapped his arm around her waist. “I can help you with that.”
“Nuh-uh, you’re not getting that kind of heat until we get some real heat.” Sharon went to the living room to turn the knob of the thermostat before switching on the gas logs and getting as close to them as she could without crawling into the fireplace. “I am not built for the cold.”
“Neither am I.” Andy shrugged out of his coat before hurrying over to the hearth and cuddling close to Sharon. Once they’d thawed out a bit, he braved the wind and cold again to get the remaining groceries from the rental car. “Damn, that wind is crazy.” He sifted through the grocery bags for a bottle of wine. “You want a glass of wine?” After a couple of delays at the airport, nauseating turbulence, and then a slow and winding drive to the house in the mountains, they’d arrived two hours later than planned, and he imagined she was ready for a drink.
Sharon shook her head. “I’m going to try out a couple of the Christmas cocktail recipes I found.” She mixed up a concoction of tequila, sprite, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice before taking a slow sip. “Oh, my, this is too good. There are going to be some inebriated O’Dwyers here tomorrow night.”
Andy rolled his eyes. “And loud, but how is that different from any other Christmas?”
Sharon shrugged. “You’re right about that.”
The rest is here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28351803
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
