A/N: If you're looking for an amusing story that will make you feel better and make you laugh... This might not be it. I love this story though, and I hope that anyone that reads this will enjoy it too.

Julia was dancing in a bra top and a black, barely there, flowing skirt with stiletto heels. She was making all the men look at her just like she had planned all along. Men who were taken wanted to be free of the chains and dance with her. Men who were free were wondering if the man that she had been dancing with all night was her boyfriend. In truth her dance partner was just a really good friend. Cole was a guy that she had started by sleeping with and now they were just friends. It was a good friendship that they both cherished, but they didn’t go back to the early days when it had been just sex. They just talked and hung out now, and danced when the moment called for it.

Christmas was a time for dancing. Going out to a club on Christmas was a sign that you didn’t have family to visit or you weren’t getting along with them well enough to visit them on Christmas. Julia didn’t have any family that she was speaking to at the moment and Cole had blown off his family to keep her company on the holiday because he knew that she got lonely around this time of year even if Julia wouldn’t say it out load.

At one point in Julia’s life she had been the golden child who had never done anything wrong. She was cheerleader, prom queen, and A student, with a childhood sweetheart that she loved as much as life itself. They had gotten married after graduation and she had found out that life could be a bitch. Her husband of only two months, Alex, had died from a car crash on his way from home. Julia had moved away from home to go to school. She had thought what the hell? Why not? Summer hadn’t even been over yet. She had sobbed through the night and signed up for a community college in Chicago, and changed her life.

Julia was no longer the golden child. She dressed provocatively, went to parties and stayed out all night. She had went through a short faze where she had drank too much, but a near miss car crash had scared her out of that. She hung out with people who slept around and we only out to stab you in the back. She closed out from life and it made it easier to handle the pain of being alone in the world. Closing off from the real world made it hurt less.

Her family thought she was hiding from things and she was but it was her life and she was going to do what she wanted. It was two years later and she still didn’t know what she was doing with her life, but she was coming closer and closer to ruining her life everyday and it made her feel better every day. She couldn’t bring herself to drink herself to death or do drugs, but she could become the ice queen.

The music got louder and the beat picked up and she moved faster and more firmly against Cole and he let her. And the guys continued to look at her like she was there next meal and she let them look but she knew that she would never let them touch. The only person who was allowed to touch her had his hand down the back of her dress and she was letting him because she trusted him to keep as much distance from her and she did from him.

Making the guys look made her feel better. Dressing this way made her feel like she was doing something wrong. Making other men look at her made her feel like she was cheating on the ghost of her dead husband, and Julia was sadistic enough to enjoy the negative feelings flowing through her. Finally the music stopped and she looked at Cole like he was someone that she wanted to fuck right in the middle of the floor. He raised an eyebrow at her and motioned for the bar and she nodded.

They drank, her water and him a scotch, and they didn’t say anything but they touched a lot and felt desire for one another. It wasn’t something that she usually let herself feel with him, but it was Christmas and so she allowed herself to dream a lot of things that she didn’t usually allow herself. She imagined that Cole was Alex and they were in love and out of the town for the night. The thought made her smile and think about better times.

The music started up again and she shook off her fantasies and led her date back to the dance floor where they danced until her feet hurt almost as badly as her broken heart and then they walked out the club with a sea of men watching her as she swayed out the door.

They had taken a cab to the club and they took one home. They headed for her apartment first and on the ride there twinkle lights followed and Christmas music played on the cabbie’s radio. Julia almost asked him to turn it off because she couldn’t stand Christmas. She didn’t say anything and neither of them touched each other throughout the whole ride to her apartment. Ten minutes later they stopped in front of the building and she hopped out of the car, but more shockingly was the fact that he did as well.

“What are you doing?” my voice was raspy with grief that I had held in all night.

Cole looked around and shrugged, “I wanted to make sure that you made it up alright. I can always get another cab.”

I chuckled, “I somehow doubt that. Considering the holidays and all.”

Again he shrugged, “I’ll sleep on your couch then.”

Julia acted like she had to think about this, even when she knew that she would say yes. She didn’t want to be alone. “If that’s what you want then who am I to stop you,” She opened the lobby door and motioned him in. She made this all sound like a minor inconvenience when it was anything but.

Her heels clicked on the floor as they walked across the lobby and neither of them talked on the way up to her apartment. The carpeting in the hallway didn’t give away to her shoes hitting the floor, but she felt like the sound of nothing was encompassing her to the point where she couldn’t breathe. She let Cole into the small living room and followed him in. She didn’t acknowledge him as she went straight to her room. She turned on a light and went to the bathroom that connected to her bedroom and ran a bath. Over the sound of running water she sobbed.

She was never going to get my old life back, and it was all she wanted. It was like the feeling you got when everything changed and you wanted all the old back. She wanted her husband back. She wanted my room at her parent’s house back. Julia wanted her parents back, and none of that was going to come true. The water filled and she turned off the water. She stopped crying as if a knob had been turned on her emotions. She undressed and got into the tub.

Julia soaked for awhile and didn’t act surprised when Cole walked into the bathroom. The bubbles were covering everything important and even if they weren’t, he had seen it all anyway. He took a seat at the toilet and didn’t say anything right away.

“I could wish you away, but I have a feeling that it would be a waste of time. Do you want something or are you just waiting for the bubbles to pop so you can see the good stuff.”

Cole laughed without humor and she ignored the feeling in my chest, “Why is Christmas so hard for you.”

She thought about not saying anything and ignoring the question, but that would mean that the answer bothered her. That she was still bothered. She knew that I didn’t hide it very well, but she liked to act like everything was fine, “Alex purposed to me on Christmas,” she made the statement like she was stating the weather.

“You okay?”

Julia pretended to care for two seconds, “No,” she admitted.

“What’s the matter?”

She opened up the eyes that she had shut sometime ago and looked at him with disbelief. “Where do you want me to start with the story that you already know?”

“Don’t get cute with me.” He said this statement firmly and I took it to heart.

She couldn’t afford to lose him, “It’s been two years and I still feel like I’m in the middle of a crowded room and no one is listening to anything that I scream.”

“Maybe you could stop screaming silently. No one hears you if you don’t say anything.”

Julia could handle him pointing that out to her, but just barely. “Do you think you can help me feel a little tonight?”

She could ruin a lot just to get the feeling back into her life, but she was willing to take the risk.

“You want to forget,” he assumed.

She shook her head and sat up to get to the drain and the towel hanging over the tub, “I want to remember what it feels like to feel emotions that don’t come along with the feeling that life is ending.”

She wrapped the towel around herself and waited for Cole to walk away or come to her. She tried to not to act to shocked when he came to her and took her hand.

Cole led her to bed, and she walked to the bed. She dropped the towel and slid into bed. Julia watched Cole take off his suit, tie, shirt and pants. She waited for him to drop his boxers, but he didn’t. He came to bed and kissed her lips with a feeling that had never been there before. He touched her and made her feel loved as she hadn’t been for so long.

The boxers hit the floor and the two of them came together and he kissed her tears away through the whole thing. Julia traced his tattoo on his arm and kissed his shoulder when it was all over.

“Is this the beginning of something?” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to find out.

“This is one night.” He slid out of bed while he avoided the bigger picture.

That gave her mixed feelings, but she didn’t share them, because she was only starting to feel something. After being out in the cold so long she wasn’t sure of anything.

“You’re my friend,” she reminded him.

He turned to her with real smile, “Yes. I know this.”

She grinned and for the first time it was real, “You have a nice ass,” she said and tried to get another look.

He outright laughed; “You noticed this all on your own?” he was shocked.

Julia rolled her eyes, “No, the elves’ did.”

Again he laughed. He pulled on his pants and crawled across the queen size bed to her side, “You were sarcastic and you’re bantering with me. It’s is a merry Christmas.”

And it was.

It was a very Merry Christmas.

Happiness was within her grasp and for the first time she was wondering if she wanted to a grab at it.

THE END.

Merry Christmas!

R/R! Give me a present and tell me what you think of it this for Christmas.