Chapter Text
As predicted, the Christmas morning in the De Santa house was nothing but squabbles and snide cutting remarks. Each year things seemed to just get worse, especially since the kids had grown up, and yet again they'd failed to find some festive good cheer and there was certainly no peace to all men to be found.
With so many failures from the past year pressing at their backs, the animosity between the four family members seemed to be at an all time high, as they sat around the dining room table. Eating in a tense silence and wishing they could be anywhere else in the world but there.
Michael had begun to contemplate his ability to cut the atmosphere with the knife he'd used to carve the glazed ham. Which had been bought pre-cooked from an overpriced deli to save Amanda the trouble of watching the oven for hours on end. The side dishes had been made by their housekeeper a day earlier and nuked within an inch of their lives before being served, which was nothing unusual of course. Back in the mid-west, making do with a tiny trailer kitchen had put Amanda off cooking for life. Even with the space of gleaming marble counters and modern appliances at her disposal, the desire to cook rarely came to her, especially now the children were older and capable of making their own food. She had however attempted to make a special desert with Tracey's help, but after an early morning squabble about Tracey's recent behaviour, it had been left unfinished on the counter.
The truth told, it was a Christmas like any other since they'd arrived in Los Santos. The only difference was that they were all another year older and even more distant that the year before.
Michael had never been a fan of Christmas, as a child he'd equated it with disappointment and drunken fighting between his parents. However, when his own children had been small he'd managed to rediscover some magic in the festive season, but the stresses of making money to provide for them in the way he wanted to always tried to take a lot of shine off it. A shine which fortunately seemed so easily the replaced on the moment he saw little Tracey and Jimmy's stumble sleepily out of bed into the living area of the small trailer they lived in, faces lighting up against the cold and gloom at the sight of their gifts.
Now however, it seemed there was no joy left to be found in Christmastime. Those little kids that once simply wanted a new bike, or the latest Barbie doll, now wanted thousands of dollars in cash as well as a pile of gifts to open. Gifts that contained designer names and expensive technology that would be outdated within six months.
Michael couldn't help but be terribly bitter about how times had changed, but he begrudgingly tried to accept the fact that situations and people had to evolve, knowing he couldn't turn back to better, simpler days of early parenthood. Even though he understood why things had become such a way for his family, and that the negativity of the situation was mostly he own doing, the apparent lack of gratitude still stung him.
When did the adorable little children who climbed all over him with excitement, turn into such entitled, ungrateful adults? So seemingly greedy now and unappreciative of all the luxuries they had. Luxuries that he'd killed, multiple times, to provide for them.
"Ew! G-ross!" Tracy hissed across the table to Jimmy. "Dad! Tell him to stop chewing with his mouth open."
The acidic anger Michael had felt bubbling away in him since that morning bubbled up, but he refused to let it get the better of him, and growled a firm but controlled warning. Jimmy!"
"What! This is how I eat! If she doesn't like it, tell her to go put that two thousand dollar jacket on and go eat outside!" the youngest De Santa spat back bitterly, through a fork full of mash potatoes.
"You're the one eating like an animal." Tracy returned. "YOU go eat outside!"
"Can we just try to get through this dinner without fighting? For once? Is it too much to ask?" Amanda put in, poking at her greens that had long gone cold. Dreaming of a million places she'd rather be than spending forced family time around the dinner table, watching the divide in their picture perfect family grow ever wider.
"Too late for that." Jimmy threw back, glaring at Tracey.
"You're just being an asshole because I got more than you this year." she returned with sharp eyes.
"For the fifth time," Amanda snapped. "You both got the same amount of money spent on you! And you both got the same amount of cash in your cards, so can you just drop this already?"
"Of course, because it's not like you to show favouritism or anything." Jimmy gave back, looking down his nose at his father.
Michael swallowed the swarm of harsh replies that had gathered on his tongue and cast his eyes away to the kitchen, searching around for the strength to stop himself erupting and flipping the damn table over. The urge to storm out of the house into the freak snowstorm that had hit Los Santos out of nowhere two days earlier, was growing stronger and with every word out of his families mouths.
He told himself that things were extra tense as the unexpectedly cold weather probably wasn't doing anything to help the mood of his family, who's blood had thinned in the ten years of living in the sun. However, the underlying animosity amongst them from the past twelve months, and more, was what had truly turned everything so sour. The forced house arrest due to the cold was just bringing their issues even closer to the surface, and holding them in place like leaves beneath the frozen surface of a lake.
Jimmy continued to eat exaggeratedly, staring his sister dead in the eye as his did so, while she picked at the plate of food she'd barely touched. Michael could feel Amanda's eyes burning into the side of his head, urging him to say something to settle their children or end the charade they were trapped in.
Michael however, was stubborn. As much as his family drove him crazy and bought out the worst in each other, he wanted to spend time with them. He wanted to be around his children at Christmas, even if they'd grown to be ungrateful snots, who'd rather have their teeth pulled than spend time with him. He refused to be the one to end the dinner, particularly on a bad note. He had to do all he could to remain calm, forget trying to achieve the impossible Vinewood Christmas Movie scene that he'd dreamt over and accept that things were never going to be as perfect for his family as celluloid had falsely promised.
He had to keep practicing the breathing and control techniques his former therapist had insisted on, hoping they would help him get through the day. While helping distract him from thinking about just how badly he wanted to be with her in that moment instead.
Their affair had been going on for months and so far no one seemed to know about it, and it was essential they kept it that way. She was spending Christmas all by herself on the other side of town, having insisted that Michael spend the day with his family and not with her. Michael of course tried to argue, but she wouldn't budge. Digging in her heels and refusing to let him indulge his need to escape his responsibilities.
So there he was, trapped in the house, reminded by all his failures, as a husband and a father and wishing he could be across town with his girlfriend.
Was girlfriend the right word? He still wasn't sure. If he wanted to be pedantic, he'd have to refer to her as his "mistress" but that word didn't seem to fit her.
When he spoke to Solomon, and guys at the studio or the golf club about having extra marital affairs, they always painted pictures of overly glamorous women. The type who kept fresh cut flowers in every room, and spent their days in salons and spas making themselves look the best they possibly could. Women who got dressed up to the nines when their man was visiting, and who were easily satiated by expensive gestures of affection, in the form of jewellery or fancy lingerie and perfumes. Mistresses seemed to be a kind of toy that men picked up and put down at will. A kind of perfect women that a man went to on order to forget absolutely everything outside of their bedroom. The bit-on-the-side who was an added bonus to a man's life, a place of complete escapism but that wasn't Cassidy.
She didn't let him forget who he was, what they were doing. She didn't keep flowers in her house, by her own admission she could barely keep a houseplant alive. She never went to spas and only visited a salon to get her hair cut. Most of all, she absolutely hated him buying her expensive gifts, and had nipped the very idea that he could in the bud very early into their relationship.
She didn't panic about tidying the house for him to come by, or keeping herself and everything she owned perfect in some desperate need to keep him interested. She didn't spend hours preening herself, painting her face to put on a slinky gown just to stay at home and eat a meal she'd prepared for him. She didn't wait around for him to throw her a few minutes of his time either, she was independant, she had her own life and that fact frustrated and pleased him in equal measure.
No. She wasn't his mistress. That word didn't fit. Sure, she cooked him meals, but only because she was cooking for herself and he was there. She took good care of herself, but she didn't hide behind a painted face and over-the-top glamour to keep him interested. She didn't need to; he seemed to find her more appealing when he'd caught her unaware. Finding beauty in her hair being muzzed, and face free of makeup. To him she looked sexy just dressed in some ratty old jean shorts and a t-shirt that didn't fit her properly. And that was what he liked the best - her perfect imperfections. The little things that reminded him she was real, and not just another part of the Vinewood phoniness that had grown old.
She wasn't some woman who waited around to be at his beck and call, or someone he only bothered with when he could squeeze her into his scheduled. No; she was someone he couldn't stop thinking about. Even in all the time since they'd finally given into their desires, and all the stresses that had tried to tear them apart, he still couldn't stop his mind wandering to her a hundred times a day.
She saw him at his lowest points, when he was trapped in the darkness of his past, and she rode the waves of his successes with him when everyone else around him took no interest.. In return she had let him see at her worst, revealed her darkest secrets to him, and it had all made him love her so much more than he thought he was capable of.
He knew he should have felt terrible about what he was doing with her, and he wanted to feel terrible about it, especially in that moment - for thinking of his girlfriend while his wife and children were around his dinner table, but he couldn't. Lately it seemed that the only thing that got him through his hours at home was knowing that she was out there for him, waiting in her little house on the beach.
He knew she hated him thinking of her as some kind of cure-all for his problems, but he couldn't help feeling that's what she was. He'd felt so much better about the world since they'd finally given into themselves and gor their act together. Although in the months they'd been carrying on, she never let him forget his reality.
She wouldn't allow for him to escape his domestic responsibilities, and she certainly didn't afford him the liberty of wallowing in self pity, as he so often wanted to. That's how he knew 'mistress' wasn't the right word for her. She didn't pretend his family didn't exist, keeping on a brave face about him being at home with his wife, and she never pressured him to make choices he wasn't ready to make. She was firm with him when she needed to be, trying in some way to help him be a better man. Despite the immoral nature of their very relationship voided what little good she was doing in that department.
Even though he probably would have much preferred her to play the mistress role better, and indulge his need to completely escape his real life, he appreciated the way she cared about the impact of their relationship on his family. She was so often self-less, allowing him to leave whenever they called on him; understanding the limitations of their relationship, and often reminding him of them when he wilfully forgot.
He admired her fierce independence, but he knew it was partly an act. Her way of proving to him that she didn't need him, that she'd be okay if he changed his mind and chose his family over her but the more time they spent together the more solid his need to make a choice became.
She had always been some kind of solace for him, right from the very beginning of their relationship, and her company had become like a drug to him. A drug he'd become quickly addicted to; a drug needed another hit of before he completely lost his mind to the damaged reality he was trapped in.
"Quit staring at me, freak!" Tracey spat, rapidly growing tired of her brother's deliberate goading. Breaking Michael's contemplation and bringing him back into the intensity of the situation before him.
"Why don't you go and make yourself puke, Trace. You've eaten like three mouthfuls, that's way too much. You don't wanna get any fatter." Jimmy threw back cruelly.
"Like you can say anything about getting fat. You can't even tie your own shoes."
"Shut up!" Jimmy returned. "It's bad glands!"
Michael reached for his glass of scotch and threw the liquid down his throat, feeling the heat of his wife's glare reaching fever pitch. He knew he was being a useless asshole; sitting there quietly seething and thinking about letting rip on everyone around him and running off to be with another woman.
If he was a better father, a better man he would have focused on ways to improve the situation, or try to make it bearable at least. He should have cut in firmly and stopped the fighting once and for all, tried to patch things up between his children and unite them somehow, but he didn't have it in him to be bothered. He knew from years of experience that the effort would be wasted.
He, like everyone else at the table, just wanted the whole fiasco to end, and the quicker the better. If his children fighting venomously expedited the conclusion of their Christmas lunch, then who was he to interfere?
"At least I can chew with my mouth closed." Tracey muttered nastily.
"Well it's a shame you can't keep your legs closed too!" Jimmy hissed.
"You look like a pig!"
"Good! Now you know how it feels to have to look at one!" Jimmy yelled.
"ENOUGH!" Michael erupted, slamming his tumbler down on the table. "E-fuckin'-nough! None of us wanna be here, but can we just have one meal, around this Goddamn table, where you two aren't at each other's throats?"
"Do you want the honest answer, or one you want to hear?" Jimmy threw at his father.
Amanda sighed heavily and dropped her fork loudly on her plate. "I'm done." she dismissed. "If we can't sit here and be civil for Christmas, what hope is there?" she said, more of a statement than a question. "You can leave the table," she told the children. "Go do whatever it is you want to, that gives me a bit of peace and quiet."
The two twenty-somethings didn't need any further instruction, and practically leapt at the chance to get up from the table and flee the scene of the crime. Jimmy vanished upstairs back to his room to play on the bundle of video games he'd been gifted. While Tracey ran to the living room to grab her brand new smartphone, that Michael had forced her to put down to come and eat, before giving chase after her brother.
Defeated, Michael put his elbows on the table and cradled his head in his hands. Trying hard not to listen to the angry, raised voices of his children filtering down through the floor above him.
In that moment he wondered once again where his American Dream had gone wrong, but it was becoming increasingly clear that while he had a hundred reasons for why things were messed up, there were no solutions to correct the nightmare his life, and that of his families, had become.
"Can you at least help me clear up before you go and get drunk on the couch?" Amanda asked out into the loaded silence, getting to her feet and gathering up the plates. "Eva's not back in until Monday."
Michael didn't say a word, he couldn't trust himself to not say something awful and completely unforgivable about the state of their family Christmas, and how the house would go to rack and ruin without the help of their housekeeper. However, he stood up and dutifully began to gather up the half full dishes and platters that were centered on the table.
He and his wife of twenty-some years barely functioned together on any level, but somehow they worked well enough together to manage to clear away the leftovers, placing what was salvageable into the fridge and the dirty dishware into the sink with a blast of hot water.
They didn't say a word to each other as they worked, there wasn't anything left to say, no conversation to be had or plans to make. Their attempt to patch things up and work through their problems had been dead in the water for far too long, now it seemed that tragically it was only habit and sense of duty that held them together.
Once the final plate was cleared, Michael stood and took stock of yet another failed Christmas. "Where did it all go wrong?" he muttered to himself.
"I could tell you, but I'm pretty sure you already know." Amanda told him flatly, as she took a new bottle of wine from the rack, picked up her glass from the table and silently vanished off to the bedroom where she could find some peace and comfort. Leaving Michael alone downstairs to contemplate again his mistakes and apparent inability to ever do the right thing by those he cared about.
He stood at the kitchen island, hands pressed down on the cold marble, listening to the silence he hated. He hadn't been able to get used to the quiet when his family had left several months earlier, he'd hated every minute of it but he understood that particular silence. It was a symptom of the absence of people, however this silence, was different. Worse. It told of a family divided, a group of people who could barely stand to be under the same roof as one another, and it felt so much emptier than their physical absence had.
Guessing he needed to find some distraction from the misery and self-pitying he could feel taking a hold, he picked up a bottle of scotch from the counter and took a detour through the dining room to grab up his glass on route to the couch.
He knew there had to be a slew of movies on TV at that time of year. Christmas movies that showed nothing but happy families coming together and realizing how much they loved one another under the twinkle of Christmas lights. Images that seemed to make him feel just that bit more terrible about how fractured his family had become.
Melting into the couch, he thumbed through the channels with the remote, blindly settling on a black and white movie that didn't look too familiar, or festive. However, he was unable to focus on the screen as quickly as he had hoped, and instead he put his hand into his pocket to check his phone and found a single text message waiting him.
Typical of Trevor to message late in the day, he'd probably just woken up from a meth or booze induced coma, barely remembering what day it was. At least if memory served him correctly that's how things would have been for his old friend at that time of year.
His mind went briefly back almost thirty years to Christmases spent in dilapidated hotel rooms, when Christmas dinner consisted of mostly liquor and whatever snacks they could find in vending machines. At the time he hated it, but now he looked back with an oddly fond nostalgia. Things had changed dramatically over the years, and not for the better but if he was offered a choice being there in big, hollow mansion, alone and miserable, over being back in some icy backwater town, watching a tiny grainy TV instead of his cinema screen, hell - he'd take it. Anywhere but there! Anything seemed better than being miserable and surrounded by reminders of his failure to be the better man he wished he could have become.
'merry xmass pork chop dont eat 2 much!' the text read, and Michael almost smiled. Knowing that was the most sentiment he'd ever get from Trevor. 'Thanks, T.' he typed back. Try not to kill anyone today, ok?' satisfied with his comeback, he hit send as his mind flickered briefly to the other people in his life.
Franklin and Lester, in particular. Both of whom had already exchanged wishes with him earlier in the day, but he wondered what they were all doing at that moment. It was easy to guess that whatever they were up to had to be better than the day he was having.
He recalled that Franklin was trying to make amends with his aunt, breaking bread together and attempting to be civil. While Lester was out in Florida, begrudgingly spending time with his sister who he could barely stand, and it amused Michael to imagine his reclusive old buddy surrounded by an irritating slew of nieces and nephews and other fussing relatives. He chuckled to himself, considering that maybe his own festive hell wasn't so bad after all.
He thought to his newest friend - Solomon, the man he admired so deeply, who was spending the day with his own family. Consisting of his third wife and clueless son, who Michael butted heads with with at the studio at least once a week. While that Christmas day would go down in his books as a disaster, at least Christmas Eve had been well spent. Sitting in the old guy's office, taking and laughing as together they made short work of an expensive bottle of scotch.
Then his mind shifted dramatically, moving to darker thoughts of those people whose lives he'd taken. How different their families Christmases would be minus a familiar face around the table.
A coldness bit within him and he shook the thoughts from his head. Knocking back some whiskey to chase off the chill of his guilt.
Desperate for distraction from his own guilt, he cast his mind back to warmer thoughts of Cassidy -his happy place- but even the light he found with her in his mind seemed darker than usual. Thinking about how she was alone, left with thoughts of her own past and missing all she once had, hurt him more than he expected it to.
He knew she was volunteering to have calls patched through to her from some seasonal helpline for people who needed a shoulder to cry on, but he couldn't imagine that being much fun. She'd mentioned to him that she might make an effort to go and meet a few people she knew from the Spanish classes she took. Young people, her own age who were away from their families at Christmas and looking to be social and avoid loneliness with anyone they could find.
He was glad she had somewhere to go, but he worried the sudden snow would hamper her plans, and something had told him all along that she would just stay home anyway. He knew her well enough to accurately guess that she was just trying to make herself seem busy, make him believe she was going to be okay without him on the worst day of the year for someone who was as haunted as she.
He sighed heavily, wishing he could get away to be with her, or reach out with a text or a quick phone call, but he knew it would just make her disappointed in him. He'd have to sit tight, and count down the hours until he could leave the house and venture over to her. They'd planned to have a Christmas together the following day, but it seemed like there was a lifetime to wait until he could be with her again.
Feeling lower than he had in a while, he let his eyes wander aimlessly around the empty room, settling on the large regal Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, one of three scattered around the house, but the one that had caused the most squabbles and drama over tangled lights and broken baubles.
It seemed that lately every little thing triggered some kind of animosity within those four walls. He wanted to hate it all, to be pissed about how his family couldn't be fixed no matter how hard he tried, but as his mind strayed back to Cassidy again, he could no longer find it in him to wish for the day he repaired what he'd broken.
He wanted to be with her more than anything. To move on with his life and be with her full time, but her career made it impossible for them to do so quickly. He had to have patience with her and the evolution of their relationship, but patience wasn't his strong point, especially in that moment.
He wanted to text her, he needed to check in and see if she was surviving. Find out if she missed him as much as he missed her, let her know how much he was thinking of her but he knew she'd probably be mad at him for breaking his promise to focus on only his family for the day. She tried so hard to make sure he put them first, even when it cost her happiness.
He wanted to dislike that about her, he wanted her to demand that he left his family, force him to make a choice, but she wouldn't. He knew deep down it broke her heart to see him return to his life every time he walked away from her, but her courage to stand up to him and for the others that needed him made him love and admire her so much more.
Needing to see her face and remind himself of the love that waited so patiently for him, he took out his phone again and clicked through it until he found a hidden file of pictures. Selfies he'd taken with her over the months they'd been seeing one another. A few shots from a short trip they'd gone on together, some random snaps of her around her house and down on the beach. Just the sight of her made him feel warm inside, reminding him that despite everything there was still one person in the world who could tolerate his company, all his flaws and failures.
Christmas would have been so much better if she'd given in and let him whisk her off somewhere tropical. Or even if she'd agreed to disappearing off to the middle of the ocean for a couple of days on his new yacht, but she dug her heels in. Refused every suggestion he made until he submitted and agreed to do the right thing and spend the day at home with his family.
They'd discussed, at great length, the course their relationship would have to take in order for it to overcome all the obstacles in the way. How they'd have to establish a distance between them professionally, how long they'd have to hide before they could let their relationship see the light of day. He knew it was going to be a long wait until they could spend the holidays together properly, as an official couple, but the hope that a brighter day lay ahead, for everyone, somehow managed to prop him up and stop him falling down into the pit of despair that called out his name into the silence of his soulless house.
He filled his glass with a little more whiskey and wiggled back into the couch, settling in for a few more lonely hours until he was drunk enough to pass out in front of the TV, but he'd barely had chance to take a fresh sip before Tracey came barrelling down the stairs headed straight for the front door.
"Hey!" Michael cried, quickly getting to his feet, remoting the TV off and hurrying into the foyer in a weak attempted to stall her. "Where you goin'?"
She'd pulled on some jeans and furry boots with a duvet-like coat that she must have dug out of a box deep in the attic. "Out! I've got a friend picking me up."
"It's snowin'!" he cried. "I don't want you out there with all the drunks and sun addled morons who can't drive in this shit."
"I'll be fine, Daddy!" Tracey dismissed. "They live close by and we're just going to do..." she hesitated, searching for a lie. "....online shopping together, or something. Don't worry. I'll be fine."
Michael opened his mouth to protest, but before he could say a word, Tracey had flung the door open and disappeared out into the stark whiteness of the world. "Please be careful!" he called after her but she was already gone.
He sighed heavily for the tenth time that day. "I guess that's that then." he said to himself as the front door slowly fell shut, refreshing the silence that rang through the house. There was no salvaging the day now; he'd failed yet again to hold his family together for one miserable day.
"Was that Tracey?" Amanda's voice came down from the top of the stairs, pulling Michael's attention.
"Yeah, she's gone out. Couldn't stop her."
"Oh." she hesitated for a moment, not wanting to seem too keen. "I'm gonna do the same then." she announced and vanished instantly, leaving Michael standing in the center of the foyer, his shoulders slumped with the weight of another heavy sigh.
"For fuck sake." he muttered to himself, looking back to the living room, and the glass of amber oblivion waiting for him.
He was at a cross roads.
There was no doubt that he knew exactly which path he wanted to take but he had to be sure before he could make a move.
He jogged up the stairs and made a b-line for his son's room. He didn't like the idea of leaving him alone in the house on Christmas day, but he knew Jimmy well enough to know having the house to himself would have been the best gift to give him that day.
"Hey Jim?" he called through the locked door.
"GO AWAY!" Jimmy's voice was muffled but his aggression was clear. He wanted nothing to do with anyone but the faceless voices he insulted over his gaming headset.
Unsurprised, but still irritated by the dismissal, Michael took it as a sign to do what he wanted to do to please himself. Everyone else was doing what they wanted, not what they felt like they were duty bound to do, so why shouldn't he do the same?
Before he could let himself feel guilty about his decision, he made for the bedroom, barging in through the door without a moment's concern for his wife's privacy.
"Michael! What the hell!" Amanda yelled, grabbing a sweater from the bed to cover herself as she changed. "Can you knock!"
"This is still my bedroom too." Michael growled. "And you don't need to worry!" he dismissed with a wave of his hand, marching straight into the closet without casting an eye towards his half naked wife. "You ain't got nothing I wanna see anymore."
"Good!" she hissed. "You could always move out so you don't have to see it at all." she threw back to him, as he rummaged through the closet looking for the warmest clothes he had.
"Don't tempt me." he growled under his breath. Trying hard to avoid putting enough weight behind his words, knowing if he did everything would come toppling down.
Despite his urge to escape once and for all, he'd planned to stay in his dysfunctional marriage long enough to avoid the potential suspicions of Cassidy's superiors. Knowing how afraid she was about their clandestine relationship ending the career she'd strived for. She loved her independence, and as much as he wanted her to be his kept woman, he knew destroying her career would only be another thing to hate himself for.
"What are you doing?" Amanda's voice asked, from the bedroom.
"What everyone else is doin'." he bit, as he pulled off the polo shirt he was wearing and grabbed a dark grey henley out of a draw. "Goin' out!"
"Where? It's Christmas day. Don't tell me you and Trevor have business, today of all days?"
Michael rolled his eyes and tensed his jaw. "Contrary to popular belief, Amanda. I actually have other friends I could spend time with."
Amanda laughed cruelly. "Right. I guess the Vanilla Unicorn will see a spike in takings today."
"Well, I'd rather pay someone a few bucks to look me in the eye, than piss away three grand on a handbag and spa vouchers in the hope that my wife might be civil with me for one Goddamn day." he said viciously, as he yanked a heavy blue check winter shirt off a hanger and threw it on.
"Oh don't make this out to be my fault." Amanda hissed, as she stormed through the closet and into their ensuite bathroom. "It's pretty obvious you can't stand to be here either."
"Who could blame me?" he gave back, grabbing some boots off the shelf and dropping them on floor by his feet . "The one day of the year that we're supposed to try to get along, and all I hear is bitchin' from the moment I wake up, until now."
"What other reaction would you expect at the prospects of being in your company?"
Michael laughed sardonically. "Well far be it from me to force you to do somethin' you don't want to do."
"Why change the habit of a lifetime?" Amanda gave back bitterly.
"Jesus Christ!" Michael sighed, crouching down to tie his boots. He couldn't bring himself to waste more energy on fighting the same fight again; the record never changed. "If you're drivin', be careful. I don't wanna have to come and tow your ass out of a ditch." he said, hiding the fact he did still care for the woman he'd married, even if he'd grown to not like her very much.
"Don't act like you give a shit." Amanda snapped. "And I'll be fine, I don't seem to remember you ever driving me anywhere back in the mid-west, but I still managed."
"Of course you did, honey!" Michael smiled sarcastically, standing up and smoothing out his clothes. "Internet shoppin' wasn't such a big thing back in those days, how else would you get out to spend my money without drivin' in the snow?"
"Screw you, Michael!" she hissed. "Go see if you can find some Christmas spirit with a stripper."
"Will do." he sang snidely, turning on his heel and exiting the bedroom, leaving his wife to go about making herself happy, while he went and did the same.