Orientation: The Benchmarks Series

need of time off to recover from exams, the end of the grading period, and all the special seasonal events. I never did any holiday shopping until after school was out for break because getting through it all was the best I could manage.
I was incredibly fortunate to be dating a man who not only understood these things about me but shared some degree of my late December frenzy. Max didn't give big exams and his end-of-term grades were much less complicated but he still had his hands full. Whereas I taught three grade levels, Max taught nine. He had to turn in a grade for every single kid, kindergarten through eighth grade. Despite that load, he was helping me grade my exams.
"Aren't you two the cutest?" Mallori cooed as she walked into the kitchen. "It's like you're doing homework together."
"Except it's not homework and we're trying to get this done so we can drink gin and tonics all night," Max replied, an orange pen cap jammed between his teeth as he scanned the paper in front of him.
"Don't forget the white elephant," I added. "Or, as you put it, the weirdest gift wins swap."
We were headed to a holiday party with Max's friend group tonight. I'd met his crew several times in the past couple of months and they were a great bunch though they were a bit leery of me. More, they were leery of anyone hurting their friend again. That was the story I told myself because stepping into any situation where people held me at a distance and shot well-intentioned warning glances in my direction turned my anxiety up to ninety-five.
It was a good thing they were fun and Max never left me alone for more than a bathroom break because their desire to pounce was palpable. I wasn't positive but I had the sneaking suspicion they'd run a background check on me too. There was no other way they could've known I'd worked at an ice cream shop—same as Max I'd discovered—in high school.
"Right. Can't skip that," Max said. "But go ahead with your happy homemaker fantasies, Mal. We won't stop you."
"It's not my happy homemaker fantasy." She scoffed as she folded a kitchen towel, wiped the countertop, and folded it again. "I just like having you guys here."
"You're a lot like my sister," I said, smiling at Mallori. "You and Keaton are totally different beings but she likes to have family around. Something about people being together pleases her."
Mallori shook out the towel and folded it again. "Well, I'd love to meet her. Your mom too. We could have a get-together sometime."
Max glanced up from the exam in front of him, shrugged. "What would happen if our sisters hit it off? What if they teamed up?"
"That would be an exciting event," I replied. "Your sister, the marriage counselor. My sister, the divorce attorney. They could launch a referral program."
Mallori rolled her eyes and gave us an on-point, mom-branded pshahh before opening the refrigerator. "You're sure you're not hungry? You don't want anything to eat before you go?"
"We'll eat there," Max replied, running his finger down the line of multiple choice answers.
"Will you actually eat or will you nibble then come home famished and raid my cupboards at two in the morning?"
"I'll eat," Max said. "Jory will nibble off my plate. We'll still raid the cupboards."
"That's probably true," I added. "We might also order a pizza but we'll be quiet about it."
Mallori laughed into the fridge. "I love you guys."
"And we love you," he replied.
"You'll get a ride home, right? You're not driving to this party?" she asked.
"We aren't driving," Max assured her.
"And you'll stay the night, Jory?" She turned her concerned gaze on me. "I don't want you out on the roads too late."
I wasn't totally comfortable staying at Mallori's house. It wasn't about her or her family so much as I wasn't comfortable in anyone's house. But tonight was an exception. We were going to a party that didn't start until eight o'clock, and we were this close to the winter holidays, and we needed to blow off some steam. At this point, my anxiety was taking a back seat to my screeching need to get thoroughly laid.
Thank god we were heading up to the mountains the day after Christmas. We'd snagged a cute little Airbnb on the slopes at Sugarloaf as our gift to each other. Seven full days alone in a cabin with Max was the best gift ever.
To this point, we'd only managed moments of intimacy. A phone call, an evening in his garden apartment (which sounded so much better than the basement), a night together when my roommate wasn't around to complain. It was great—better than great. The sex was amazing. But I needed a lot more than moments here, one-off nights there.
"Yeah. I'll stay," I said to her. Not wanting to press the issue any further, I turned to Max. "What did you end up grabbing for the white elephant? I forgot to thank you for doing that."
"Don't mention it." He shook his head. "It gave me a chance to get a little engagement gift for Tom and Wes. For the weirdest gift competition, I got a birdhouse shingled in flattened beer cans and a package of rose chocolate truffles decorated to look like breasts."
"Oh, Max," Mallori said with a sigh. "I'll leave you to it. Have fun tonight, boys."
"We will," he called as she wandered into the living room. He held up an exam, saying to me, "Vrenda fell apart on the second half. Like, completely lost her momentum."
"I was worried about that." I took the exam from him and skimmed the incorrect responses. "She gets in her head. I've worked on it with her but if she comes across a question she's not sure about, she doubts everything from that point forward." I frowned at the page. Every single one was wrong. "I'll have her retake this section during lunch next week. She knows this stuff."
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