His curvy gift, p.19
His Curvy Gift, page 19
“Good. Then we’ll open presents when Sebastian comes,” Alexis said.
The rest of us nodded, knowing there was no way to argue. Alexis was definitely in charge.
We finished breakfast and helped Aunt Gina clean up. She had lunch started and was just waiting for everything to finish cooking. Zoey took the kids back to the house to relax for a little while and play with their new toys, but I stayed at the Inn to help Aunt Gina.
And to corner her.
“Why didn’t you tell me about all the other presents? I would have put them out for you.”
“What do you mean? I told you about my presents. Did you forget them?”
“I put out the ones you told me about, but there was a ton more stuff there this morning. Did you have stuff you didn’t tell me about?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Everything I bought for them was with your stuff. I didn’t put out anything myself.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Why would I joke about that?”
“I don’t know, but there were more gifts there than Zoey and I put out. A lot more.”
“Maybe it’s a Christmas miracle,” Aunt Gina said.
I shrugged. “All I know is it’s weird as hell.”
Aunt Gina chuckled and shook her head. “What time are Piper, Sofia, and Hudson coming?”
I checked my phone. “Probably an hour. I told them we were eating at noon and invited them to stay to open presents afterward.”
“Good. I was hoping they’d stick around. I have presents for them.”
“All of them?”
“You don’t invite someone into your home on Christmas and not get them a gift. Of course I have things for all of them,” Aunt Gina chastised. “Now, help me finish up all this food.”
I did as Aunt Gina asked and helped where I could. Thankfully she didn’t ask me to do anything too complicated. We stashed everything in the refrigerator and the warming drawer until it was time to get the ham out of the oven. I carved the ham while she arranged the slices on a platter to take to the buffet and we started to transport food just as Piper and Sofia walked in.
“Merry Christmas,” Aunt Gina said. “It’s too good to see you both. Oh, and so festive.”
God, the woman. I adjusted myself and swallowed my groan. Her red sweater dress hugged her breasts and was loose across her waist and hips. She had on black tights and black boots that came up to her knees. She added silver jewelry and was carrying a bag of gifts.
“Wow,” I breathed. I couldn’t resist walking over to her and pulling her in for a way too short kiss. “You look…damn.”
She blushed and grinned. “Thank you. I figured dressing up a little was a good idea. You look great. I love the hat.”
She reached up and tugged on the ball at the end of my Santa hat. I grinned. “Thanks. I figured this was as close to Santa’s grandson as I could get with other people around.”
She laughed a throaty chuckle that had every cell in my body aching for her. It was going to be a long damn day.
“What can we do to help?” Piper asked Aunt Gina.
“Bring out food. I think we’re ready to eat. People are getting hungry,” Aunt Gina said.
“I don’t think anyone goes hungry around here,” Piper teased her.
“Not if I can help it.”
Hudson showed up while I helped Aunt Gina get everything onto the buffet and ready to eat. I carried the plate of ham out and saw Piper, Sofia, Hudson, and Zoey talking. Piper and Zoey hugged and laughed like they were old friends. I smiled. Zoey needed that.
We were just about to sit down when Sebastian came in. He hung up his coat and took off his hat then looked around the room. Before he could walk any closer, Alexis ran over to him and grabbed his hand. She smiled up at him like he was her hero and led him to the dining room. And he let her.
“They know each other?” Piper whispered to me.
I shook my head. “Met yesterday when we were playing in the snow. She’s latched onto him. Decided he’s her best friend or something. She won’t let him sit anywhere but right next to her. She did the same thing at breakfast.”
Piper chuckled then stilled. “Your poor sister. It’s adorable, but it looks like it’s breaking her heart.”
I looked at Zoey and realized Piper was right. Alexis was connecting with someone new, someone who would never be a part of her life. Someone who could have been if things were different. But they weren’t different. They never would be different. Because we all made choices and we all had pasts, and some things could never be erased.
20
Piper
“Oh, wow, that was delicious,” I said. I was so happy I wore a dress and didn’t have to worry about unbuttoning my pants. I could just lean back on the couch in the sitting room and let my food settle while I rested.
“Yes. Everything was amazing,” Sofia agreed. “Thank you for inviting us. We’ve never had Christmas like this.”
“Oh, I’m so happy you both came. And you, too, Hudson. This is the best Christmas ever with so many amazing people around,” Gina said. She reached for our hands and squeezed. “I’m going to miss this place.”
“Where are you moving to?” Sofia asked.
“I don’t know yet. I know I can’t stay here and watch someone change this place. It’s tough enough to walk away, but to walk away and see what’s being changed will be too hard.”
Hearing the pain in Gina’s voice broke my heart. When I walked away from my old life, I did so because it no longer fit me. Gina still wanted to live her life. She wanted to run the Inn. The only reason she was leaving was because it was too much for her to do alone.
I glanced around the room at everyone else. Gina had an amazing group of people around her, but none she could count on. They all meant well, but she needed something none of them could give her.
She needed a partner.
“I told her she should move to Pittsburgh, but she said if she’s leaving here, she wants to go somewhere warm,” Zoey said with a smile.
She’d spent half of dinner watching Sebastian and the other half trying to get Alexis away from Sebastian. It looked to me like Zoey was still in love with Sebastian, but they hadn’t spoken to each other. Not one word.
“Florida is nice,” Gavin suggested.
“She hates the beach,” Sebastian said. “She wants to go to New Mexico.”
Gina grinned at him. “Hot air balloons.”
Sebastian nodded. “She’s said for years that she wants to try out hot air balloons, and New Mexico is known for it.”
“I never knew that,” Zoey said.
“You haven’t exactly been around,” Sebastian muttered.
Zoey’s smile faded quickly, and she snapped her mouth shut. She sank back in her seat and chewed on her lower lip.
“I think going on a hot air balloon ride would be amazing,” I said, leaning forward and trying to draw attention away from the animosity between them. “The most daring thing I’ve ever done is go skiing on a red run with zero experience.”
“Are you serious?” Hudson asked with a laugh.
I nodded. “In high school, there was this boy I thought was so cute. He loved skiing and I told him I did, too, even though I’d never been. He invited me to meet up with him one weekend so we could ski together.”
“What happened?” Zoey asked.
“I fell getting off the ski lift, then I fell getting my skis on. I fell as soon as we started down the hill. I ran into the trees on the one side. I ended up going over moguls and rolled through them. When I finally made it to the bottom of the hill, he was already on his way back up with someone else. Someone who actually knew how to ski. And I spent the rest of the day in the lodge drinking hot chocolate and waiting for my mom to pick me up.”
“Oh, wow. That’s horrible,” Gina said, laughing with the rest of us.
I nodded and laughed at myself. “I was sore for a week and I haven’t been on skis since. I don’t think I’ll try it again.”
“You should. Skiing is a lot of fun,” Gavin said.
“Not for me. I prefer sledding as a winter sport.”
“Can we go sledding? Please, Mommy?” Alexis asked.
“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time when we get home. It’s going to be a long winter,” Zoey said.
Alexis nodded. “I love sledding. You should come with us, Sebastian. You’d like it, too. And you can pull the big sled up the hill. Mommy gets tired after a few turns.”
“Mmm hmm,” Sebastian said, barely smiling at the little girl.
“Can we open presents now?” Cameron asked.
“Cameron,” Zoey scolded.
“I think he’s right,” Gavin said. “We should head back to the house and open presents. You guys are staying, right?”
Sofia and I exchanged a glance. We talked about escaping when the family mentioned presents. We’d gotten things for everyone, but we weren’t sure about invading them for that much of the day.
“We should probably go,” I said, standing and flashing Gavin a smile. “We’ve already intruded on enough.”
“I was going to head out, too,” Hudson said.
“Nonsense,” Gina said. “Besides, there are presents for all of you and you can’t run off until you open them.”
The three of us exchanged a glance and shrugged. We were all there because we couldn’t say no to Gina. I was pretty sure if we couldn’t say no to coming in the first place, we wouldn’t be able to escape that easily.
“Uh, well, okay, we’ll stay. We’ll meet you over there,” I said.
Gavin gave me a questioning look but let it go when Sofia and I grabbed our coats and headed out the front door. Hudson was right behind us.
“This is going to be totally awkward,” Sofia said.
I nodded. “We knew it could be.”
“I can’t say no to her,” Hudson said. “She’s like some voodoo witch. She says do something, and I’m jumping up before she finishes her sentence.”
We laughed at him but totally agreed.
“Did you see how Sebastian and Zoey are? I feel bad for them. They’re obviously still in love,” Sofia said.
“I had the same thought. But we both know love isn’t enough. Especially when there’s a lot of pain, too,” I said.
“That’s for sure. They have enough of that.”
“Yep. I’m not sure there’s enough love to erase the pain she caused them both.”
Sofia nodded and grabbed one of the bags of gifts we brought. Most of what we got was for the kids, but we wanted to have something nice for Gina. I hoped she liked it. I also got something for Gavin and Zoey, and we found things we thought Sebastian and Hudson would like, too. Hudson helped us with the third bag and grumbled that he didn’t know he was supposed to bring gifts for everyone.
When we got to the door to the house, Gavin opened it and asked, “What is all this?”
We shrugged. “We couldn’t come for Christmas and not have gifts. We didn’t feel right. But we have gift receipts for everything in case the kids don’t like what we picked out. Or the rest of you.”
He shook his head and laughed. He took the bags from us and kissed me quickly before ushering us inside. Hudson closed the door and followed us to the living room.
“They brought more gifts. As though you two aren’t spoiled enough,” he said.
“More?” Alexis asked, her eyes lighting up when she saw the bags in his hands. “I like more.”
The adults laughed as Alexis and Cameron dug into the bags. They handed out gifts to everyone seated around the living room. Gina sat in a chair near the fireplace with a red and white knitted blanket on her lap. Zoey was not far from her in another chair. The kids were next to Zoey, then Gavin sat with an empty seat next to him for me. Sebastian was on the other side of my chair and two empty seats between him and Gina for Sofia and Hudson.
Sofia smiled at Sebastian as she walked by. They said hello and she took her seat next to him. She leaned toward him and said something I couldn’t hear, something that made him smile.
Gavin said how hard this was going to be on Sebastian, so I was happy Sofia could make him feel a little better, even if it was only for a moment. She was shy, but she always told me she recognized another introvert when she saw one. Someone who would appreciate the silence of another person and not expect them to talk much. Sebastian fit the bill.
“Can we open now?” Cameron asked.
“Yes, but, you have to stop after every present and show us what you got and say thank you to whoever it is from,” Zoey said.
“Okay,” the kids agreed as they both tore into the paper of their first gifts.
I’d never sat through Christmas with kids before. When I was a kid, I didn’t get a lot of gifts. My parents would get me things to one-up each other, but usually they were things I didn’t really want. Christmas was never something I got excited about. If I’d had family like Alexis and Cameron did, I might have felt very differently.
The first gifts were all from Santa. Zoey, Gavin, and Gina looked around the room at each other and shrugged. I leaned over to Gavin and asked him about it.
“We don’t know where these gifts came from. Aunt Gina’s all had her name on them. I got them a few things from Santa, and Zoey got them a ton, but there’s more here than we bought,” Gavin said.
“What about Sebastian?” I asked, glancing at him.
Gavin shook his head. “I doubt it. He hates Zoey and only met the kids yesterday. Why would he have bought all these gifts for them?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but if you guys didn’t, who did?”
Gavin glanced at Sebastian and shook his head. “It couldn’t have been.”
I shrugged again and sat back while the kids shredded paper and shouted their excitement over their gifts. I studied Sebastian, wondering if he could have been the secret Santa. A ghost of a smile curled his lips at one point, and I knew I was right. He might have only met them yesterday, but he clearly cared about Alexis and Cameron. And if the longing glance he sent in Zoey’s direction was any indication, the kids weren’t the only ones he secretly cared about.
“This is so cool, Piper and Sofia,” Cameron said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” we told him. The fire truck was one Sofia selected. She said every kid needs a fire truck and an ambulance, which we got for Alexis. She also picked out figures for both of them and puzzles and notebooks to draw in with colored pencils in a pouch that were easy to use on a road trip. I added in a stuffed animal for each of them, waterproof gloves, hair clips for Alexis and a soccer ball for Cameron since he plays, and earbuds for them. Gavin told me a lot about the kids, including the fact that they loved watching their iPads but drove Zoey nuts with the noise. I found some kid sized earbuds that would hopefully make things a little better for her.
“Why don’t you open this?” Gavin said, setting a small box on my lap.
“What is it?”
“Just a little something that made me think of you,” he said.
I couldn’t stop my smile and shook my head as I untied the ribbon holding the box closed. The simple white box gave nothing away. The red tissue paper concealed the gift until I peeled it away and found a stunning moon pendant hanging off a delicate silver chain.
“Gavin,” I breathed, “this is too much.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not. It’s beautiful, like you. I saw it and it made me think of you. The first night we met, I kept thinking how beautiful you were in the moonlight.”
“But I…”
“If you don’t like it, that’s one thing. If you do, then please accept it,” he said quietly.
I could tell he was taking a risk. Putting himself out there. He was saying something, something I’d been afraid to say. “I love it,” I said with a smile. “Thank you.”
He grinned. “You’re welcome.” He lifted it out of the box and draped the necklace around my neck. He moved my hair out of the way and kissed the back of my neck softly before letting my hair fall again. He tightened the Y so the moon pendant hung down over my dress, settling between the rises of my breasts.
I put my hand up to the pendant and drew a deep breath. I wasn’t going to tell him I felt the same in front of his entire family, but I needed to tell him I loved him. I couldn’t let him think I wasn’t in the same place he was.
“It looks beautiful on you,” he said.
I looked down and nodded. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
He nodded and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. He stayed like that, his arm possessively around me through the rest of the madness.
When the kids were done, they asked if they could go outside and play. Zoey agreed, and Sebastian and Hudson offered to take them outside. Zoey looked like she was going to argue, but Gina thanked them. Sofia offered to go with them and helped get the kids dressed and pulled on her own coat and followed them outside.
“This is for you,” Gina said, handing a gift to Zoey.
“Aunt Gina,” Zoey sighed. “You got too much for the kids. You didn’t have to get me something, too.”
Gina dismissed her words with a wave of her hand. “You always spoil the ones you love. Now, open it.”
Zoey opened the box and found a beautiful blanket. “Did you make this?”
Gina nodded. “I did. I thought you might like it. Something new to start your new life.”
Zoey’s eyes teared up. “Thank you.”
“The kids are having a great time with Sebastian.”
“Aunt Gina, don’t start,” Zoey said.
“I’m just saying. All the worrying you did about not wanting to make him uncomfortable, and he’s fitting right in with them.”
“Yes, and he hates me. Aunt Gina, let it go.”
Gina shrugged. “I’m just saying that you moving up here to take over might not be as bad of an idea as you think it is.”
“I can’t,” Zoey said. “I just…there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“I know everything, Zoey. And I also know you and Sebastian belong together.”
