“What are you guys doing here? Aren’t you all supposed to be traveling today?” I can’t hide the shock in my voice. I really don’t understand what is going on.
Lia pipes up for the entire group. “Well, your sweet boyfriend here talked us all into changing our plans so that we can spend the weekend together.” She pauses a beat before adding, “Here at home.” She wraps her arms around me and squeezes tightly, and then looks up at me. Unshed tears are shimmering in her chocolate eyes. “We all wanted to be here together, like a family, for you.”
Big, fat crocodile tears fall from my eyes. I turn to look at Reid and smile. “You did this for me?” My voice is shaking with emotion. I am in love with this dear, sweet man before me.
“Well, I had some help, as usual.” He winks at Melanie, and I can’t help but swell with love for her, too.
“You guys, all of you,” I make brief eye contact with everyone in the room, “are amazing. You’ll never know how much this means to me. I’ve never had a big family holiday…” My words trail off behind my thick emotion. I can’t speak past the lump in my throat. When I finally rein in my emotions, I look at Reid. “What’s with the tree, though? You know Christmas isn’t for another month. Did you get your holidays mixed up or something?” My sarcasm always gets the best of me.
Logan responds rather than Reid. “Well, I couldn’t be here for Christmas, and Bryan has to fly home, too, so I thought we could all do both holidays together now, start a new tradition. You know?” He stands next to me while he’s saying all of this. When he’s done, he pulls me into a platonic hug and says, low enough so that no one else can hear, “Plus, I was a real jerk for lying to Reid about us, and I really wanted to make it up to you.”
I’ve been really angry with him about that whole situation even though he’s said he’s sorry a bunch of times — even though Reid’s already kicked his ass. This gesture of thoughtfulness causes me to soften toward him. I can’t stay mad at him when he’s played a part in all of this, so I hug him back and tell him thank you.
“So here’s the plan,” Cammie chimes in. “Tonight we’re going to trim this monster of a tree and drink cheap wine and eat pizza. That was always the tradition at my house, so now I’m sharing that with you. Come on,” she says to Mel and Lia, “and help me in the kitchen with some drinks, and we’ll order for delivery while the boys bring in all of the decorations from the car.”
At that everyone scurries off to their task. Reid stays behind, though, and sweeps me into his arms, and he starts dancing with me, just like I remember my parents doing — no music, no beat, no dance floor. Just us. I am most definitely in love.
I rest my head on his chest and inhale his perfectly masculine scent. He is my home, and I feel so safe in his warm arms. He kisses the top of my head, and I look up into his ocean-blue eyes, which are shining with emotion.
“You’re not mad at me, are you? I wanted to surprise you and give you something that you’ve always wanted.”
His question catches me off guard. Mad? Is he kidding? I’m beyond elated at his loving gesture. “Reid, how can I possibly be mad at you? This is all so amazing. I feel so loved and cherished. That could never make me mad. You are the sweetest,” I plant a kiss on his lips, “kindest,” another kiss, “hottest,” another kiss, this one deeper, “boyfriend ever, and I am so unbelievably lucky to have you in my life.”
He kisses me deeply, passionately, lovingly, and then holds my face in his large but gentle hands. “Yeah, I guess I am quite the catch, huh?” Sweet and playful — God, he’s amazing. He continues in a more serious tone, “You’re the one who’s the catch, Maddy.” He cups my face gently and strokes his thumbs over my cheeks. I lean into him once more and kiss him with the sudden wave of love that I feel for him.
My curiosity finally gets the better of me, and I have to start on my truth-seeking quest. I pull back from him and ask, “So how did all of this come together? I mean, aside from the obvious answer that you and Mel did it all.” I arch my eyebrows at him.
His lips quirk up into a playful smile as he pulls us over to the couch, which, I’m just now realizing, is new. “You got a new couch! Oh, thank God! I felt like I needed a shower after sitting on the old one.”
He just laughs at me and says, “It was pretty gross, huh?”
“Gross? Reid, that thing was beyond filthy. I get the creeps just thinking about what might have happened on that couch over the years.” I actually shudder a little at that thought. “So dish. How did this all go down, and how on earth did you afford all of this? I mean, a tree, decorations, a new couch — I’m dying here!”
“Well, when you said you wanted a big family dinner, I couldn’t help but get Mel in on it. Everyone was more than willing to change their plans for you. They all love you, you know that, right?” He kisses me chastely on the lips before continuing, “Your suite was definitely the cleaner option, but it wasn’t big enough. So I hired a maid service to clean the place up, and I spent most of yesterday and today while you were in class at Target and at the food market getting everything else. I didn’t realize how much we didn’t have until Mel pointed it out to me. We didn’t even have plates. And food — the fucking cabinets were bare. So I stocked up on everything, and when I came home and saw how clean the place was, I couldn’t imagine keeping the furniture. I was lucky enough to talk the sales guy in to letting me buy the floor samples. I threw in a pretty large tip, and wouldn’t you know it, they were able to deliver it all this morning.”
He makes it all seem so simple, but where on earth is all of this money coming from?
“But the money, Reid, that’s a shitload of dough to spend on one person.”
“You’re right. It’s a lot to spend on one person, but, Maddy, you are not just one person. You are everything to me. I just wanted to do something nice for you. The money is no big deal, please believe me.”
I want to believe him that it’s really not a big deal, but he’s a twenty-one-year-old college student; this is way too much for him to spend on me.
“But, Reid, this is crazy! Please let me pay you back. My tuition and room are mostly covered by scholarships, and the rest is taken care of by my parents’ life insurance policy. I can pay you back out of there.”
He looks angry — like, really pissed — at the suggestion that I pay him back.
“No.” His voice is hard and stone cold. Even he hears it, so he lets the anger recede before saying more. “You will not pay me back. You will not use money from your parents on me doing something nice for you. I’ve got it covered. The money is from a lawsuit from when I was a teenager. It settled out of court, and I never really touched it. I never had any reason to use it, so it just sat there and grew. Now I have you, and doing shit like this makes me happy, so it’s the perfect reason to finally spend it. Believe me, all of this is a drop in the bucket where that money is concerned. Plus, if I didn’t have that money, how else would I have been able to pay off that movie operator and have him play your favorite movie of all time on our first date?”
I can’t help but melt into him and his thoughtfulness. I stare into his eyes and tell him, sincerely, “Thank you, Reid. For all of this — not the material stuff — but for the family I never had, for giving me the chance to finally open up to somebody. You make me so happy, and I only hope that I make you half as happy.”
“Happy? Are you kidding? Maddy, you are the reason I breathe. Without you, my life would have no meaning at all, so saying that you ‘make me happy’ is a huge fucking understatement. You bring more happiness into my life than I ever thought I deserved.” His lips crush into mine, and he kisses me with all the emotion that he’s trying to convey in his words. These feelings of love and joy are so overwhelming that I feel like my heart might explode.
Our kiss is broken when we hear the guys barging through the door, carrying all the bags from Reid’s shopping excursions. “Reid, get your ass in here, man! This shit’s heavy.”
Jack’s word
s are strained under the weight of the bags he’s trying to lug through the door. I move to help him, but he tells me stay right where I am. I lean my head back on the couch and revel in the idea that I’m not going to need to scrub my skin clean when I get up.
I hear the door slam shut and bags hit the floor. The girls come back into the living room with a tray full of snacks and some drinks. Lia passes everyone a glass of wine and proposes a toast. “To our first Thanksgiving together as a family.” Everyone raises their glasses, saying “hear, hear,” and takes a sip.
When Lia says “family,” realization dawns. “Oh, no, Mel, we have to call Momma and tell her about all of this. She’ll be worried to pieces over us.” I glance down at my watch and realize that we should have been there two hours ago. “She’s probably got the search-and-rescue team out already!”
I bend down to get my phone out of my purse, which fell to the floor when Reid took my blindfold off. When I’m upright again, I can’t help the shriek of shock that comes out of my mouth.
“Momma C!” I scream so loudly that everyone actually has to cover their ears. I run into her open arms and bask in her motherliness. She must have been hiding behind the wall in the entryway. “But…how…when…what are you doing here? How did you even know we would be here? I didn’t see your car up front.” I stutter over my words, but I’m just so surprised to see her.
Mel walks up next to her mom and wraps an arm around her waist so that it’s the three of us linked together before all our friends.
I see Momma wipe a stray tear from her cheek before she starts talking. “Well, Maddy, your boyfriend over there,” she smiles warmly at him, and I know that he’s won her over, “he called me the other day and asked if I wouldn’t mind changing my plans to be here with you and all of your friends. And then he promised that I wouldn’t have to lift a finger, that he would take care of everything. I couldn’t turn him down. A weekend with my girls and their best friends and…” she stretches out the last “and” for emphasis, almost as if to remind Reid of his promise, “I don’t have to cook or clean or do anything but enjoy all of you — how could I turn that down? Reid sent a car for me this afternoon so that I wouldn’t have to drive myself and, well, here I am.”
Reid steps over to Mel, Momma, and me, and he reaches out his hand to Momma. “It’s an absolute pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. Crane. I’m so thrilled that you could help me do all of this for Maddy.”
She releases us and looks at his hand as if it’s a foreign object protruding from his arm. She’s a hugger, not a hand-shaker, so she pulls him into a soft hug. When she whispers something into his ear, a small smile curves up at the corner of his mouth. She says, this time loud enough for everyone to hear, “It’s my pleasure, Reid. Anyone who would go through all this trouble for my Maddy deserves at least a little effort on my part.”
And at that, we all return to our drinks, and the conversation carries through the room. We begin unpacking all the decorations and immediately go to decorate the tree. The evening passes by quickly because we’re all having so much fun. We eat pizza off paper plates on the living room floor while we all share memories of holidays past. Reid looks concerned for me, and I understand why; I don’t have all that many memories to share, but I just smile warmly at him.
“You doing okay, baby? I don’t want you to be sad.” He’s so cute when he’s worried about me.
“I’m perfect, actually. This is all so perfect.” I kiss his cheek, place my hand on his chest, and whisper, “And later I plan on giving you the perfect payback.” His breath hitches, and I can feel his heartbeat quicken in excitement.
• • •
Everyone has left, and it’s just Reid and me standing in front of the newly, and beautifully, decorated Christmas tree. Momma is going to stay with Melanie at the suite. I could tell that she wanted to say something about me staying here with Reid, but she didn’t. I know she sees what I feel for him, and I’m pretty certain she sees what he feels for me, even though neither of us will admit it to one another. So she kept her comments to herself, and for that, and so many other reasons, I love her.
“I hope you had a good night, baby.”
His uncertainty is endearing, but he has got to be kidding me. This was the best night ever and it’s about to get a lot better. “Reid, it was amazing. I loved every minute of it.”
He interrupts me before I can continue on my promise to give him the best night ever in return. “I have one more surprise in store for you. Do you think you can wait down here for a few minutes while I set it up?”
He’s looking at me all wide-eyed and lovingly, so I can’t refuse even though I can’t think of anything else he can do to make this night more special. He kisses me quickly before he struts upstairs to his room.
I sit on the couch and try to sort through my emotions. I smile at the memories from today and from the last two months that I’ve known Reid. I know for certain that I love him. I want to tell him so badly, but I fear that it’ll scare him away. Even though I have a gut feeling that he loves me in return, I don’t know if me loving him is enough to make him own his feelings for me. Despite the love I feel for him, there’s still a part of me that’s afraid to give myself to him completely until I know that he feels as safe with me as I do with him. I can’t let myself love him completely for fear that he’ll pull away because he’s scared. I have to know that his walls have crumbled like mine before I can give him all of me.
Reid comes back down to the living room and ambles toward me. He looks different — more sensual, lustful, hungry. He laces his fingers with mine and pulls me up from the couch. We walk up the stairs, hand in hand. My heart is thudding in my chest. The desire I have felt for him since the moment I met him is pulsing wildly through my veins. I want him. I want him more than I have ever wanted anyone or anything in my life. With my earlier realizations that I love him, I know that I am ready to give into my desires. Yes, I have some reservations, but I’m ready for this. For him. For us.
We stop outside his bedroom door, and he says, “There’s no pressure to do anything. I just wanted to make tonight,” and I know by “tonight” he means whatever is about to happen, “just as special as the rest of the night has been.”
“Reid, I know you would never make me do anything I don’t want to. So shut up and take me to bed.” I reach up on my toes and lick my tongue across his heavenly soft lips. He opens the door, and once again I am blown away by what is in front of me.
His room has been completely transformed. Where there once was a full-sized mattress with a rickety frame and an old beat-up comforter is a gorgeous four-post bed with some kind of silky fabric draped across the top as a makeshift canopy now sits. It’s covered in the most beautiful cream and white fabrics that I have ever seen. As light and airy as it is, it is still completely masculine and beautiful. He’s repainted the walls, too, a soft blue gray shade that matches his eyes. There are candles on every surface that’s safe, and some where it’s not. He’s got his iPod plugged into the speakers on his dresser, and my attention is drawn to it as I hear David Gray’s sultry voice croon across the room. Next to the iPod sits a huge bouquet of white calla lilies in a large crystal vase. He’s rendered me completely speechless, but words are not needed now. There’s just Reid and me in this sensual heaven that he’s created.
He spins me around and pulls me close to him. He places his hands at the nape of my neck and pulls the hair tie out of my hair so that it falls softly around my face. Gently sweeping the hair that has fallen in my eyes out of the way, he brings his face closer to mine and kisses me. This kiss is different from the rest we’ve shared. It’s full of the promise of pleasure.
His tongue brushes up against mine. He’s tentative and slow at first. I can tell he’s trying to control himself, but that’s not what I want. I want to dive into his depths and get lost there, to give myself over completely to this man I love. I know in this moment that I need to tell him that. Despite my earlier reserv
ations about being scared, he needs to know that I love him. Whatever walls he’s keeping up, whatever secrets he’s got from me, can’t possibly be enough to change my love for him, and he needs to know that.
I break the kiss and look up into his piercing blue depths. “Reid, I have to tell you something.”
He looks at me questioningly before saying, “Maddy, you can tell me anything.” He brushes his knuckles softly across my cheek and says, “Is it something I did? Talk to me — tell me what’s on your mind.”
I pull him across the room to sit on the bed. My insides are trembling with nervousness over what I’m about to say and over what I know I’m finally going to let happen. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet touching the floor. I straddle his lap so my legs are wrapped around him and so I can look at his cool cerulean pools of love when I speak. I cup my hand around his cheek tenderly and take a deep breath, bracing for the words that are about to come out.
“Reid, I love you.” I pause to register the shock in his eyes, but there is none. He just smiles adoringly at me and traces slow, soft patterns across my back. There’s silence for a moment, and I need to fill it. “I know that you might feel like it’s too soon, and I know we each have our own boatload of issues, but I can’t help how I feel. You’re amazing, and you’ve broken through every barrier I’ve ever put in place to keep people out. There’s no one I want more than you, and I know that we’ll be able to overcome whatever is thrown at us. I feel that strongly about us. It’s scary, terrifying, actually, but I just needed you to know that I love you. I love you so, so much.” I say all of this so quickly that I need to inhale deeply just to get some air back into my lungs.
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