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Her hands wrapped around his neck. “Me, either.”
Chapter 68
When David and Jacob came over for brinner on Sunday, the first thing he did was to check out Paige’s tree, finding it unimpressive with its minimal decorations and lack of presents underneath.
Leaving out the part about Christmas having always been her least favorite holiday, she instead focused on the fact that her living room wasn’t big enough for a large tree (which was true), and Sputnik was fond of knocking ornaments onto the floor and playing with them (also true), so she didn’t put a lot on. Paige then told him there weren’t any presents under the tree because she hadn’t had time to wrap them yet. “But I’m going to tonight.”
“Are some of them for me?” he wanted to know.
“Jacob,” David admonished.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Smiling, she ruffled the little boy’s head. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
She’d been invited to spend both Christmas eve and Christmas day at the loft, and Paige found herself looking forward to the holiday in such a way that she almost felt like a little kid herself.
Since she didn’t have to work on Christmas eve, she went to the loft around noon, armed with several brightly wrapped presents and frosted sugar cookies shaped like snowmen that made David fake-frown and Jacob grin. Paige was then taken to see their tree, which was easily twice as big as hers, so she could admire it. She was especially complimentary of the ornaments, all of them having clearly been made by Jacob, and placed on only the front side of the tree, leaving the back side bare much to her amusement. She then expressed a suitable amount of awe over the number of presents under the tree, before adding the ones she’d brought.
The three of them spent the afternoon playing board games and watching Christmas movies until it was time to eat dinner, which turned out to be chili dogs and tater tots.
Afterwards, they piled onto the sectional and watched one last movie, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, after which David gave Jacob a quick bath. When he emerged wearing pajamas, with wet, spiky hair and a flushed face, he excitedly announced it was time to set out a glass of milk and a cookie for Santa. While David got the glass of milk, Paige and Jacob picked out the best snowman cookie and then they arranged everything on a Christmas plate on the coffee table.
When it was time to put out his stocking, Paige smiled as she watched Jacob search for several minutes before finally laying it down on the coffee table, right next to the Christmas plate.
“That’s a good spot,” David said with approval, clearly trying to get the little boy on his way to bed.
“Don’t forget to leave the door open,” Jacob reminded him.
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“You leave your door open?” Paige asked.
“He means unlocked,” David explained. “We don’t have a chimney anymore, so we have to leave the door unlocked so Santa can get in.”
Jacob nodded.
“Oh, right,” Paige was quick to say.
Once Jacob was out of commission for the night, Paige proceeded to help David stuff Jacob’s stocking, adding the Rubik’s Cube she’d brought. “It’s probably too old for him, but I thought it might be fun.”
When they were done, and the stocking returned to its resting spot, they drank the milk and split the snowman cookie, making sure to leave strategic crumbs on the plate. Then they curled up on the couch together and just lay there, the only light in the room coming from the multi-colored strands of lights on the Christmas tree.
“Thank you,” David said softly.
“For what?”
“For being a part of today.”
“No need to thank me. I enjoyed every minute of it.”
“You did?”
“Yes. It was … good for me.”
He gave her a long kiss, then pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m glad.”
