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“It’s on my list!” Lottie told me excitedly as she grabbed the extra pair of pajamas from Olivia. “Matching pajamas. I know it’s probably cheesy. But I remember my classmates talking about their families getting new matching pajamas every Christmas morning and I thought it was something that should be on the list of things I’m making up for missing.”
If any of my teammates ever caught wind that I wore a matching pajama set with the girl I liked and her sister while making Christmas cookies and watching Christmas movies all day, I’d never hear the end of it. But I grabbed the pajamas anyways and went to change into them solely because of the look of excitement on Lottie’s face. I would have done anything to keep that look there.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Lottie’s fireplace was crackling, and she’d turned on a Christmas playlist while she and Olivia began laying out the ingredients for chocolate chip pancakes.
“Are you taking the lead on this, Chef Nolan?” Olivia turned around as she asked me the question and let out a snort once she saw me.
“That bad?” I asked as I pulled at the stiff material that clung to the muscles in my legs without budging.
“I never thought I’d know what Nolan Hill’s butt cheeks looked like and now I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to erase that image from my mind,” Olivia replied.
Lottie turned at her sister’s comment, and her eyes grew wide when she realized what Olivia meant. Her hand flung up to cover her mouth and the laugh she was trying to hide.
“Just remember,” I told her. “This was your idea.”
“I may have gotten the wrong size,” Lottie realized as she continued to ogle me. Her eyes roamed over every inch of my body and I swelled at the unspoken compliment.
I cleared my throat to grab her attention again. “My eyes are up here.”
Red flushed Lottie’s cheeks when she realized she’d been caught and grew an even deeper shade once Olivia started laughing at her.
After the two sisters finished talking about how tight my pajamas were, the three of us got to work on our pancakes.
“My mother used to make me snowmen pancakes every Christmas morning,” I told them as I strategically placed the chocolate chips to resemble the face of a snowman. Both Lottie and Olivia lit up when they saw the finished products, like two little kids living in the magic that was created for them on a daylike today. “Looking back, I think these pancakes might be my favorite memory of Christmas.”
“If your pancakes are this good, I can’t wait for the Christmas cookies later,” Olivia moaned as she took her first bite. Lottie and I exchanged smiles as her sister grabbed another pancake to add to her stack.
“Maybe next year we can all make Christmas cookies with the original chef.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I even registered what I was saying. Lottie’s fork paused on its way to her mouth when she realized I’d just insinuated we’d be doing this again next year, exceptwithmy parents.
Even though we’d spoken about how we felt about each other, we were still walking this fine line of if we would eventually be together or not.
“As long as she teaches me all of her recipes,” Olivia spoke around a mouthful of pancake. “Because I’m sure her cookies deserve to be eaten more than once a year.”
Olivia’s obliviousness to the tension between me and Lottie seemed to take the edge off. Lottie’s shoulders relaxed and the two of us continued eating our pancakes in silence.
Once all the plates were empty, I started helping Lottie clean everything up. The two of us worked in sync, cleaning and drying dishes just like during Thanksgiving.
“I got you something,” Lottie told me once all the dishes were dried. A tiny bit of relief washed through me as I thought of the little bag I’d hidden under my coat when I first got here. It wasn’t much. I hadn’t wanted to get Lottie something extravagant due to the nature of our relationship. But I hadn’t expected her to get me anything either, although it made presenting my gift to her easier.
Lottie took off for her room and brought back out a wrapped gift in the shape of a rectangle. The size looked familiar andbefore she could hand it to me, I went to grab my gift for her—a similarly shaped wrapped gift.
Her eyebrows pulled together as she realized I’d gotten her something as well and that it looked like hers. “Did we get each other the same thing?”
I shrugged as the two of us exchanged gifts. “Guess we’ll have to find out.”
Instead of ripping into my gift right away, I hesitated as I watched the excitement play out on Lottie’s face as she opened my gift. The second her fingers touched the glass of the picture frame beneath the wrapping paper her eyes widened before she looked over at the unopened gift in my hands.
“Open yours,” she told me as she finished pulling the wrapping paper off the frame.
Slowly, I peeled the wrapping paper back to reveal that Lottie had also given me a picture frame.
The picture I had given Lottie was from Thanksgiving. Everyone that had come for dinner at her house had crowded around her fireplace and smiled for a picture with our arms wrapped around each other. We truly looked the family that we had slowly become over these past few months and judging by the way Lottie’s fingers gently touched the glass, I knew that gift was better than anything else I could have given her.
The picture that Lottie had gotten me was one that nearly took my breath away. It was from the game in Denver a few weeks back. Derek and Hawthorn had wrapped their arms around me after the last touchdown that I had thrown to Derek. The smile on my face was pure joy and one of the few times I’d ever seen myself that happy while playing professional football. It was the only picture I now owned that had just the three of us in it, looking the happiest we ever had while doing the thing we allloved. It was also the game where everything seemed to finally click for me this season and I rediscovered my love of the game.
“Thank you,” we both said at the same time.
Lottie let out a chuckle while a smile broke across my face. The two of us stared at each other as we clutched photos from one of the most meaningful moments of our lives during these past few months, given to us by someone who recognized its importance.
