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“I love it! That’s the one!”
“See? Trust.” He smiles proudly as if to say ‘Didn’t I do good?’ and I reach up on my tiptoes to kiss him again.
“You did good,” I confirm. He starts to head back inside with the tree under his arm, but I stop him and send him over to get the tree re-bagged and delivered.
“Now decorate.” I shake my head and tell him I’m not ready to go home because I still have gifts to buy. “No, choose decorate.”
“Oh, you mean choose decorations!” I feel stupid for not getting it the first time, “We can just use whatever you have at the house. We don’t need to buy new.”
“No decorations,” he sounds out the syllables of the new word in concentration, and it’s adorable. “No tree before.”
“Oh my god, what? You‘ve never had a tree before? We’re going to need everything!” It’s a lot of pressure suddenly to make their first-ever tree absolutely perfect, luckily I feel up to the challenge. I grab a trolley and head inside to start loading up.
“What colour do you like?”
“Red.”
“What colour will the guys like?”
“Red.”
“Okay Red it is then. But I’ll put some gold with it too, and we’ll just have warm white lights on the tree. It’ll be super pretty.”
We choose tinsel, ornaments and baubles together and it’s a lot of fun. Even though we decided on red and gold, we look at all the other coloured stuff too. Ace ends up getting way more into it than me, piling the cart high with things for every room of the house. I’m really excited by the garlands he grabbed for the mantle and balustrade, but I’m most excited about the five stockings he picked up to hang on the fireplace.
It takes a couple of hours, but eventually, we’re done, and the car’s loaded. We grab a quick lunch to celebrate and then it’s back to the shops to find the perfect presents.
The only people I need to buy for this year are the guys. But I have no idea what to get them. I’ve been wracking my brains for weeks now, and although I’ve sorted Thorn and got a few ideas for Ace, I’m drawing a blank on Rebel and Jax. What do you buy for guys that you haven’t known that long, who are rich enough to buy anything their heart desires, but who are also down to earth and humble? I sigh as I look at yet another generic gift shop and feel completely uninspired. Whatever it is, I don’t think I’m going to find it in town.
Just as I’m about to give up and meet Ace back at the car, I spy a small shop that I missed before. I cross over to it and peer into the window. It may just have the perfect gift for Jax.
***
Once we’re home - strange to think of it like that but I guess I’ll be calling it home for the next two weeks - Ace and I get started on decorating. I crank up the Christmas tunes on the Bose sound system and sing along as we string thousands of pretty white lights around the freshly chosen and delivered tree. Even with Ace’s height, we have to borrow a step ladder from the school’s groundsman to be able to reach the top. Ace insists on going up the ladder, I’m pretty sure it’s because he doesn’t trust me not to fall, he called me ‘Neroden’ under his breath, but when I challenged him on it, he tried to insist he was just being a gentleman. After we’ve strung the lights, Ace unravels the gold ribbon spools that we got and adds them to the top of the tree. He adds this funky artistic twist that allows them to hang vertically in spirals from the top to the bottom of the tree. It looks really pretty so we decide against using the tinsel that I picked up. I’m sure we’ll find somewhere else in the house for it. Once that’s done, we place the large glittering gold star at the top of the tree and begin to hang the baubles and ornaments, working from the top down. Ace had wanted to leave the star until the end, but too many times Lizzie and I had tried this and had almost ruined hours of hard work by knocking the tree over as we struggled to reach it at the end. I explain this to Ace, and he concedes that I might have a point. After that, he’s happy to allow me to delegate to him, and I have to say, I find him most compliant. Doing this job with Rebel would’ve been a completely different story. Ace is so patient when I repeatedly make him move the same bauble until it’s hung ‘just so’, and he never complains once. I love him a little bit for that.
It takes well over an hour to decorate the tree, but once we’re done, it’s magnificent. We both sit back and admire our handiwork. It’s getting dark outside, and we sit admiring the tree with just the fairy lights and the fire illuminating the room. Snuggled together on the sofa, my feet curled up and Ace’s arm around my shoulders, it feels really cosy and romantic. Ace’s been so sweet today, and I’ve loved every minute we’ve spent together.
I shift uncomfortably when I realise that I am crushing on him pretty hard. I can’t imagine him being involved in bullying Lizzie at all. The others, as much as I like them, I could see being involved. But Ace just seems too nice. That’s what I realise, he’s sort of like Lizzie in a way; pure, honest and good. I tell Ace I have some online shopping to do that I don’t want him to see, grabbing the laptop and busying myself to avoid looking at him. I need time and space to process what I’m feeling right now, but he doesn’t say anything. He just drops a kiss on my temple and disappears out into the kitchen.
A couple of hours pass before I realise that I’ve become totally absorbed with the screen in front of me. I’ve finished Thorn’s and Jax’s gifts and almost got Rebel sorted. I’m still undecided on what to get Ace for Christmas or his birthday. Sighing, I put down the computer to stand and stretch. I hear faint Christmas music coming from the kitchen and go to investigate what Ace has been up to all this time.
When I push open the door to the kitchen, I’m surprised to see Ace baking cookies. I smile as I watch him, oblivious to my entry as he whisks batter. On the island, there are already numerous trays of cookies cooling in what looks to be a variety of different flavour combinations. I tiptoe forward to steal one - Okay, a couple - when he spins around and catches me red-handed. In two long strides, he moves over to me and, before I can react, smacks my hand away from the cookie I was reaching for.
“Hey! That’s not fair!” I cry, pouting at him. Now that I can smell the delicious caramelised sugar scent that’s filling the air, I wonder how I missed it the last two hours. My mouth’s watering, I’m hungry, and I really want a cookie.
“No. Christmas.”
“What, I can’t even try one?” He shakes his head. “But what if they’re awful? What if we wait and on Christmas morning the only cookies we have are these, and they’re bad? You’ll have ruined Christmas. Won’t you feel bad?”
I can see Ace processing what I’ve just said, wavering. I almost feel bad for making him doubt himself because I don’t think for a second that there will be anything wrong with his cookies at all. But when he sighs and says I can have just one, I beam at him, glad I teased him.
“I need to try one of each kind. Every recipe is different...”
“Fine,” he cuts me off, grabbing a plate and starting to pile cookies on it for me. I look in dismay at the ever growing pile and think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I’ll never eat all of those! He must have baked a dozen different types at least. I smile at him and invite him to taste them with me. We sit down at the far end of the island where there’s a little space. We sit on the stools side by side but turn inwards so that we’re almost facing one another and our knees are touching. We munch quietly through the cookies for a moment, and then curiosity gets the better of me.
“You bake?”
“Cook too.”
