I’m butt-naked and jogging around Alara’s cabin, so I pray to the universe that no one’s headed this way or peering through the windows, because what a fucking show they’d be getting.
I take the paper bag I hid in her pantry and run back upstairs. Her expression is full of intrigue as I sit across from her and hand her the pink bag.
“I thought we said no gifts?” With reluctance, she takes out the first item, which is in a box.
“Oops, I guess.”
She shakes her head, but her lips are tilted in a smile. Taking the lid off the box, she freezes when she sees the item.
“You mentioned needing new gloves, so I went ahead and got you a pair.”
“Those are the limited edition from Burton,” she whispers, looking up at me in astonishment. “We couldn’t even get them at the store.”
“Yeah. Being a super talented and charming rider has its perks in this industry.” I wink just as she sets the box aside and tries to pull me in for a kiss, but I say, “There’s more.”
I can’t stop looking at the way her eyes light up when she touches something at the bottom of the bag. She pulls out two items. The first is—
“Is this my copy ofPride and Prejudice?”
Propping myself on an elbow, I smile. “Stole it from you the very first time I hung out here.”
“Why?”
“Open it.”
“Diego . . .” Her voice is thick with emotion as she flips through the book. She runs the pad of her finger over my writing and the highlighted sentences. “You annotated a book for me.” It’s not a question but a statement, filled with so much awe, so much appreciation.
“Spent the whole month working on it.”
Her brows pull together. “But . . . when you took it? We were barely friends.”
“I guess I already knew, deep down, that you’d be more than that,” I confess, while holding her gaze. “And if you’d rejected me? Well, I guess your copy ofPride and Prejudicewould’ve gone missing.”
She sniffles, putting the book aside before taking the remaining square box in her shaky hands. “I’m going to cry,” she mumbles.
“Happy tears, I hope.”
“Take a wild guess.” Her last gift is a silver bracelet with charms dangling from it – a cat, a book, a pair of skis, a cup of coffee, and a croissant. There’s enough space for her to add some more, if she wants to. I gifted similar ones to my sisters, but with different charms on each of them. “This is so cute. I love it.”
“Here. Let me put this on you.”
I can feel the softness of her gaze on me while I focus on securing the bracelet around her wrist. It fits her perfectly, the way I knew it would.
“Thank you,” she whispers, and as I lean up to capture her lips, she hops off the bed, the sheets wrapped around her body and trailing behind her.
I scoff. “Fucking rude.”
She has the audacity to send me a flirtatious wink from overher shoulder before fishing something from behind her dresser. “Close your eyes.”
I oblige, but when I hear her light footsteps inching toward me, there’s another sound accompanying her walk. A sound I know very, very well.
I gasp. “Alara?”
“Okay, so sorry, because I didn’t take the time to wrap it but . . . Open.”
She’s holding out a very large Lego box in front of me, but not just any Lego set. The seven-thousand-piece Millennium Falcon I’ve wanted ever since I was ten years old. The one I mentioned to her once. The one I wanted to treat myself with this Christmas but decided not to for the sake of my sisters and mother.
“Shut the fuck up,” I whisper-yell, grabbing the box and staring at it wide-eyed.
