“Your hottie?”
“When I first came here for my tutoring appointment, I was looking for him.”
Oh, she’s talking about Aaron.
“Whatever,” I say cooly.
Willow slides her hand on the side of my jaw. It’s one of her signature moves when she wants my full attention. I can’t deny her anything when she does that, but truth be told, I can’t deny Willow any fucking thing ever.
“And I found him. He slid into my booth and bulldozed his way into my life.” Then she leans over and whispers in my ear. “I love you, bacon boy.”
She’s not playing fair. I haven’t been inside of her in a week, but my parents are here and I’m trying to be respectful. Because if they weren’t, I’d slip us both into a back booth and make her come for everyone to hear.
“Call me bacon boy again,” I warn her.
“Bacon. Boy.” She teases again.
“Who’s bacon boy?” my sister asks, ear hustling our conversation as usual.
“Never mind that,” I tell her. “It’s a private joke.”
After we place our order of the honey ham dinner special for me and my family and the grilled salmon for Willow (who eats salmon on Christmas?), I decide that now is as good a time as any to give Willow my Christmas gift.
I pull out a large white envelope and box with a red satin bow and place it front of her on the table.
“What’s this?”
“Merry Christmas.”
“I thought we weren’t exchanging gifts, Freak,” she says through gritted teeth, probably embarrassed that she’s empty handed in front of my parents. “I didn’t get you anything.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. This is just a small token of my affection and appreciation. Envelope first.”
I can tell Willow is pissed, but she puts on an unmoved face, opening the letter-sized envelope and sliding a piece of paper out which I printed myself. It’s my final grades for college writing 101.
“You got a B in the writing class!”
“I did.” I grin proudly. “Our holiday arrangement is officially over.”
“You must be one heck of a tutor or this is a Christmas miracle,” Linda quips. “He’s never got a B in his life.”
“It’s probably a bit of both, smartass,” I say to Linda. “Now open the box, Teach.”
Willow shakes the rectangular shaped box by her ear, probably wondering if I bought her a pair of gloves based on the dimensions of it.
“What is it?”
“Open it, silly.”
She unties the red ribbon and opens the box to find two plane tickets to New York City.
“What’s this?”
“I want you to come with me to the draft in April. I want you sitting next to me and my parents on the most important night of my life. Then I want us to rent a car and drive to Long Island so I can meet your mom. I want it all, baby, and I want it with you.”
It’s not a proposal, but it’s damn close.
“I want you to understand that I intend on making plans with you and for you, if you’ll let me,” I continue. “And I wanted to tell you in front of the people who mean the most to me, in the place where we first met. The place where I barged into your life.”
