While his brothers and sister had been counting down the minutes until Santa came, he’d been counting down the minutes until he could see Kristen again. He’d tried several times to see her the day before, but between visiting his aunts and uncles, all of their family’s Christmas Eve traditions, and getting ready for Santa Claus, he wasn’t able to sneak away to go see her.
When he found out that they were spending most of the day at his grandparents’ house on Christmas, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He grabbed the leather notebook and the set of pens that he bought for her, helped himself to his mother’s supply of birthday wrapping paper and wrapped it before he snuck downstairs, careful not to wake anyone up.
From there, he helped himself to a red bow off one of the presents underneath the Christmas tree, slapped it on the present he’d wrapped for Kristen, finished off the snacks everyone left out for Santa, and headed for the door only to realize that everyone was going to be up soon to see what Santa brought them.
So, he came up with a plan.
He grabbed his little brother’s box of crayons, wrote a quick note on the back of the drawing Kenzie made for Santa, pulled on his winter jacket and boots, and, after a slight hesitation, he grabbed his father’s boots as well. He pulled on his Dad’s snow boots and proceeded to walk down the front porch, around the side of the house and made his way to the backyard, where hespent the next thirty minutes making it look like a sleigh and eight reindeer had been there during the night.
Once he was done, he carefully backtracked to the front door, put his father’s boots back inside and then made his way to the backyard to make it look like he’d walked alongside Santa before he took off through the woods. Ten minutes later, he was climbing through Kristen’s window, where he found her hiding under her covers with the lantern he’d stolen from the garage, filling up another notebook.
“Aidan sneaks downstairs in the middle of the night to see if Santa came only to find a note written in red crayon letting everyone know that Santa decided to take Garrett with him to the North Pole, but no worries, he’d bring him back later,” Darrin said, chuckling.
“I had somewhere to be,” Garrett said, watching Kristen pause to help herself to another Rice Krispies treat off her plate before she went back to writing everything down.
“So, there’s Mom freaking out, tearing apart the house looking for him, Danny and Aidan are searching outside for him, the younger kids are freaking out searching the house for him, thinking that he’s playing hide n’ seek, and there’s Dad’s sitting on the couch, drinking his coffee, looking like he’s having the most relaxing Christmas morning of his life,” Danny said, picking up the story where Darrin left off.
“It wasn’t until Mom threatened to call the police that Dad finished his coffee with a sigh and headed for the door. Not even five minutes later, he’s walking back through the front door with this one,” Darrin said, gesturing towards Garrett, “over his shoulder.”
“Mom snatches him off Dad’s shoulder to make sure that he’s okay and starts freaking out, alternating between scolding him for scaring the hell out of her and telling him how much she loved him. It wasn’t until she pulled back so that she coulddemand to know what the hell he was thinking when she noticed the shit-eating grin on his face,” Aidan said, chuckling as Garrett sat there, absently petting Blanket as he looked at the reason why.
“He kept smiling when she threatened to spank his little ass if he ever scared her like that again, when she grounded him, and for the entire week he spent in his room after that,” Darrin said, throwing him a curious look that he ignored while he thought about what happened after Kristen opened her Christmas gift.
If he’d known how she was going to react when she saw the leather notebook, he would have bought her two. As soon as she managed to unwrap her gift, her face lit up and she reverently traced the leather cover with her fingertips while whispering, “My precious.”
Before he knew what was happening, she was throwing her arms around him and moving in to kiss his cheek only to end up kissing him on the lips instead when he turned his head. It was their first kiss and the one that let him know everything that he needed to know.
She-
“These stories are great, but you know that I can’t help but feel that Robert and Noah’s stories would help set the stage and bring them all together.”
-was a sneaky little thing, Garrett thought, feeling his lips twitch as he watched the woman that he fucking adored try to fuck him over.
“You didn’t tell her about Robert and Noah?” Aidan asked, sending him a curious look that Garrett ignored as he focused on the small woman doing her best to appear innocent.
“Never got the chance,” Garrett admitted, knowing that he would have happily told her everything if he hadn’t fucked up.
“Now’s a good time for me,” Kristen said with a satisfied sigh as she finished writing in her notebook and looked up at themexpectantly as she grabbed the last bite of Rice Krispies treat and finished it off, making him wonder where she got it from.
“Did you know that Bradfords only marry their neighbors?” his father asked while Garrett sat there, watching as Kristen’s gaze shot to him the moment she realized that there was so much more to the stories that he’d been teasing her with since they were six.
“The tradition started in the early 1800s when our great-grandfather Robert married his childhood nemesis,” his father said with a teasing smile. “They grew up on neighboring estates, where they went out of their way to make each other’s lives a living hell until one day, they’d had enough and decided that it would be in their best interest to avoid each other.”
“Years later, they ran into each other at a ball. They didn’t recognize each other and gave in to a moment of weakness in the orangery. Neither one of them were happy when they realized the truth, but after that night, they couldn’t stay away from each other.”
“They were forced to get married, moved to the United States, had an obscene amount of children, and lived happily ever after,” Uncle Jared said, cutting in with a satisfied sigh, earning a glare from Garrett’s father.
“You ruined my story, you insensitive bastard!” his father snapped with a glare aimed at his brother.
“I was helping you get to the good part!” Uncle Jared snapped back.
“The good part?” Kristen said when his father moved to stand up, most likely so that he could beat the shit out of his brother.
“The rocks,” Uncle Jared said, making everything inside Garrett go still as his gaze shot back to Kristen only to find her looking adorably confused.
“Rocks are the best part?” Kristen asked slowly as though she wasn’t quite sure if they were screwing with her or not.
“The very best part,” Jason said, shooting her a wink that had her slowly nodding and-
