“Can I open it?” Matteo asked, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Of course. It’s for you,” Ronan said.
Leo finally lifted his head from Ronan’s shoulder to see what Matteo had gotten.
Ronan hugged him again, and rubbed his back a time or two. “I got you one, too.” He handed the last bag to Leo, then put him down.
Leo smiled at him, his eyes still a little glassy from being upset when he first saw Ronan again. “It’s really for me?”
“Yeah, it is. Open them. It’s not much, just a few things I thought you might like when I saw them.”
The boys picked a place on the floor and started taking things out of their bags.
“I got play dough!” Matteo cried, holding up a small four pack of different colored play dough.
“Me, too!” Leo said. “And I got some candy!”
“Yep, got candy, too,” Matteo said, already ripping the top off his box and stuffing a piece of chocolate into his mouth.
“And I got…” Leo said, taking the squishy pillow out of his bag, “a squishy pillow! It’s a red wolf!” he said, taking the large wolf themed pillow in his hands and smashing it as much as he could before he held it to his face to see just how soft it was. “Ahhh,” he said, changing positions so he could stretch out on the floor and lay his head on his wolf pillow. “I love this. I’m going to sleep on it every single night.”
“Mine is a wolf, too. But it’s white with red ears!” Matteo said, getting to his feet so he could jump up and down because he just couldn’t contain himself. Then he dropped to the ground and laid his head on his pillow, too. “This is the best pillow ever.”
“I’m glad you guys like them. I wanted you to have something special from me. All my nieces and nephews have squishy pillows, so I thought you might like them, too.”
“I got super heroes in my bag!” Matteo yelled, grabbing the two super hero action figures from the bottom of his bag.
Leo looked at Matteo’s super heroes, then looked into his bag again, grinning when he saw his set of heroes lying in the bottom beneath the fold of the bag. He reached for them excitedly.
“And they’re all different so you guys can have play wars and be able to tell your heroes apart.”
“Thank you!” they both yelled, though Matteo was already sitting up to get another piece of chocolate.
“Not too much candy, Matteo,” Giada said.
“I know already,” he said mournfully.
“You going to open yours?” Ronan asked.
Giada nodded. “I don’t have anything for you, though.”
“I don’t need a single thing but your time. Go on, open it.”
Giada smiled at him, then sat down on the edge of the fold out bed, that was currently folded into a sofa, and set her gift bag beside her feet. Hers was much larger than the boys’. She reached into the bag and took out the first thing she touched. “Fuzzy slippers,” she said, smiling as she held them up. “I haven’t had fuzzy slippers in years. I used to love them,” she said as she put them on the floor to slide one of her feet into. She moaned a little and looked up at him. “So soft.”
“Then I did good,” he said. He held out his hand. “Let me have them and I’ll take the plastic thing off so you can wear them.”
She handed them to Ronan, then reached into the bag again, this time pulling out a pillow. An actual bed pillow with a white pillow case with pink hearts on it. “You got me a pillow and a pillow case!” she said.
“Everybody needs a special pillow,” Ronan said with a firm nod of his head.
Giada did exactly what Leo had done and held it up to her face so she could press her face into it. “I love it, Ronan. Thank you so much.”
“That’s not all,” he said, gesturing to the bag.
Giada hadn’t realized there was anything else in the bottom of the bag. She leaned over, still holding her pillow and looked down into the bag. “Candy!” she said, laughing. She took the candy out of the bag and tore the wrapper keeping it sealed. She chose a chocolate and popped it in her mouth, chewing slowly, savoring the taste. “I love chocolate caramels,” she said when she finally opened her eyes to smile at Ronan.
“Something told me that you might.”
