I grab onto her tightly. “Stop doing that! You’ll make us tip over!”
“No, we won’t. Stop being such a chicken, Ford.”
She yanks harder on the string, sending the sled to the left. Directly toward a bump of snow. “Emma!”
“Oh, shit!”Oh shit, is right.
The next thing I know, we hit the bump, the sled tips over, and Bunny and I are rolling our way down the rest of the hill. In each other’s arms.
When we make it to the bottom, finally coming to a stop, Emma is lying beneath me, laughing her heart away with snow stuck to her hair. She also lost her hat somewhere along the way. I can’t help but laugh too as I wipe the snow off her face.
“I told you we wouldn’t make it.”
She smiles sheepishly. “Oopsie.” I shake my head and let it fall to her chest.
“Andrew, what are you doing?” I hear my mother ask from in front of us, but I don’t look up.
“Building an igloo so they can get a room,” my dad says with all the seriousness in the world.
“Ugh! Dad!” Aubrey groans as we all laugh.
“Hey, Andrew?” Emma calls out to him.
“Yeah, Doll?” Dad answers without looking up as he continues to form piles of snow.
“You think you could add an ensuite in there? Might need to take a shower after a full-body workout with your son.” Emma giggles as I chuckle against her chest.
“Oh God…” Aubrey groans again and stomps away, pulling my daughter’s sled along with her.
The rest of the day plays out similarly, with Emma and I picking on each other and my dad making inappropriate jokes while my mom scolds him. Aubrey feels extremely uncomfortable, and Gracie babbles and giggles away in her own happy little world.
During our gingerbread house making competition, I purposely sabotaged Em’s by bumping into her as she was trying to make a nice outline for her window and stealing some of her candies and decorations.
I also ate one of her walls, and it took her a good thirty minutes to find its location. My stomach. Then when we got to the bake-off, we ended up having a food fight with cookie dough and flour. It quickly turned into a full-blown family feud, with my parents and Aubrey joining in.
In other words, the day was perfect.
It’s now gift exchange time, the part I’ve been the most nervous about, mostly because of Emma. When I think about what I got her for Christmas, I realize I’ve been living in denial… $16,593.87 worth of denial, to be exact.Jesus! What the hell was I thinking!?
I’ve never bought such an expensive gift for someone. Sure, I bought my parents their home and pay for my sister's education and housing. But a random gift for a woman who isn’t even my girlfriend? Never.First the dress, now this… I’ve definitely lost it.
Emma and I sit on one of the love seats, watching my mom and Aubrey unwrap the last few gifts with Gracie. Although my daughter seems more determined to eat the wrapper rather than actually open the gift.
It’s crazy to see the resemblance between them. Buttercup looks just like Aubrey as a baby, and Aubrey looks exactly like my mother when she was younger. At least I have an idea of how my little girl will turn out later.
I pick up the gift box I have for Em from the coffee table and pass it to her while everyone is more occupied with my daughter and isn’t paying us too much attention. I should have thought this through better, like giving it to her at home before we left, or even when we got back after the holidays.
She takes it with a slight tremble to her hand. The gift isn’t wrapped, it’s simply put in a slim white box with a red ribbon. She gently lifts the lid and looks inside.
“Oh, Greyson…” Her eyes take on a glossy quality, and she sniffs. She looks away quickly, blinking a few times before turning back to the gift and running her finger over the jewelry. “It’s beautiful…”
A gold necklace lies perfectly inside the box, with a sunflower pendant hanging at the bottom. The petals are made with yellow diamonds, and a black diamond ties them all up in the center.
I had it made in a rush a week ago. The day following the disastrous dinner with her family, I told her I had an errand to run and rushed over to my jeweler. They didn’t have anything with a sunflower, so I had it custom made just for her.
“Would you like me to put it on?”
She nods briskly and answers quietly, “Please.”
