“For someone who’s supposed to listen for a living, you sure do talk a lot,” I hum. Then, I close the space between us and kiss her. “I’d love to stay as long as you’ll have me.”
A shy smile blooms across her face. “Okay, then.”
“What’s your favorite Christmas tradition?”she asks, poking me with her foot from the other side of the couch. She’s on one side, leaning her head against her hand, legs tucked underneath her. We settled on watchingThe Santa Clausesince Christmas is just a couple weeks away and she mentioned it’s her favorite.
“Probably our annual family Christmas gift exchange. The five of us all swap names in a hat and then set a budget we all have to abide by.”
“Sooooo, Secret Santa?” she asks.
She flinches when I run my fingers up the bottom of her foot, reacting to being tickled. Without saying anything, I grab her by the ankle and gently pull her closer to where I’m sitting opposite of her. Holding her foot in my hand, I start to softly knead the bottom of it.
“Mmm, that feels so good.”
I chuckle in an effort to cover up what the sound of her moan does to me and smile. “Yeah, like Secret Santa but we do it with a twist.”
“Ohh, a twist,” she sings. “I love a good twist. What is it?”
“We only have seventy-two hours to get our gift.”
Her jaw drops at the rule we’d made up once Willow was old enough to drive herself. It was something we decided to add on to our family Secret Santa to make it more exciting. We all pick our names a week before Christmas but we can’t look at who we got until three days before. This always leads to some of the wildest, more hilarious things being packaged up and plunked under the tree to be opened. I’ll never forget the year Carter got stuck on shift the three days leading up to Christmas Day so he asked Willow to buy his gift for him. He wasn’t very pleased when Ivy unwrapped his gift only to discover it was a framedpicture of Willow instead of a real gift. The picture now hangs on the wall at Ivy’s house.
“That’s a new one, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before,” she says before yawning deeply. We ate pretty late and the clock is getting closer and closer to ten o’clock. After a full day at the office working with patients then coming home and dealing with me, I’m certain she’s exhausted. I drop the foot I’d been rubbing and reach for the other one, digging my knuckles into the bottom of it. She tries to stifle it but I still hear the small whimper escape from her lips.
“What about you? Any traditions?”
“Mmmm, I wouldn’t really call it a tradition, more so something my parents do.” She shrugs.
“Care to share with the class, doc?”
She bites her bottom lip and brushes a stray hair out of her face. “They like to hide my presents around the house and make me find them. And not just that, theytime meand compare how long it takes me to previous years. If I beat last year’s time, I get a bonus gift.”
“Let me guess, you take this very seriously and run around the house in a dead sprint trying to find them all?” I eye her with a smirk.
“Well,yeah,wouldn’t you run around as fast as you could to get a bonus present?” she cries, giving me a bewildered look, waving her hands around.
“That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard,” I reply. My face hurts from grinning so hard at the thought of her hurrying around the house trying to find all her gifts.
“Oh, stop.” She sighs, kicking me playfully. “I’m a grown woman, I shouldn’t be running around like a child looking for Christmas presents. It’s a little embarrassing.”
Squeezing the foot she tries to kick me with, I lift it higher and kiss the inside of her ankle. She sucks in a breathat the move. “It’s not. It’s sweet; it means your parents love you. Some people didn’t get that and still don’t have it.”
“Oh…” Her face falls, remembering my familial situation. “I–I’m sorry, Miles. I wasn’t thinking.”
I set her foot down and move to be closer to her. She sits up, matching my movements and crosses her legs in front of her. The gray in her eyes seems to deepen as she looks at me—like they’re trying to portray the sadness she feels for me.
“Hey,” I start, wrapping my hand around her face to cup her cheek. “I think I’m one of the luckiest people in the world to have the family I do. Ivy is the best mom I could have ever asked for. Getting to live with her is the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten.”
“I remember you telling me you went to live with her right around Christmas,” she says.
I nod.
“Yep. Just a few days before the holiday. You wouldn’t have known that she just had a kid placed with her from how the house looked. The whole place was decked out in lights and garland. She had a full tree, a real one, set up in the living room when I first got to her house. Bins of ornaments and lights sitting next to it.” I pause, looking at our hands which are now intertwined, and smile at the memory. “That’s what we did my first night there—decorate the tree. She didn’t ask me anything or force me to talk. We just decorated the tree. I thought I was going to fall over when I came down on Christmas morning and the entire underside was stuffed with presents.”
“Christmas must be one of your favorite holidays.” She tips her head to one side and smiles.
“It is, but it’s also hard. Carter and Willow lost their mom several years ago around Thanksgiving.The first Christmas for their family was…hard. It’s a weird time for all of us.”
She squeezes my hand and gives me a smile. One that brings me hope. One that makes me feel like she isn’t judging me. That she sees me, and my family, and doesn’t mind that we all have cracks that shine an imperfect light around us. When she goes to open her mouth to say something, instead of words coming out, she yawns. A big one that has her opening her mouth all the way, closing her eyes, and quickly bringing her hand in front of her face.
