Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Thankfully, Chloe worked late on Christmas Eve, which meant that she came home and fell asleep, and all Pike had to do was rise early, go collect the trees and the gingerbread houses and get them all set up in the living room.
Then there was only one thing left to do. He had to go collect Laney.
He hadn’t spent the night, because he had told her that he needed to be there for Chloe on Christmas morning, but part of it was that he had this elaborate plan in place that he hadn’t told her about.
He had a key to her room now, now that they’d been sleeping together for a little over a month, and he hadn’t used it, and he especially hadn’t used it while she was sleeping, he didn’t want to scare her, but he wanted to surprise her.
He crept into her room, like he was Santa Claus, except instead of leaving presents under the tree, he slid himself underneath the covers.
She didn’t even look relaxed in her sleep, she looked like she was making plans.
Looked like she was thinking up a new scheme, dreaming up a new dish, and he really loved that about her.
He smoothed her hair out of her face, and kissed her. She opened her eyes, and she didn’t look surprised.
She probably forgot that he hadn’t spent the night, it had become so commonplace for him to do it.
But he was ready for something else. Something more.
He was ready to have her stay the night with him. Not just tonight, but all the nights after.
“Morning,” he said. “And Merry Christmas.”
“Pike?”
“Yeah, I’m bringing you over for Christmas morning.”
“I thought it was a day for you and Chloe.”
“It is. But I also want to spend it with you.”
“It’s still dark outside,” she said, rubbing her eyes and looking out the window.
“Of course. It’s Christmas. It’s always so exciting.”
“I’ve never woken up early for Christmas a day in my life.”
“You’ve never had a reason to. Now you do.”
He took her hand, and pulled her out of bed.
“I’m wearing my pajamas,” she said.
“Also something that you’re supposed to do on Christmas morning,” he said.
“Well, I’m going to freeze.”
“I won’t let you freeze.” He took his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her out the door, down the staircase.
Outside. It was snowy, freezing cold, and he bundled her up immediately into his truck and it took about ten minutes for them to get to his house.
It was lit up like a beacon in the early morning darkness, all the Christmas trees like a bright star over Bethlehem.
“What is going on?” she said.
“You’ll see.” He pulled her inside and that was when she saw all the trees. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
Right then, Chloe came out of her room, rubbing her eyes like she’d done when she was a child. “Dad? What is all this?”
“It’s six trees,” he said. “One for every year that I missed when you were a kid. And one is for this year.” He pointed to the biggest one, the one at the center of the room, which was all done up in gold.
“It represents the future. Every Christmas after. Because this is what we have now. We have Christmas now. We have happiness. We have... Gingerbread.”
Chloe covered her mouth, her eyes shining. She stood like that for a long moment before she lowered her hand and spoke again. “I always said that everything was like Candy Land when you decorated for Christmas. And you brought it back.”
“It’s taken me a long time to remember the good parts of me from back then.
I think I convinced myself that all of it was bad.
That I needed to completely kill the person that I was, but I don’t think that was right.
I think it took a lot of joy from you, a lot of joy from me. And I don’t want to do that again.”
“I just want to see you happy,” Chloe said. “Really. It doesn’t make me happy for you to punish yourself. But this, this makes me happy.”
He pointed to the pile of presents under the tree. “I hope that this makes you happy too.”
“Dad,” she said. “I don’t need presents.”
“No, but I wanted to give them to you. I know I sent presents, even when I wasn’t there at Christmas, but I feel like I have a lot of things to make up for.”
“Are these all for me?”
“All but one,” he said.
He bent down and picked up a large present from underneath the tree. And he handed it to Laney.
And hoped like hell she understood what he was trying to show her.