Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
BOXES AND FEET
SADIE
“Can we leave this tree up forever?” Weston asks.
We’re standing in front of the huge Christmas tree we put up right after Thanksgiving, and it’s Christmas Eve. Weston’s arms are around me, and I lean my head back on his chest. We’re pretending like today’s Christmas because Weston has to play at noon tomorrow, so that means an early day for him, and not in front of this tree.
“Oh, no.” I laugh. “Caleb is wearing me out. He’s obsessed with the ornaments, and he’s almost pulled the tree down on himself no less than five times.”
“And you have a coronary every time,” he says, laughing as he leans in to kiss my temple.
“Exactly.” I grin up at him and he gives me a soft kiss on the lips.
“Can we wake him up from his nap now?” he asks.
“You’re such a kid.” I turn and tickle his side and he grabs my hips and throws me over his shoulder, smacking my backside.
I smack him back, laughing as all the blood rushes to my head.
“You’re proving my point,” I yelp when he gives me another smack.
“I just love Christmas.” He tosses me on the couch and hovers over me, grinning before he kisses down my neck. “Aren’t you ready to see him open his presents?”
“Yes.” I arch into him when he moves my sweater aside and tongues my nipple through my bra. “So why are you trying to distract me?” I moan.
“Because this feels like Christmas too.” His eyes are bright as he looks up at me. He moves lower, until he’s between my legs. “Let me just unwrap this first,” he says, unzipping my jeans and tugging them down my thighs.
He gives me his undivided attention and I get lost in the sensations, losing all track of time. He makes me see stars, and I hold onto his hair for dear life while I shatter. But I still want more when I come down from that high, and I pull him up and hurriedly free him from his pants. When he lowers his weight on top of me and his tip nudges me right where I want him, we both moan. He slides in a few inches and back out, going in deeper the next time. When he bottoms out, I grip his hair in both my fists and tug his mouth to mine.
“I’m already so close again,” I say against his lips.
Just then I hear Caleb singing in the monitor.
Weston and I freeze and stare at each other.
“Please, don’t stop,” I whisper.
That’s all the encouragement he needed. He’s a man on a mission, his tempo punishing and perfect.
“Are you still close?” he asks.
“Yes,” I gasp.
He grins at me and tilts my hips up, the angle he hits inside when he does this move, never failing to make me fall over the edge. He’s groaning in the next second when I start pulsing around him. His head falls back and he swells inside of me, making my orgasm even better.
“Best Christmas ever,” he says into my neck.
“Mama,” Caleb calls.
We both laugh, and Weston slowly pulls out of me. He stands up, tucking himself back in his pants.
“I can get him,” he says.
I nod and move toward the downstairs bathroom to clean up while he rushes to the kitchen to wash his hands.
“Coming, little guy,” he yells as he goes up the stairs.
When I come out of the bathroom, I hear Caleb’s enthusiastic, “Daddy!”
“Aw,” I say in the empty kitchen.
That’s the first time Caleb’s said it like that. I bet Weston is beaming right now.
When he brings Caleb down, freshly changed, I was right. He’s got the happiest smile on his face.
“Did you hear him call me Daddy?”
“Cutest thing ever,” I say.
We sit under the tree, and I look at my two favorite people.
“You guys make me so happy. Merry Christmas,” I tell Weston.
He meets me in the middle for a kiss.
“Merry Christmas, baby,” I tell Caleb, leaning over to kiss his cheek.
He pats my face.
“Look, did you see what’s over there?” I ask, pointing to the little bike that he can sit on but also move around with his feet.
Weston picks him up and sets him on it and it takes a minute for him to realize he can make it move. When he runs into the tree and the massive thing wobbles, Weston hurriedly pulls him off and shows him another present.
“Yeah, that thing’s gotta go,” Weston teases.
“I never knew a Christmas tree was full of such danger,” I add.
When Caleb just looks at his present, Weston tears a little of the paper to show him how it’s done. Caleb grins and rips the paper and flings it into the air. When he sees the little tool set inside to go with the little workbench we got for him, he tosses the box. Weston takes the tools out of the box, laughing when Caleb tries to put his feet inside the box.
“Look, did you see the workbench?” Weston asks, pointing to the toy sitting next to the tree. He takes Caleb’s hand and grabs the hammer from the tool kit and walks over there, trying to show him everything.
Caleb points at the box behind him and does the want sign, which makes us laugh so hard.
“I guess it’s true that you only need to give kids boxes at this age,” I say.
“Well, let me give you a present then,” Weston says, “but first, you have to find your stocking.”
I look around, seeing his stuffed stocking still hanging, but mine is gone. I lift my eyebrows. “Is that a thing? Hiding the stockings?”
He laughs. “It is now?” He says it like it’s a question.
“I love how we just keep winging it.”
We both crack up at that.
“Makes life an adventure,” he says.
“Well, next year, I will make sure Santa hides your stocking.”
“Santa’s part of the stockings?” he asks.
“I think. I mean, I never really believed, but…”
He looks affronted. “Sacrilege!”
“Hmm. I didn’t know you felt so passionately about believing.”
“Believing is everything,” he says. “I just wasn’t sure which part Santa was involved in.”
“Well, now you have me questioning everything.”
He grins and stands to pull me to my feet, and when I move around the living room, he says if I’m hot or cold or warm. I finally find my stocking sitting between books on the built-in bookshelves.
It’s like a treasure trove of amazingness. Delicious-smelling bath scrub and perfume, cozy socks, individually wrapped truffles, cute earrings that I’m shocked he picked out, and at the bottom I freeze when I feel a long jewelry box that fills the whole foot of the stocking.
I open the box and my mouth parts when I see the white gold pendant on a beautiful chain. In the center is W+S. Above the plus sign is a C, and below the plus sign is a small heart with a diamond in the center.
“I love it so much,” I tell him, my voice trembling. “Thank you.” I lift it out of the box and turn so he’ll put it on me.
“If you like wearing it and we ever need to update it with…I don’t know, new initials or something…I’ll make sure to put in a word with the Claus family.”
“Oh, you will?” I grin, leaning up to kiss him. “I’m not sure why we’d need new initials, but…”
His hands squeeze my backside as he gives me a longer kiss. “One thing at a time, Chapman. It’s all part of my master plan.”
“I see. Very interesting.”
He looks over my shoulder and laughs when he sees Caleb pounding on the box for the tool set with another present.
“I hope that box didn’t have something breakable,” he says.
“It’s those cute little boots we got him,” I whisper.
“Oh, perfect,” he whispers back.
“Are you ready to see what’s in your stocking?” I ask.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He’s pure mischief as he goes over to his stocking and shakes it like a box. When it doesn’t make a sound, he frowns. “No clue.”
He puts his hand in there and pulls out a huge bar of soap that says Lump of Coal.
“But I’ve been very good,” he insists.
“Yes, you have.” I laugh.
He pulls out The Book of Terribly Awesome Dad Jokes next and laughs as he flips through it. “I’m totally going to use these.”
“I have no doubt.”
Socks with Caleb’s face on them are next, and he acts like it’s the greatest thing he’s ever gotten. When he pulls out another pair with us making goofy faces, he laughs so hard.
“This is perfect,” he says.
At the bottom is a tobacco vanilla candle that says Sadie’s Sidepiece. His laugh reverberates off of the high ceilings and makes Caleb and me laugh too.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says when he’s stopped laughing. He pulls me to him and gives me a lingering kiss.
When we move to sit under the tree, there are still mostly presents for Caleb under there, which is funny, because he couldn’t care less about opening them. He’s still happy with his box, and it’s just as well, there are a few books and a singing toy left to open and a few things in his stocking that he can discover later.
Weston and I take our time opening the gifts. I get a pretty sweater and a sexy nightie that I recognize as Scarlett’s brand. He gets a sweater too, and his last present is his favorite of all. It’s an album of Caleb from the day he was born, until his first birthday earlier this month. We threw a huge party with our family and friends. He got more presents than he’s gotten this Christmas, and the biggest was from Penn—an outrageously large ball pit. The pictures from that day are at the end and the very last picture is one I took as Weston was reading his bedtime story that night.
“I don’t know how I got so lucky,” he says, choked up when he closes the album.
“That’s how I feel too,” I tell him.
He pulls me onto his lap so I’m straddling him and hugs me. We look over at Caleb.
“He finally likes his workbench,” Weston says.
“Yay.”
“Oh…he’s using it to fall asleep under.”
We try not to laugh as we crawl toward him and move the workbench so Caleb’s not stuck under there. When Weston picks him up, his eyes open and then roll back.
“Is that enough Christmas cheer for you, little guy?” Weston asks. “I hear you. Let’s get you to bed.”
He holds Caleb in front of me and I kiss his cheeks.
“I love you,” I whisper.
I’m still sitting under the tree when Weston comes back a few minutes later. He moves me onto his lap again, but this time, both of us face the tree.
“Oh, wait. I think you forgot one thing,” he says. He looks back at the tree and nods. “Yeah, you definitely forgot something.”
He lifts me off of him and when he sets me on my feet, he says, “Warm.”
I laugh. “I’ve barely moved.”
He waves his hand like get moving .
I inch closer to the tree.
“Warmer.”
I take a step to the left.
“Cold.”
I take a step to the right.
“Hot!”
I look at the floor and bend down to see if I missed anything.
“Cold.”
I stand back up.
“Hot.”
I giggle. I look at the ornaments and notice something new tucked in the tree. I pull out the envelope and wave it.
“You’re so hot,” he says, with his sexiest voice.
I grin and open the envelope and squeal when I see the tickets for Turks and Caicos, leaving when his football season is over. I look at the departure date again and then up at him, my eyes filling with tears.
“If it’s not the way you want to spend those days, we don’t have to go. And if you want your parents there with you, they’ll be on the same flight,” he says.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Losing my sister will always hurt, but as with everything else in my life with Weston, the anniversary of her leaving this earth is tempered with something good too, even if it didn’t seem like it at the time.
It’s the day I met Weston, and the day Weston met his son.
Sometimes lately, I’ve wondered if I gained a guardian angel who’s been watching over me since the day I lost Sasha, giving me extra doses of happiness. I like to think so.
“I think this is a perfect way to spend the anniversary,” I tell him. “You sure did change my life, Shaw.”
He grins. “Not as much as you changed mine, Chapman. You turned me upside down and I don’t think I’m right side up yet. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
He sweeps me up into his arms, and his lips never leave mine as he carries me upstairs.