Chapter 35
Matt
I’m seeing things.
After spending two days straight painting walls, installing flooring, and making as much progress on the loft space as possible, I’m clearly delirious and seeing things.
Because that can’t possibly be Penny sitting next to my apartment door, a rolling suitcase beside her.
“Penny?” I say cautiously.
She lifts her head and shoots to her feet. “Hi! Your neighbor downstairs let me in the main entrance. I hope it’s okay that I’m—”
“It’s more than okay. But what, um, what are you doing here? At my apartment? On Christmas Eve?”
I know what I want her to be doing here, but I’m too nervous to get my hopes up just yet.
She pauses.
Takes a deep breath.
Then Penny looks directly into my eyes, and with the most earnest look on her face, she says, “I want to go balls deep into Christmas with you.”
I can’t help it, I crack the hell up.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” She laughs along with me.
“Damnit! You didn’t?” I keep laughing.
“Well, I mean, I’m not opposed to that. But what I really meant was…” Her expression turns serious, and she whispers, “Could you possibly come closer?”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice.
I quickly close the distance between us.
She takes both of my hands in hers. “I’m going to say some things. Cool if I say some things?”
“Baby, you can say all the things.”
She launches right in, like if she doesn’t get the words out fast, they might not come out at all.
“I love the way you see the world, Matt. To you, everything is an opportunity to grow, to connect, to just… be. I love how you never see the limitations, only possibilities. I love how much you care about the people in your life. How you stick up for them and make sure they know what they deserve. I love the way you make the people around you better. How you make me better. I love how you can be hilarious one second and ridiculously sexy the next. I love that you challenge me. I love…”
“I’m sensing a theme here,” I joke, but the feeling in my heart right now couldn’t be more serious.
“Most of all, Matt… I love you.”
My heart is pounding a million miles a minute in my chest.
“Did I hear that right?” I whisper. “Because I thought you said—”
She squeezes my hands and says it again, leaving no doubt this time. “Matt Barbera? I love you.”
I stare at her for a second, wanting to memorize this exact moment.
Until a panicked look crosses her face at my silence.
“You better believe I love you too, woman!” I cup her beautiful face with both hands and kiss her long, slow, and deep.
It takes approximately two seconds for the kiss to turn molten hot. Penny jumps into my arms, wrapping both legs around my back.
“Wow!” I hold her tight. “Is this how we’re doing things?”
“This is how we’re doing things, yes.” She dives in for another kiss.
From that moment on, we’re on a frenzied mission to get inside my apartment and finish what we started.
I key in with one hand while continuing to carry her with the other arm. I step through the threshold and am about to press her up against the wall when she says, “Wait! My suitcase!”
Just before the door shuts behind us, she shoots an arm into the hallway, grabs the suitcase handle, and flings the bag into the apartment.
“Someone’s getting stronger,” I say, impressed.
“Must be all those burpees.” She winks.
“Ooooh, I love when you talk functional fitness to me.”
We continue to kiss and touch and groan as I walk her over to my bed and gently place her down on the mattress.
“What? No floor this time?” she jokes.
“Not this time, no,” I say. “If I’m going to make love to my girlfriend for the first time—and I believe I’m about to make love to my girlfriend for the first time…”
I look at her for confirmation.
She eagerly nods.
“… then it’s going to be in my bed.”
“Your girlfriend,” she breathes. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.”
God, Penny. Me too.
“One request, though?” she asks, lying below me, looking like an absolute angel.
“Anything for you.”
She smiles. “Turn the Christmas tree lights on, will you?”
“Well, will you look at that,” I say. “It’s officially Christmas.”
Penny props herself up on an elbow and peers over my chest toward the clock on my nightstand. “So it is.”
For the past few hours, we’ve been lying here in each other’s arms, talking through everything that’s happened over the past few days. All the realizations we’ve made. All the ways that we’re sorry. And all the ways that we forgive each other.
We’re moving forward.
Together.
It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever received.
“I almost forgot,” she says excitedly. “I have something for you.”
Penny steps out of bed and walks across the room to where we dropped her purse by the door. What I lose when she exits my arms, I gain by getting to watch her saunter naked through my apartment. She is truly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
And she’s all mine.
She pulls that same wrapped package I spotted on the night of the holiday show out of her bag and slips back under the covers with me.
“So it was for me, huh?” I say when she hands me the gift.
“It was. For us, I guess you could say. But giving it to you that night before we’d really talked felt… premature. And then I headed right to my sister’s…”
“Well, now you have me curious,” I say.
“So open it, you goof!”
I tear into the wrapping paper like a little kid. When I see what’s inside, my mouth falls open. “Penny Whitaker. Did you get us matching Christmas pajamas?”
“Maybe?” She cringes. “Is that lame?”
“Are you kidding me!? I’VE ALWAYS WANTED MATCHING CHRISTMAS PAJAMAS!”
She laughs. “Alright, Barbera, simmer down.”
“Impossible to simmer down when you’re beside me,” I growl into her neck.
She responds immediately by pushing the gift box off the bed and climbing on top of me.
“Mmm,” I groan softly in her ear and run my hands down her sides. “While I am really excited about those matching jams, what do you say we wait until the morning to put them on?”
As she begins to move on top of me, she smiles and says, “I was thinking the same thing.”