Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
LUKE
It's Christmas morning, and we're finally opening the presents we got for each other.
We celebrated with my family, Mack, Shane, and Andi's friends last night.
Andi decided we had to wait until this morning to open our presents as a couple.
I tried everything in my considerable arsenal of persuasive techniques to get her to agree to open them last night after everyone left.
Not one single thing worked, although she appreciated my persistence and tenacity.
She's so stubborn.
Since this is her first holiday season with a large, loving family gathered around her, all I can do is give her whatever she wants.
In the meantime, last night I showed her what it felt like to really, really want something but be denied repeatedly until begging became the only answer.
After our late-night escapades, I've come to the conclusion that I need to do that to her more often.
She was on fire for me. The more revved up she was, the more it drove me.
I'm so thoroughly whipped and wrapped around her little finger, but I don't care who knows it.
There are moments—quieter than the fights, quieter than the training—when I look at her, and I just want the word for her to be different.
Wife instead of fiancée. Not because I doubt what we are.
Because I want the permanence of it in my hands, where I can hold it.
That’s a long way from where I was when we first met.
Even though she was fully in my heart, my commitment issues kept us in the friend zone.
Now, I can’t wait to come home to the missus.
We're getting there. We just have a little more road to walk before we get to the finish line.
Putting those feelings aside for the sake of a wonderful Christmas together, we settle on the couch, and Andi plays Santa. The silky red and white nightgown she's wearing makes it hard to concentrate on the presents she's handing me, though. She makes one sexy Mrs. Santa.
"I want you to open this one first," she says, smiling shyly.
Taking the perfectly wrapped present from her hand, I pull her down into my lap. "Open it with me," I whisper into her ear.
She adjusts in my lap and settles into "her spot" in the crook of my arm.
I place the present on my other leg, and we each use one hand to open the small box.
It's a velvet jewelry box, but I know it's not a ring.
She already has her engagement ring, and we've picked out our wedding bands, even though we haven't picked them up yet.
"What have we here?" I ask, feeling Andi's excitement build. She holds the box as I open the hinged lid, and I feel my heart skip a beat. I look over at her, and she's biting the corner of her bottom lip, waiting for my reaction. "It's perfect. I love it, baby. Put it on me."
She removes the necklace from the box and lifts it over my head.
It's an engraved dog tag on a silver ball chain.
The inscription reads "Your treasure is where your heart is," and a heart is cut out of the metal.
The separate heart is also on a silver beaded necklace.
Andi pulls the heart over her head, and it rests on her chest. The inscription on the piece she wears simply reads "Our heart. "
"While we're apart, I wanted something that we'd both wear a piece of, as a constant reminder that we're already one.
This is our heart, our love, and our promise to each other.
I know you can't wear it in the ring or anything, but I'll always have mine on.
Wear yours when you can," she says before kissing me.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her completely on top of me as I lie back on the couch. She pulls her legs up to straddle me. My hands are in her hair, holding her head as I pour my love into my kiss. "Thank you, baby. It'll be the first thing I put on every day when I finish at the gym."
She gets me more than anyone in my life.
She moves to sit upright and smiles brightly at my promise. Then she tries to hand me another present.
"No, ma'am. Your turn." I incline my head toward her present from me as I sit up.
"Okay," she concedes a little too easily. I chuckle, knowing that she's secretly been dying to open her presents. She opens the enormous box and looks at me skeptically when she has to dig through mounds of wadded-up paper to find the next box. "Hmm, what's this?"
"Open it and see." I smile.
She opens the next box and finds a box from a well-known jewelry store inside. Her eyes light up as she looks up at me. "What have you done, Luke?"
"Nothing but the best for my girl."
When she opens it, her eyes immediately mist with tears of happiness. With the bracelet in her hand, she intently examines the various charms that adorn it. They each have significance in our lives, and I know she understands that.
She laughs as she holds up the first one. "A microphone? For my karaoke nights?"
"Yep." I nod.
"A guitar. The night at your parents' house."
"Keep going."
"Boxing gloves! The gym—and you, of course!"
As she turns the bracelet, she smiles warmly at the last charm. "Our home."
"I have one more to add to it, when the time is right," I confess.
"What is it?" she asks excitedly.
"It says 'Just Married.' I know it'll be a few months before I can add that one, but I went ahead and got it, so I'll be ready."
"Oh, Luke." She wipes a tear away. "I love it, and I love you."
I take the bracelet from her hand and secure it on her wrist before placing a kiss on her palm. "My treasure is wherever you are, because you are my heart, baby."
The second box she gives me is a Beats by Dre Beatbox portable speaker. "I've already loaded your phone with several songs, so you can listen to our songs while we're apart."
"It's awesome. You're awesome. I'd rather hear you sing them to me live, though."
"I will take you up on that." She smiles.
We finish opening the other boxes—a vast array of clothes, shoes, and lingerie. Most of which I specifically told Andi she's not allowed to wear outside of my presence.
She laughed at my demand and said, "No one else will ever see these, Luke. You paid for fabric scraps—they won't cover any of the important parts."
"That's the point, Andi. I don't want any of the important parts covered when you're wearing them."
I try to convince her it's time to retreat upstairs so she can try them on and practice taking them off.
But Andi has one more present for me, well-hidden way back underneath the tree.
The hardcover book has a picture of Andi on the front.
Her smile is seductive, and most of her body is covered with an elegant white sheet.
When I open it to the first picture, my eyes bulge out of my head, and my jaw drops to my lap.
I jerk my head up to look at her, and she is nervously chewing the corner of her bottom lip as she waits for my reply. I flip through a few more pages, each one more stunning than the next.
"H-How? What?" I can't even form a coherent sentence.
"Tania's photography hobby has turned into a full-time business for her. She took these pictures for me and had them made into a photo book. I wanted you to have these to remind you of me while we're apart," she says, her voice unsure.
"First of all, I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that Tania took these pictures.
More importantly, these are incredible. I'm not sure how you expect me to sleep at night knowing that these pictures need to be leered at.
Or knowing that I'd much rather have the 'real Andi' rather than the 'picture Andi. '"
This has been the best Christmas I've ever had by far. I don’t say it out loud, but something in me settles in a way it never has before.
Like I finally have something worth losing.
After we clean up the mess from the presents, we spend the rest of the day simply enjoying our downtime. I'm shocked Mack gave me time off just before I leave, but then I guess he wants me as fresh and recovered as I can possibly be. I only have these few days to spend with her.
I dread leaving in one week. Not because of the distance. Because distance changes things. People say it doesn’t if it’s real.
I’ve never believed that.
The day after New Year's Day, I will be on a plane to Las Vegas, marking the start of our six-month separation. The following day, I'll start my rigorous training schedule, and she'll be here, preparing for her rigorous touring schedule.
"You're quiet," she says.
"Just enjoying having you here with me," I say. We're stretched out on the couch, she's lying back on my chest, and the movie neither of us is really watching plays on in the background. These are some of my favorite times with her—the ones where nothing is required of either of us.
"You have that look on your face."
"How do you know what look I have? You're not even looking at me," I chuckle.
"I know you, Luke Woods. You have that somewhere-else look. What's on your mind?"
"How do you always know?" I ask, dumbfounded.
"It's a gift. Spill it," she says.
I rake my hand over my face. I don't want to say this on Christmas. I also know that not saying it is its own kind of problem.
"I keep thinking about January," I admit. "About leaving you here in the middle of all of this." I pause. "I know we've made our decisions and they're the right ones. I just—I don't love the timing."
She's quiet for a moment. Then she sits up and turns to look at me. "You've been thinking about that all day."
"Since about the turkey," I admit.
Her face does the thing—the softening that isn't pity, the warmth she has when she decides to meet something directly instead of around it. She leans in and kisses me once.
"We've talked about this," she says. "We decided together."
"I know we did."
"And the decision was right."
"I know that too."
"Then what you're doing right now is borrowing trouble from January on Christmas Day." She holds my eyes. "Don't do that."
I nod.